THE PENALTY PHASE of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s trial began Tuesday in a federal courtroom in Boston. Already convicted of 30 felony counts relating to the 2013 bombing of the Boston Marathon, an attack that killed three people and maimed dozens more, the 21-year-old will now have the jury effectively decide whether he should spend the rest of his life in a maximum security prison without the possibility of parole, or be executed. Federal prosecutors are vehemently arguing for the death penalty.
Paying even casual attention to media coverage of yesterday’s proceedings was surreal. What dominated headlines and journalists’ commentary was the above still photograph of Tsarnaev, taken by prison authorities in July 2013 (roughly three months after the bombing), as he waited alone for hours in a holding cell.
The photo captured the then-teenager extending his middle finger up — flipping the proverbial bird — to the surveillance camera in his cell. The graininess of the photo, and the proximity of his face to the lens, created an image at once menacing and dehumanizing: This encaged, orange jumpsuit-clad monster was in your face, full of unbridled rage and hatred directed right at you. The photo was used to show that, even three months after committing such an atrocity, he lacked any remorse or other redemptive human emotions.
CNN’s melodramatic “news” description was typical: “He glares into the camera defiantly, his middle finger raised in a profane salute.” Glares defiantly, a profane salute. A reporter with CBS’ Boston affiliate, Jim Armstrong, described how prominently the bird-flipping photo was being used by prosecutors to argue for Tsarnaev’s execution:
The Murdochian id of American journalism, the New York Post, asked: “Could a photo of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev giving the finger ensure his death penalty?” The reporter for Fox’s Boston station, Catherine Parrotta, observed that “a collective gasp was heard in the overflow courtroom as the photo of Tsarnaev giving the camera the middle finger was shown.”
It was, explicitly, the prosecutors’ intent to provoke exactly this reaction: This one photo, standing alone, was designed to produce a visceral, bottomless contempt for Tsarnaev that even disgust at his actual crime could not achieve. The expectation was that it would irreversibly establish the jury’s and public’s view of him as not just evil but sub-human, deserving of state-imposed death. “This is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev: unconcerned, unrepentant, and unchanged,” said the federal prosecutor as she touted the photo. “Without remorse, he remains untouched by the grief and the loss that he caused.”
It worked. All over the TV airways and the internet, all sorts of people cited the photo to argue that he should be killed. The Washington Free Beacon’s Lachlan Markay’s reaction was common:
Like most things that happen in a U.S. criminal court, and like most dominant narratives propagated by the American media, the message created by exploiting this photograph was completely misleading. All anyone has to do in order to see that is watch the 37-second video from which the screen shot was grabbed:
Rather than some sort of calculated, sustained display of evil scorn for America and his victims — CNN’s “defiant salute” — the actual video shows a 19-year-old prisoner bored from sitting alone for hours in a jail. The middle finger was preceded by other gestures that he maintained longer. He was using the camera as some sort of mirror and appears to be occupying and mildly amusing himself. The still photo was shown by prosecutors rather than the video because the former is menacing and the latter is not. Long-time criminal attorney Jeralyn Merritt noted how banal the actual behavior was:
I don’t see any anger, just boredom. Who wouldn’t be bored sitting alone in a holding cell all day?
What a big to-do about nothing. The reporter who said his face showed huge anger should cover something other than criminal trials.
Beyond that, it seems clear that to the extent this was an expression of hostility, it was directed to his captors and not to “America” or his victims: hardly evidence of some sociopathic lack of remorse but rather a predictable and very common sentiment on the part of those who are imprisoned. And then there’s the fact that someone’s emotional posture two years ago does not prove they hold the same one today.
The jury was allowed to see the full video only yesterday, a full day after having the photo paraded around in front of their faces. While the prosecutor used the photo to make all sorts of claims about Tsarnaev’s death-deserving character, “the judge did not allow [his lawyer] to characterize the fleeting gestures.” It will be left to the jury to use their rational faculties to process the potent emotions that have been purposely stoked in them with the manipulative use of the photo — something most human beings are not very good at doing.
BUT LET’S ASSUME that he really had stuck his middle finger up in anger and contempt. Why would such a trite and common gesture — one that not just every teenager but most adults use — be so meaningful, so powerful? Why was there an expectation on the part of the prosecutors — well-grounded, it turns out — that this image could provoke a level of contempt for Tsarnaev among the jury and the public that not even the gut-wrenching testimony of the grieving relatives of his victims could generate?
The idea seems to be: It’s one thing to commit premeditated mass murder. But flipping the bird? That is beyond the pale. Off to the electric chair! At first glance, this seems absurd to the point of being laughable, like some sort of caricature of Victorian morality. He isn’t just murderous but gauche! It’s tempting and easy to scoff at the indignation produced by the photo, to dismiss it as vapid and shallow group-think. That was certainly my initial reaction upon seeing all of this unfold yesterday.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the reaction that Tsarnaev’s middle finger provokes says a great deal about our penal state, the purposes of these punishment rituals, and the primal collective impulses that shape how the American criminal justice system tries to impose the maximum degree of suffering. There’s a reason the U.S. imprisons more of its citizens than any other country on the planet by far, and does so under the most oppressive and merciless conditions at least in the Western world.
In the U.S., it isn’t enough that dangerous criminals be removed from society for protection of innocents. It isn’t enough that a criminal be imprisoned long enough to be rehabilitated. It isn’t even enough that punitive justice or vengeance be fulfilled by putting the criminal into a cage for decades or the rest of his life.
Much more is needed. At least as important is that the criminal must be debased. He must be seen to suffer not just from a deprivation of liberty, but also to be emotionally, psychologically, mentally anguished. The punishment can’t just physically restrain his body, but must inflict suffering in his mind, on the deepest level of his soul.
That’s why there is a craving to see not just debasement, but a specific species of it: self-abasement. The criminal process demands — in exchange for tiny amounts of leniency (we’ll imprison you for life instead of killing you) — that the guilty party prostrate himself before the judicial authority, before all of us. He must condemn himself at least as much as he’s condemned by the court. He must declare his internal pain, his self-contempt, his complete and utter submission.
Through that self-abasement process, we get to enjoy the satisfaction of seeing the condemned drowning in pain in the deepest part of his mind. But it also affords the benefit of self-vindication: Even those who have this extreme suffering imposed on them agree that this is just, right, and deserved.
The overwhelming majority of criminal cases in the U.S. conclude this way: with the accused publicly confessing his own guilt and declaring his “remorse,” which must translate as convincing mental anguish if it is to be accepted and rewarded with small amounts of humane treatment. As long-time federal judge Jed Rakoff wrote last November, “While 8 percent of all federal criminal charges were dismissed … more than 97 percent of the remainder were resolved through plea bargains, and fewer than 3 percent went to trial. The plea bargains largely determined the sentences imposed.”
As Judge Rakoff details, the U.S. criminal justice system is desperately dependent upon the accused’s willingness to declare his own guilt. The system would collapse without that. So all the rules have now been shaped to coerce — one could say compel — criminal defendants to be their own confessors. The system is so pro-prosecution, and punishment is so severe for those who refuse to cooperate — for those who insist on their constitutional right to a jury trial and then lose — that every rational person, by definition, would strongly consider declaring his own guilt even when he isn’t guilty. As Judge Rakoff put it:
The prosecutor-dictated plea bargain system, by creating such inordinate pressures to enter into plea bargains, appears to have led a significant number of defendants to plead guilty to crimes they never actually committed.
The reason? “Though there are many variations on this theme, they all prove the same basic point: the prosecutor has all the power.”
WHAT THE U.S. criminal justice system demands most from those who plead guilty is a showing of remorse: a willingness to stand up and condemn oneself, to declare that one is already suffering internally from the crime. There is ample legal scholarship demonstrating that “judges tend to use their discretion to impose lighter sentences on remorseful defendants” and “even capital juries seem to factor in the remorsefulness of the defendant in deciding between a life sentence or the death penalty.” Clearly, “empirical studies have shown that remorse plays an important role in observers’ judgments of defendants.”
It’s far from obvious that a willingness to publicly condemn oneself this way should be relevant at all to punishment, let alone predominant. The view that remorse is largely irrelevant to guilt and punishment was once pervasive in the U.S. and is still dominant in other Western nations’ justice systems. But now, in America, a form of extreme self-flagellation is demanded if any minimal degree of mercy is to be shown.
As a byproduct of the most primal aspects of human nature, none of this, of course, is new. The 20th-century French philosopher Michel Foucault devoted years to demonstrating the central importance of mental suffering and gruesome debasement in the history of the West’s penal schemes. In Discipline and Punish, he emphasized the vital role self-condemnation plays in this ritual:
Though the law strictly speaking did not require it, this procedure was to tend necessarily to the confession. And for two reasons: first, because the confession constituted so strong a proof that there was scarcely any need to add others, or to enter the difficult and dubious combinatory of clues; the confession, provided it was obtained in the correct manner, almost discharged the prosecution of the obligation to provide further evidence (in any case, the most difficult evidence). Secondly, the only way that this procedure might use all its unequivocal authority, and become a real victory over the accused, the only way in which the truth might exert all its power, was for the criminal to accept responsibility for his own crime and himself sign what had been skillfully and obscurely constructed by the preliminary investigation. “It is not enough,” as Ayrault, who did not care for these secret procedures, remarked, “that wrong-doers be justly punished. They must if possible judge and condemn themselves” (Ayrault, r. I, chapter r4). …
Through the confession, the accused himself took part in the ritual of producing penal truth. As medieval law put it, the confession “renders the thing notorious and manifest.” … The confession was therefore highly valued; every possible coercion would be used to obtain it.
While the “Civilized West” now largely hides its penal brutality behind clinical processes and the pretense of humane treatment (using our elevated scientific mind and capacity for great mercy, we privately inject people’s veins with fatal poison instead of publicly drawing-and-quartering or beheading them like those primitive fanatics Over There), the primal desire to impose suffering is at least as thriving.
If you doubt that, just read James Ridgeway’s harrowing account yesterday at The Intercept about the very pervasive American scheme of putting people in cages for life without the possibility of ever being released until death, or descriptions of the even-worse widespread use of the insanity-inducing torture called “solitary confinement.”
There are reasons the U.S. is the world’s largest penal state, and among its most oppressive, and those reasons reside in the political and cultural character of the country, and specifically in its desire to impose maximum amounts of pain and suffering under the guise of justice. That’s why even opponents of the death penalty frequently argue that life in prison is worse: It’s always a contest as to how the most suffering can be inflicted.
Tsarnaev’s middle finger provoked seemingly as much disgust as the murders for which he has been convicted because it represented his refusal to submissively play the role assigned to those who are to be punished. The gesture is depicted as a challenge to — a “defiance” of, as CNN put it — proper authority, a crime worse than any murders. As the media tale tells it: rather than prostrating himself before us all and the mighty judicial system we’ve created to justify our imposition of suffering, he’s expressing anger over it, a contempt for it. He’s thus depriving us of the satisfaction and self-validation we crave, and for that he must be punished even further: with death.
There are all sorts of other dynamics at play here. To begin with, the criminal justice system excels at reducing the condemned to their single worst act so that limitless punishment feels warranted. The Intercept’s criminal justice senior editor, Liliana Segura, who has observed countless trials, put it this way to me:
Having the media seize on this single gesture to fan outrage and vengeance is the perfect microcosm of the way in which we reduce prisoners to one bad act, their worst act, no matter what else they achieve later or went through before, thereby completely dehumanizing them. And it is by dehumanizing them, obviously, that we are able to condemn them to the worst cruelty and punishment.
Then there is the powerful cultural marker this is designed to signal, much the way the media loves to circulate pictures of African-American or Latino teenagers who are killed by the police, showing them in “rebellious” poses that are innocuous and common for teenagers but designed to tell us to think that they probably were doing bad things and thus deserved what they got. Conservative sites used pictures of Trayvon Martin with his middle finger extended and smoking pot to suggest that he deserved to be killed by George Zimmerman.
Jingoism — an incomparably powerful tribal drive — also takes center stage here. “A middle finger to America,” declared the British tabloid Daily Mail. The NY Post caption underneath the video proclaimed: “The unrepentant bastard has pure contempt for America.”
That Tsarnaev is a Muslim accused of politically motivated terrorism makes the image even more outrage-producing. Instead of bowing his head in repentance and submission to a more powerful America, he’s using what CNN called a “salute”: a demonstration of military-like strength and defiant power that cuts deep at the core of the American psyche in profound and visceral ways, much the way that the collapse of the Twin Towers did.
None of this is about the crime itself (which I’ve written about before), nor about whether there are mitigating factors for it. One can think Tsarnaev committed an atrocity quite independent of his fleeting bird-flipping gesture. It’s about why the image of Tsarnaev’s middle finger produced such potent reactions and dominated media coverage, at the expense (as usual) of compelling substantive questions that have been almost completely ignored. And the explanation says a great deal about the primitive, brutal, and quite definitively American views of the purpose of the criminal justice system and how and why punishment is administered.
Top photo: U.S. Attorney’s Office/AP
Update/Correction: An earlier version of this article suggested that, in his tweet declaring “defense loses,” Armstrong meant to convey that the photo, by itself, would ensure Tsarnaev’s execution. That was based on a misreading of the tweet, and the article has been updated to reflect the correct reading.
Chlorpromazine
“…..Zionism is racism…..”
“…….On cue. Our Mona never disappoints. Enjoy getting to know her, Chlorpromazine.”
“…….Craig? remember the games you weren’t going to play? I’m trying to help….”
“…..All Zionists are racist….”
Show me !……”
Ha! It was right there in front of your face. You are a fucking fraud, Chlorpromazine. That’s obvious from your ridiculous and ignorant answer to “Zionism is racism”. Show me? Mona rammed it right up your ass.
Thanks.
What you have yet to ram up my arse is some evidence of Mona calling for the murder of Jews.
“Zionism is racism. It’s inherent to the project of ethno-religious supremacy of one race/religion. Implementing Zionism, and the overt racism it generates among its supporters, causes a great deal of dissonance among liberal Zionists who detest racism, but who find themselves in the midst of it.” ~ Mona
This is what Mona said…. “liberal Zionists who detest racism” which does not equal “…..All Zionists are racist….”
Are you really this stupid or are you pulling my leg?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6EaoPMANQM
Unsubstantiated therefor struck from the record… because mona has not called for the murder of Jews has she Craig?
Which is the very reason you and she have not said anything regarding this accusation or it’s related anti-semitic slur.
Mona because she knows/thinks she has not said this and you because you think it will take two hours to find.
PoppyCock!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew-SrlQ9tlI
HaplessCraigsi™
You are a fucking fraud… –> CraigSummers
Nuf said.
Welcome to Hell.
Re Dzhokhar and another picture. Rolling Stone wrote an article about him some time ago and put his picture on the cover. The magazine was inundated with messages accusing it of glorifying Dzhokhar, that the picture on Rolling Stone’s front cover made him look like a rock star and not like the monster that he should look like.
The Brits arrested a 14 year old boy a few days ago and charged him with “terrorism”. (Muslim, of course). He is still being held. Apparently, he had discussed with his friends (more 14 year olds, I presume). the idea of blowing up someone’s Anzac Day celebrations. Ah, that magic word, “terrorism”. The West is taking more cues from apartheid Israel, where around 500 children are incarcerated, most not ever charged.
Another eastern Europe bigot rearing their ugly head.
“The middle finger was preceded by other gestures that he maintained longer.”
He “flicked the V’s” at the camera which is English for giving the bird.
@Chlorpromazine –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJUuDoRZpyU
(Nobody else watch. None of your business. Go on about your day.)
Thanks that’s sweet-UNIQUE!
“The Trial”
Good morning Worm your honour
The crown will plainly show
The prisoner who now stands before you
Was caught red handed showing feelings
Showing feelings of an almost human nature
This will not do
CALL THE SCHOOLMASTER
I always said he’d come to no good
In the end your honour
If they’d let me have my way I could
Have flayed him into shape
But my hands were tied
The bleeding hearts and artists
Let him get away with murder
Let me hammer him today
Crazy toys in the attic I am crazy
Truly gone fishing
They must have taken my marbles away
Crazy toys in the attic he is crazy
You little shit, you’re in it now
I hope they throw away the key
You should talked to me more often
Than you did, but no you had to
Go your own way. Have you broken any homes up lately?
“Just five minutes Worm your honour him and me alone”
Baaaaaabe
Come to mother baby let me hold you in my arms
M’Lord I never wanted him to get in any trouble
Why’d he ever have to leave me
Worm your honour let me take him home
Crazy over the rainbow I am crazy
Bars in the window
There must have been a door there in the wall
When I came in
Crazy over the rainbow he is crazy
The evidence before the court is
Incontrovertible, there’s no need for
The jury to retire
In all my years of judging
I have never heard before of
Some one more deserving
The full penalty of law
The way you made them suffer
Your exquisite wife and mother
Fills me with an urge to defecate
Since my friend you have revealed your deepest fear
I sentence you to be exposed before your peers
Tear down the wall/Tone down the stonewalling
I’m a fan #AskMona X
Past baseball commissioner said Pete Rose would never be in the hall of fame for betting on other teams. He said the denial was not because of Pete betting (on teams other than his own) but the main reason was to deter others.
We can’t have hate filled immigrants and sons of immigrants blowing up national events or innocent people. He should be executed quickly and humanely. Let him find his vision of his god.
Otherwise, denial of baseball’s great is hateful and bad for the game. Bar all those with any sin and let’s look at the commissioner’s own lives and their outrageous compensation
i don’t believe it matters if he gave the bird or not, seriously who cares? I’m far more interested in seeing him executed because of the innocent people he murdered and maimed.
Precisely… well and concisely said. The OTHER reason I would suggest executing him is that, while alive, this person will become a focus for new, “free our hero” outrages and atrocities. Dead and gone, his name will soon be erased from history.
Testing
You are still trapped in the vortex which keeps returning you to The Intercept.
probably – which could be conclusive proof of the existence of hell.
Sometimes we get what we deserve. ;-}
Hell Fun Fact™ – It’s always self-inflicted.
Coram asked glenn to ring the office. Did it happen?
??? ? ? ? ???
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/11/iranians-talked-much-sunday-morning-tv-never-heard/#comment-122833
I’m taking minutes.
You can ‘kiss the baby” (ask your lawyer)
Doing Bird.
Stir Silly™
Ha! Jesus was great no!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_RSSDnH0oc
CraigStonewaller™
Yeah, but for us, not you.
For you not us? I’m confused are we Texan?
Proof or Hell… in other Words ;)
Mr Summers.
Why do you not champion the cause of the Chagossians? These people were forcibly evicted from their homeland. It is now being used as a US military base. Their home has was designated as the Chagos Marine Protected Area on 1 April 2010. Creating another hurdle for their return. But at least their territory was not annexed…
That is sure an interesting case which I have never heard of. Yes, the Chagossians should be allowed to return in my opinion.
“……The setting up of the Marine Reserve would appear to be an attempt to prevent any resettlement by the evicted natives in the 1960s and 70s. Leaked US Cables have shown the FCO suggesting to the US counterparts that setting up a protected no-take zone would make it “difficult, if not impossible” for the islanders to return. The reserve was then created in 2010.[7]….”
Another great case of environmental regs taking priority over jobs (and the return of natives to their homeland). Of course, in the US, the EPA ensures that jobs will go overseas.
Thanks.
Indeed Craig. However for US grunts environmental regs might not be very important. In the case of the return of the natives to their homeland…
” An exemption in the MPA allows people from the US nuclear base on Diego Garcia to continue fishing. In 2010, more than 28 tonnes of fish was caught for use by personnel on the base.[9][10]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagos_Marine_Protected_Area
“Another great case of environmental regs taking priority over jobs (and the return of natives to their homeland). ”
Every day I hear of another case of … no.
“Another great case of environmental regs taking priority over jobs (and the return of natives to their homeland). Of course, in the US, the EPA ensures that jobs will go overseas.”
For many minutes I have been interested in the Crimean fishing industry Craig. It will be interesting to compare and contrast our two island examples.
Some excerpts from “Fishing News International”
…A March 16th referendum saw Crimea voting in favour of becoming Russian citizens, resulting in Ukraine losing the largest part of its fishing capacities. [snip]
….Crimea is the biggest fishing centre on the Black Sea. It accounts for about 70% of all fish produced in Ukraine. According to official statistics the total volume of catching in the country in 2013 amounted to 216,400 tons, a 4.2% increase compared with 2012. [snip]
….Experts pointed out that if Russia will invest RUB 40 billion ($1.3bn) for the support and development of business in the region, as it promised before the referendum, and in the absence of serious factors that will hamper the development of the industry, local fishermen will be able to increase the fish catching up to 300,000 tonnes by 2020.
Moreover, Crimea also will become a subject of the new environmental program “Restoration of aquatic biological resources”, which was recently approved by the Russian government.
This program provides a number of measures aimed not only at conserving fish stocks in Russia’s coastal waters, but also to increase stock levels. [snip]
Craig, It seems in Crimea, the natives have returned to their homeland. They will enjoy the benefits of great investment whilst knowing that measures to conserve, and even increase fish stocks are ‘in the pipeline’. As the USS Donald Cook has moved on, it seems unnecessary to worry that US grunts will be doing much fishing in Crimean waters. Perhaps in time things might improve for the Chagossians.
Sorry Craig, I forgot to post the link. its a rollicking good read!
http://fishingnewsinternational.com/fishing/crimea/
“The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.” – Henry Kissinger
‘For some reason the Intercept will not allow my response to post. Who knows why? Possibly when you mention “sillyputty”, the Intercept automatically sends posts to Home Improvements sites(?). Oh well – on another thread in the future.’ ~ CS
Cool. Look forward to your response/s. I know you are quite popular so I’ll wait my turn.
I know you don’t mean to stonewall but we can’t all be as much debating fun as mona ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCMHmDnfD6I
No need for the Jury to retire…. ~ RogerWaters
“……I want to amend my last comment. It’s a fair analogy on a national level when it comes to foreign policy…..” ~ CraigSummers
Thanks
“It really is quite simple to sniff out the far left Mona. Quite simple.” ~ CraigSummers
Thanks
Sorry Doc, but you again exhibit selective criticism for the US (See list for fringe left because you are certainly one of the fringiest I’ve run across). ~ CraigSummersi
Thanks
Quiz Answer:
The term CriagSummers should probably drop is Anti-American (according to himself)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOJCmPKaYN8
Calling AlphaBrown
Sometimes reading GG’s perspective is all that saves me from going bonkers. The parameters of acceptable speech become so tight that one constantly risks being accused of being a terrorist sympathizer for simply pointing out what once would have been mundane facts or the moral response.
This is a person more boy than man by both legal and biological/developmental definitions. Tsarnaev knows better than any of us what he faces. A random moment gets caught by the All-Seeing Eye and it becomes the defining statement of who he is. It’s this fatal reductionist mentality that is destroying us. Like cavemen we now grunt and sweat about “good guys” and “bad guys”and bray all day about terror. To make those “easy” calculations one must eradicate the millions of thoughts, nuances, and gestures that make us fully complex and human. We are reducing ourselves first to caricatures and then to animals (though few animals behave with this kind of unfettered savagery and cruelty to their own kind).
I said it on a Guardian thread where the UKIP crowd called, en masse, for scuttling boats with people on them, for ignoring the drowning or pushing them under, for creating “camps” (gee, I wonder where we’ve heard that before?) for refugees, and for locking Africans and Middle Easterners inside their countries to suffer the fallout from our fatal interventions– all while squalling “how dare anyone suggest I’m a racist for this?”–, but I feel it on nearly every story in the news…we’ve lost our humanity and civility. Something truly savage has been released in the general public; the only sane response is a Ginsbergian howl.
I hope GG’s cyber-security is better than that of the White House.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/25/russian-hackers-read-unclassified-obama-emails-report
Wish you would fry
This asshole of a muslin killed 3 Americans
Death penalty to him.
He is a ISIS lover
Die u piece of shit
Excellent article, as always.
And if “flipping the bird” is punishable by death, what are we to make of this
http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/bushvideos/youtube/bushfingerflip.htm
I agree. Thanks for the great article and I’m among the minority that think this kid is a patsy.
Well that’s ten minutes I’ll never have back. Here’s hoping this sickening twit of an author learns starts vomiting his hatred of the US literally rather than figuratively.
“Yes…..our treacherous Mona. The first in line to throw…….
Chlorpromazine
“…..Zionism is racism…..”
On cue. Our Mona never disappoints. Enjoy getting to know her, Chlorpromazine.”
Craig? remember the games you weren’t going to play? I’m trying to help
All Zionists are racist….
Show me !
I fell asleep at the wheel. Above was my instant response which never made it. I have added it to display the reactionary me to the ‘balanced’ me.. Which is the same: Shot or Longer if I’m making an effort to be fully understood. I remembered before crashing out that I wanted to then make this point:
I do not know mona as in: Me and Adam ring each other once a year.
‘You’ do not ‘know’ her from adam was my hidden jibe – which is to be understood like this: I couldn’t give a fuck how well you think you know Mona. You have repeatedly made huge errors in defining many peoples political persuasion here already and have sought to paint her as an anti semite IMHO. It is possible that from having argued with her directly that you have some ‘insider knowledge’ in to her thought process.. (As when arguing with an individual one tends to analyse the prose of the opponent more than a casual reader).
I, Sillyputty (who is perfectly capable of speaking for himself just like Mme. Holland) and others.. Are not casual readers, many are ‘real’ friends (not me thus my misguided use of word adam). Your assertion that SP supports/protects Mona’s bigotry leads to the assumption that they both have the same ‘goals’… These goals are sinister to say the least according to you AND undefined by you.
By way of not saying anything (your argument as I understand it) to refute statements made by Mona, which you have repeatedly not provided when asked, SP has been painted as more than just a mere coward or lier. It is (in SPs defence and now mine) that your accusation goes further than to just him but to all the non casual readers of Mona’s words.
The intercept is a hot bed for Anti semitism… By default we are all anti semitic (whether we know it or not). Mona is our leader who reports to the biggest anti-semite of them all Great Leader Greenwald ~ CraigSummers (Lightly miss quoted for effect)
Don’t be a coward and stop lying?
#BDS #AskMona
Sorry this was supposed to be a reply to a comment further down… Damn! my mistake or TI’s? Not sure. Sorry none the less.
You didn’t just give us the finger, did you?
You are asking me to go back and find that statement by Mona. That’s at least 2 hours of work. If I do, then what? Chances are Chloromazinalithapod, nothing will change in your responses. I will be the one asked to prove everything I say. Mona will be given a free ride as usual. I would not expect you to change at all toward Mona. So where is the incentive for me?? Mona is well aware of what I’m talking about and that is all that matters really.
Not true… Mona has felt my ‘sarcasm’ too!
(Just like you do?)
Show me the money
$$$$ De-Facto $$$$
“calls for the murder of Jews (just like you do)” ~ Craig to Mona
Calling AlphaBrown
One more thing: ‘Calling’ either: FrankyGoesToHollyWood, Worzel Gummidge or Chlorpromazinalithapod an anti semite will never work.
Can you see the difference? Do you deny your slurs?
You are not the real Sillyputty… Are you Craig Summers?
If so watch your lip.
#AskMona
“calls for the murder of Jews (just like you do)” ~ Craig to Mona
No I flipped you the Craig
Who I might add is doing ‘Bird’…. An english expression. Craig Row?
Ask your lawyer: Kiss the baby
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLiJAX-MXcM
Rinse Re-Cycle Repeat H/T SP (from ‘Unique’ memory h/t Cindy)
Death to America (Just being ‘Sarcastic’)
$$$$ AIPAC $$$$
Baldy.. My message got lost.
From memory:
No. I flpped the Craig
Who is doing ‘Bird’ (an english expression)… or on Craig Row
Ask your Lawyer: Kiss the Baby
[Link Missing]
$$$$ AIPAC $$$$
Who’s Bad ~ CraigSummers
missing link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLiJAX-MXcM
Rinse Re-Cycle Repeat H/T SP (the ‘unique’ h/t Cindy)
@SP Pop the question … oh Salient one
Oh Shit ;)
Short son of a bitch with a shit haircut and no girlfriend. (link required)
Embrace De-Facto Anti-Semitism (Sarcasm will get you no where Worzel)
{Çurly™}
No problem! I figured.
“……‘You’ do not ‘know’ her from adam was my hidden jibe – which is to be understood like this: I couldn’t give a fuck how well you think you know Mona. You have repeatedly made huge errors in defining many peoples political persuasion here already and have sought to paint her as an anti semite IMHO. It is possible that from having argued with her directly that you have some ‘insider knowledge’ in to her thought process.. (As when arguing with an individual one tends to analyse the prose of the opponent more than a casual reader)…..”
You are starting to give away your political position. This was very typical of sillyputty who began posting in a similar fashion. He became obsessed with “labels” correcting people he disagreed with politically, but never people he cherished like Greenwald. He protected the bigotry of Mona while dwelling on labels – specifically “far left, fringe left, extreme left” etc., but never said a word about Mona’s use of Zionists as a slur, “fascists”, or Greenwald using “Far right”. So it became pretty clear his political bend – just as you are exposing your own. I don’t owe any explanation to you under any circumstance, but I still enjoy your posts.
I enjoyed the conversation.
“use of Zionists as a slur, “fascists”, or Greenwald using “Far right”. ~ CS
“calls for the murder of Jews (just like you do)” ~ Craig to Mona
Can you see the comparison you are attempting to make?
This is about no one else but you.
What Greenwald and Mona say are no excuse for either deliberately (or accidentally as it may turn out) saying that Mona has called for the murder of Jews…
Did it happen once, twice or three times? ‘Calls’ is plural so must have been more than once.
“I don’t owe any explanation to you under any circumstance.” ~ CS
Mountain of Debt
Hard to take you seriously if you respond like this.
“[Now everyone watch: He won’t give a responsive answer, because to do so would entail employing language that undermines his authoritarian views.]” ~ Mona
Would you like me to #AskMona instead lead you to make that accusation… Maybe she can shed some light on it. Or (as I once threatened) do I have to find it for you?
It will take me more than two hours… Do I need to look at the Grauniad too? Has she been calling for the murder of Jews less since posting at the Intercept … I reckon during 2014 ‘cropping the hedge’ she may have been quite outspoken… Shall I start there?
Does she use the twitter platform to make any calls for the murder of Jews also?
instead…….*what* …..lead you to make…..
You are starting to give away your political position… – CraigSummers
The explicit reason for calling you in particular out on the constant labeling, pigeonholing, and ad hominems is because it makes even attempting to converse with anyone who uses these counter-productive rhetorical behaviors a tautological nightmare.
Regarding the rest of your assertions, they are, as usual, simply wrong (but never people he cherished) and/or your own misinterpretation in an attempt to fortune-tell others motives; yet another useless pigeonholing and labeling behavior that relies on not what an idea is, but into which pigeonhole you best think it fits.
You’ve refused to answer a sincere and legitimate question regarding just what you consider a Palestinian state to be (or words to that effect) even after having your claim that you’ve “answered that 100’s of times here” found to be bogus by Mona, which further erodes any belief that you are interested in a good-faith discussion with anyone here.
Calling others liars and failing to back up that claim as well only deepens that self-inflicted wound.
“Recently I interviewed a psychopath. This is always a humbling experience because it teaches over and over how much of human motivation and experience is outside my narrow range. Despite the psychopath’s lack of conscience and lack of empathy for others, he is inevitably better at fooling people than any other type of offender. I suppose conscience just slows you down.”
“What these experiences taught have me is that even when people are warned…they still routinely underestimate the pathology with which they are dealing.”
– Anna C. Salter, Predators: Pedophiles, Rapists, And Other Sex Offenders
Silly you’ve forgotten your own question it was so long ago!
“legitimate question regarding just what you consider a Palestinian state to be (or words to that effect)” ~ SP
Question was quite different LOL
“I’d be interested to hear just what you consider “a Jewish State” to be, specifically. Bullet points, stating what human rights and determinations are to be allowed the Palestinians, in particular, will work nicely here.” ~ SP’s Salient Question™
It was in reply to a post includingCS quoting himself twice making the question even better.. Craig’s quotes:
“……..Economic sanctions will eventually force Israel to deal rightly with the Palestinians……” ~ CS
“………As I have stated numerous times in the past, you cannot promote your own self-determination while denying the Palestinians their rights as well…..” ~ CS
Looking through what I collected from 2015 https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/17/ramstein/#comment-124849 (there is quite allot missing from this post to keep it ‘short’)
“I have zero problems answering Sillyputty’s question. I’ve answered it already probably 50-100 times on different threads. However, I’m not going to help sillyputty out even in the least. I suspect he believes that there should be no Jewish state. Jews should not have a state of their own. Of course, like all fringe leftists, this applies to only one state in the world – Israel.”
“Sorry Mona. I have answered that question a hundred times – and I’m not playing his game. Sillyputty lied and he knows it – so there is nothing for me to respond to. I never expected any answers by sillyputty anyway. As in the past, he will have plenty of opportunity to enter into our future discussions about the Jewish state which he has entirely avoided. It’s also fairly clear that while sillyputty has not explicitly endorsed your bigotry, he implicitly endorses it. He is just a little cagier about hiding his positions – but they have been fairly clear for a long time (and they are more clearly exposed now). It really is quite simple to sniff out the far left Mona. Quite simple.”
“None of this justifies the creation of Israel at the expense of the Palestinians, but it does show exactly how hypocritical so-call “liberals” are. And I have no idea how you can impose “western values” on Israel considering how most western countries came into existence. No matter what anyone tries to tell me, when you single out Israel – the one Jewish state in the world – and degrade and delegitimze her Jewish character, then you are not only a fucking hypocrite, but an antisemite as well. Israel definitely deserves criticism for some of their policies concerning the Palestinians, but the Palestinians and Arab countries are not without blame in the conflict. That’s a certainty.”
“When you cross the line from legitimate criticism of Israel i.e., wrongly taking Palestinian land, disproportionate responses and your focus becomes the internal criticism of Israel as a Jewish state; when you delegitimize the Jewish peoples right to self-determination – a right granted under the UN charter – then you cross the line into antisemitism. There is nothing unique about “hostility” directed at Israel, or “hostility” to the Jewish character of Israel – or “hostility” to the conspiratorial ideas surrounding Jewish power. That’s been a part of human history in one form or another for thousands of years. Now a days, this comes from the right – and the left.”
I fear 2014 collection is in order
50-100 times on different threads
@SP @CS Which threads? 2015 drew an almost blank… Do you have any Recollection to save me time?
Silly you’ve forgotten your own question it was so long ago! –
Chlorpromazine
(or words to that effect)
Trap excepted… Shut the door behind you
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqMVg5ixhd0
“..are your concerns about the oppression of the Palestinians or that there exist a “Jewish state”? – CraigSummers
“Neither, specifically. As I stated before, I care that oppression exists anywhere. Regarding your claim that “there exist a Jewish State” it is my understanding that this is factually incorrect, in that there is a nation called “Israel,” and no nation called “Jewish” – at least not on any map that I’ve seen, therefore there is no Jewish state.” ~ Sillyputty
Chlorpromazine
For some reason the Intercept will not allow my response to post. Who knows why? Possibly when you mention “sillyputty”, the Intercept automatically sends posts to Home Improvements sites(?). Oh well – on another thread in the future.
Test
Test – Chlorpromazine
#CraigSummersFailsTestAgain™
#StoneWallCrapFloodPigeonHole™
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXHU2LwzutQ
#AskWorzel #BDS
#SockPupeteering™
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLB34223D55B56A4D7&v=5MEbThXI1ZY
CraigSummersLikelyStory™
I had a reporter on twitter argue with me when I pointed out that the peace sign was much longer that the quick finger and that he appeared to be a bored teen.
His argument was that it wasn’t a real peace sign because his hand was not facing the right way. Then when I brushed off his silly remark that I thought might be trolling he continued to assert the same thing.
All of you need to stop parroting the media and the prosecution.
The boy after all had to go defenseless into that show trial.
His “Defense Team” played dead from day 1.
All of the FBI “evidence” was a collage of doctored videos and photoshopped pictures to support a fabricated narrative. Stop lapping it up.
The boys were framed. The trial is a coverup. “Defense” was MIA.
Prosecution was allowed to run wild, presenting flawed evidence to a biased jury who were chosen because they support the death penalty and who were pre-screened to disallow the very experts (medical and computer science) who could have seen through their lies. The Tsarnaevs were framed and wrongly prosecuted. There is plenty of evidence that the Defense could have used to exonerate them. (If they were not there with the opposite agenda.)
You can go read all the Pat G comments here to see through their deception: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voJ_A_4GJvI
The FBI needs to be confronted by a real Defense.
so this website is basically saying planting a bomb next to an 8 year old bot and blowing up him to pieces as well as killing others and people are now missing legs and arms well… That’s fine he should not be in jail after all he is just a kid?
You support terrorist, Why don;t you get some balls instead of hiding behind a keyboard and go tell the father of the 8 year old boy that his killer should not go to prison because after all the Terrorist is just a “bored teenager”
In his eight years as president, Bill Clinton pardoned 456 people. George W Bush, 189. Barack Obama, in nearly six and a half years, 53. Obama seems to be a lock- them-up-and-throw-away-the-key kind of guy.
With every day that passes, I marvel more and more at the grotesque mendacity he displayed during the first election.
Not that he isn’t a lying sack of shit now, but that time was really special.
Agreed PI.
Truly astonishing to me how facile his original promises and how divergent his subsequent acts.
The still photo looks like it came from a 90s pop punk or nu-metal music video.
Vociferousness would be better directed at the press responsible for taking the public as bull and waving this red flag around to incite him to anger.
The entire theory of why the Democrats support the Mohammedan is that the satanic beasts like Dzhokhar are “victims”. How many times have we heard about how the Fuckestinians deserve sympathy? How suicide bombers are really victims seeking justice? How the American Mohammedan colonists are just “seeking freedom”?
This picture – and the satanic behavior of the Boston Mohammedan community in general – blows all this victimhood out of the water. The Mohammedan colonists are not “victims”. Dzhokhar isn’t a young kid who got dragged into some sheninegans by his brother. Dzhokhar was a mainstream American Mohammedan: a subhuman monster. He killed a few, but if he and the Mohammedan colonists who live in Massachusetts had their way they would kill us all (until we submitted to Shari’ah).
That’s what the picture shows – the satanic monsters who commit Shari’ah are not victims.
Oh, and if only there were a place we could put monsters like Dzhokhar where they could do penitence for their sins . . . may I coin a term? We’ll call it a “penitentiary”. Because even the sinful Mohammedan can still find grace by acknowledging their guilt.
Oh, that’s right. In Greenwald-world doing penitence for one’s sins is “fascist oppression”.
Why did the judge let prosecutors show this picture at all? It doesn’t have anything to do with his case.
I am curious about that too – also I would have thought that doctored evidence presented in a court would at the very least be considered unethical and improper conduct.
Anyone know?
That is part of his job, deciding what is admissible and what is not.
If this is part of his job then obviously he is not doing in properly. Why did he allowed such gimmicks? If they do such things in as solid a case as this one what must they be doing in other, not so strong cases?
So something edited out of context to substantiate a bogus claim is admissible? And I had thought the system was more rigorous.
Dishonest and manipulative to show this image and even more so out of context. But as intended it did the trick for many. As bells to Pavlov’s dogs.
Makes one think of the severely ‘conditioned’ eras gone by, those we consider as having had a limited intellectual, emotional and world vision who lacked the autonomy, the freedom of thought we believe we have, even of those countries we routinely castigate today as living in the dark-ages. The cycle of justice is still steeped in old testament teachings: submission, supplication, retribution, vengeance. There’s a whole new world of thought past that including the rest of the bible.
There is still the assumption that it was an inside job.
Direct link to the most important part of the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1ck1rw_E1E&feature=player_detailpage#t=469
Alex Jones, James Corbett, Antony Sutton, etc perpetuate misunderstanding of both “Hegelian dialectic” and how the ruling class rules. Jones’ infowars is conspicuously anti-socialist and takes advantage of the poorly informed listeners/viewers.
I agree with you. And I think the reason he uses this gesture is defiance because he is not guilty of anything and knowing that he is being watched by this eye in the sky. It has nothing to do with the lack of feeling guilty, since he never did any of this. It was a set up.
His gesture just means : ” I hate you all for doing this to me.” He is trapped. He is being used, and so was his brother.
Where is the logic in their supposed actions in a public place where there would be thousands of cameras recording everything? And whatever followed… all made up stuff. Scratching his name into a piece of wood while being wounded, to make sure that everyone could see it? Where was his passport, BTW?
Exactly. Btw I like that Alex Jones warns young people about the CIA ads.
What did they do to this young guy before his first appearance in court in 2013?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIm-TeodFT8
I don’t know Glenn, I see it more as the Media constantly looking for something provocative to shove in our faces. Sure most people are saying they hope he gets what’s coming to him… whatever that means, but I think most everyday Americans really aren’t that wrapped up in his flying the finger.. that’s media hype working up mostly just the axe grinders.
That said, all the finger tells me is that the kid has no remorse for what he did and were he set free might do something similar again. Personally I have no idea why people who are really angry would want him to get the death penalty… he would probably prefer that. Give him life in prison and put him in with the general prison population, I’m sure they will treat him real nice.
“That said, all the finger tells me is that the kid has no remorse for what he did”
How does it tell you that. I didn’t hear a question about remorse. The fact it was taken out of context means there was no such question – the prosecutor would have jumped on it had there been. It was dishonest and manipulative and I am surprised it was legal.
btw: All lawyers out there – Is it actually legal to present something as evidence that one has edited out of context and uses opinion to back it up?
Anyway, I am sure many a prisoner spends their time flipping the bird, screaming at the video camera and doing anything to vent and get attention especially when in solitary – they know someone is on the other end looking in.
David Petraeus showed remorse:
“To Send a Message, Judge Sentences David Petraeus to 75% of One Speaking Fee
…As happens with big-wigs, Petraeus’ lawyer cited the 34 letters of support from other big-wigs sent on his behalf. Petraeus admitted his crimes and apologized to those he hurt.”
https://exposefacts.org/to-send-a-message-judge-sentences-david-petraeus-to-75-of-one-speaking-fee/
But, but, but, the fine was twice the normal fine because the crime was egregious …
It’s not like he cheated students … it’s more like he crashed the economy so he doesn’t really deserve jail time.
CNN I salute you.
I guess I want to make a general comment about crime and punishment in America in general.
This week has featured the story of sixteen year old Kalief Browder who served three years in prison, for the crime of not pleading guilty to stealing a back-pack. After three years of beatings by fellow inmates and by guards while handcuffed (caught on video), being denied meals, and long term solitary confinement, He was never tried, and got out of prison alive.
And there’s twenty seven year old Freddie Grey, arrested for having run away from a police officer, and died of broken ribs and a severed spine while handcuffed in police custody. (I can’t imagine why anyone would run from such people, can you????)
I think what may partially explain these events is that it may be true, that to maintain order, Obama’s regime needs to make prison, the police, the justice system so brutal, that a life of powerless, status-qua hopeless poverty is preferable, for the vast mass of the underclass.
So, my point, if I have one, is if you get three years for NOT stealing a back pack, and death for “running while black”, perhaps anything less than a death sentence for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev would look out of place?
This is what I’m talking about, with America’s jails bursting with prisoners, imagine if more people didn’t fear Obama’s guards, didn’t fear going to prison, didn’t fear astronomical sentences:
“Homeless and hungry man prefers a jail cell
TROY — Tired of being homeless, a man broke several windows in a county office building in a bid to cause enough damage to net him a year in jail, police said.
In 2010, Jamaine Makepeace was accused three times of committing similar crimes in Portsmouth, N.H.
The Troy incident happened at 6 p.m. Friday when Makepeace, 30, used several items including a garbage can lid, metal ashtray and rocks to break windows in the building that houses the Rensselaer County Clerk’s office, police said. He smashed the glass in the entrance doors that face Third Street, the large window spanning the space over the doors on which the county seal was affixed, four smaller windows and the window of a car in a nearby parking lot, Capt. John Cooney said.
Witnesses who called police were surprised when Makepeace did not run off. Instead, police said, he stood near the broken glass and waited to surrender to police.
“He told us he figured he would do enough damage to get a year in jail,” Cooney said. “He told us that he was tired of being on the streets and begging food from people.”
Though Makepeace’s actions appear desperate, it is not uncommon for police to see the homeless commit crimes to get out of the cold.”
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Homeless-and-hungry-man-prefers-a-jail-cell-4213734.php
The Riker’s Island story is nightmarish.
He’s facing life in prison or death – does that finger bother you?? That seems to be rational to me
A Damn This Site Pisses Me Off I Love This Website Production
re:
“And btw — the total lameness of this commenting tool says more about this website’s potential than anything you or anyone else pens.” -texas
No worries, Flapjack.. The honorable Peter Maass has already informed the ‘class’ (.. four months ago) that the rectification of said ‘disabled’ commentating system, was “.. a PRIORITY item for us to change”.
Peter Maass 20 Dec 2014 at 10:50 am
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/12/19/senior-cia-officer-center-torture-scandals-alfreda-bikowsky/#comment-96887
Mr Greenwald’s choice to advocate for Dzhokar Tsarnaev is another example of an Intercept op ed (let us not pretend this is journalism) laboring in defense of the indefensible. I’m reminded of Juan Thompson’s piece in March advocating for Aniah Ferguson who was at the center of a vicious fight in a Brooklyn McDonald’s that was captured on video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFdI7EmeNog
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/18/dont-throw-book-brooklyns-aniah-ferguson/
In these instances, I fell Mr. Greenwald and Mr. Thompson seriously undermine what little chance there may be that their viewpoints could help reform law enforcement and the judiciary by making weak, recriminating excuses for their client’s actions against the social order and their fellow citizens. Both writers have taken positions fueled by ideology rather than sense – common or otherwise – and, in spite of the ample evidence of their senses of moral superiority, they have rendered impotent through moral bankruptcy the valuable points contained in their arguments.
I don’t see where or how he is advocating for Dzhokar Tsarnaev.
I see this article as bringing up important points as regards the justice system, how it has been developed and is developing, how it is administered and how it is meted out.
No fair reading of Mr. Greenwald’s piece would conclude he advocates for Tsarnaev.
Here is what’s called a “piss-on attack.”
First they piss on the words by intentionally misrepresenting them. (“Mr Greenwald’s choice to advocate for Dzhokar Tsarnaev …)
Then they sniff and say, “something smells pissy.”
See the concluding sentence:
This is a discrediting strategy.
Mr. Greenwald is by definition “advocating” for Tsarnaev. He is by no means defending Tsarnaev’s criminal actions, but he is, by raising objections to the use of the photo under discussion and calling into question the ethical implications for the prosecution in using the photo as they did, voicing an objection in defense of Tsarnaev. And I suspect Mr. Greenwald knows that.
advocate (verb)
ad·vo·cate \?ad-v?-?k?t\
: to support or argue for (a cause, policy, etc.)
You’d do well to know the definition of a word before launching your “piss-on attacks”.
Finally, Tsarnaev has defense counsel who can ask the same questions Mr. Greenwald asked. Then the prosecution can declare that Mr. Greenwald’s and the defense’s assertion is entirely based on suppositions and conjecture as to the state of mind and intentions of Tsarnaev when he – quiet foolishly under the circumstances – “flipped the bird” at a surveillance camera. Then the defense can make the same assertion. Then the jury can decide.
Does anybody else think maybe the Intercept is Yanking Our Chain a little?
The front page loads and there is someone giving us the finger. aka the Hawaiian Good Luck Sign.
Good Luck to you too.
What an excellent article!
Thanks.
Probably already mentioned earlier (a couple hundred previous comments in,) the finger picture functions exactly as a mugshot is supposed to. It is a culling of the herd — a separation of those who “belong” and those who are “outcast”… those who don’t belong.
But we who belong, we virtuous souls without mugshots (but who celebrate the vicious carnage inflicted by our glorious hero-warriors upon the distant anonymous “enemy”), we good citizens know that unless we comply with the shared and earnest belief in the goodness of our civilization, then we, too, might join the outcasts.
This is how the elite remain elite — by sacrificing a few for the (supposed) greater good.
Jon Stewart had a great piece comparing the teachers prosecuted for cheating in Georgia recently with the banksters who collapsed the economy. It highlights this dynamic.
Wall Street needs Bernie Madoff like the Pentagon needs Lynndie England or like the obsequious national media need Tsarnaev’s middle finger.
Without our villains, we lose our virtue,
“America is a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere..” -george ‘the gipper’ gipp
Hey suave
Been to Idaho lately?
thecraig..
Not as of late, Stallion.. I’m currently tracking the ‘white ball’ and sampling some ‘chargrilled oysters’ (Neyow’s Creole Café) down in N`orleans.. Slated to visit mid-Sept when the Foo-Fighters are owning ‘The Gorge’..
Hope the family is well..
dong`
Jesus. Doing some traveling? That’s one of many areas I have never seen. A coworker is from that area – and he made us some Chicken Gumbo. It was really good. I mean really good. Yep, could be a big fire year because of the dry winter.
Take care
“……Probably already mentioned earlier (a couple hundred previous comments in,) the finger picture functions exactly as a mugshot is supposed to. It is a culling of the herd — a separation of those who “belong” and those who are “outcast”… those who don’t belong……”
The Boston Bombers outcasts? That’s fairly radical.
This was radical enough for me to break my self imposed silence for just two mins to get this in quickly like the whispey old Ferritt that I’m not:
If By Mona™ you mean:
“The Hamas Charter – which Hamas refuses to renounce – calls for the murder of Jews (just like you do) – and that includes civilians and infants.”
~ CraigSummers to Mona 20 Dec 2014 at 7:19 am
De-Facto Anti-Semitism?
You often talk of Mona’s “Goals” a word that often crops up…
All a bit to sinister don’t you think for ‘our’ Mona?
If By Mona™ you mean: ” ………………………………………………………” then I would agree entirely..this has been my position all along ;)
Only a true Scotsman H/T (the real) SP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw91zI9OScY
Aunt Sally
“……Aunt Sally….”
Yes…..our treacherous Mona. The first in line to throw…….
Of course they’re outcasts.
Americans welcome immigrants like dogs welcome fleas.
But more than that, Tsarnaev is the subject of this week’s Two Minutes Hate devoted to excoriating individuals who do exactly what American institutions do except on an industrial scale. Almost daily.
Punish the one, ignore the many.
But to understand this you would need an individual core — a conscience — rather than a collaborator’s script.
However I don’t understand why the indisputable sounds “radical” to you … unless possibly you have an agenda beyond your predictable chattering disputes with the premise of every single posting by Mr. Greenwald.
Wilt
His friends described him as normal with lots of friends. He was a well accepted immigrant by his classmates. He was not a victim like you are trying to describe him. Not at all. You are trying to create a victim narrative where there simply is not one. He is a murderer- plain and simple. For Greenwald, it’s ranting about the American justice system. For you, it’s about his immigration status. Just get over it. He was a fucking murderer. Nothing there to defend.
Since you seem unable to comprehend my words, since you assert something I wouldn’t dispute, and since you seem unable to distinguish among murders, I’ll give you a game to play — Murder or not Murder?
Murder or not murder?
Murder or not murder?
Murder or not murder.
Murder or not murder?
I count four murders. How many do you count? (Hint. Your response makes no sense if you count four murders too.)
How many murders does US media count and how many not murders does US media count?
US media counts one murder and three not murders.
Why is that?
Wilt
“……Since you seem unable to comprehend my words….”
These words are unmistakable:
“……Probably already mentioned earlier (a couple hundred previous comments in,) the finger picture functions exactly as a mugshot is supposed to. It is a culling of the herd — a separation of those who “belong” and those who are “outcast”… those who don’t belong…..”
and
“…..Americans welcome immigrants like dogs welcome fleas…..”
You created a narrative of victimhood for the Boston Bombers (an untrue one).
“…..Murder or not Murder?….”
Of course, this has nothing what so ever to do with the Boston Bombers who targeted civilians for murder. Again, their bombing (and victimization) is indefensible. So number four is murder.
The others are indeterminate for various reasons. I don’t really know if it was murder or not – and it depends wholly on the situation. If, in fact, the other civilians in your other examples were purposely targeted by drone operators (knowing they are civilians) , then it’s murder. Simple. Just like the South Carolina policeman who gunned down the African American while he ran, they should be charged with murder.
However, if the killings took place in areas occupied by a fighting force at war with the US (Pakistan Taliban (TTP), Afghanistan Taliban, al-Qaeda, ISIS, al-Shabob, etc.), and the drone operator targeted terrorists, then they were most likely unfortunate casualties of war (collateral damage). The Geneva Convention recognizes collateral damage. In those cases, it would not be murder. But without more information, I can’t determine if the other three are murder or not. I hear you though Wilt. You don’t distinguish. Killing is killing. Regardless, if killing is killing, then the Boston Bombers were murderers, right – and there is nothing to defend?
Thanks.
“He was a well accepted immigrant by his classmates.”
Well as long as he is an immigrant and not a peer. Let’s start saying a well-accepted black guy. A well-accepted woman. A well-accepted “something that’s different from a white anglo-saxon middle class male” is not exactly what we should be aiming for when it comes to defining inclusiveness in society.
If I assert X and Y are equally villainous, how is that a defense of X?
When you respond to your own misconceptions, your own obtuseness, (no matter intentional or unintentional) you obscure what I consider my clear statements.
If Tsarnaev’s lawyer had argued that the brothers were targeting a specific individual instead of a crowd — if for instance they claimed they aimed for military personnel, then do you exonerate them — as you exonerate the US military — because children unfortunately got in the way of their targets?
I know you understand this because you say,
Exactly.
You understand I’m not defending Tsarnaev. I never have defended him, his brother, or the bombing.
Your assertion that I defend them is completely your own invention.
You invent words for me because you need Tsarnaev to be less than human.
You similarly dehumanize those Pakistanis killed and maimed by US drone strikes. Their murders (you state) perhaps aren’t truly murders because the intent of their murderers somehow relieves their murderers of their criminal responsibility.
A debate about Tsarnaev’s emotional state in the video should not be parlayed into an argument about the injustices of our penal system. After a clear guilty verdict for murder and terrorism, it is absolutely fair game and understandable that the prosecution would want to exhibit his clear lack of remorse – the same lack of remorse he showed during the trial. Whether you support the death penalty or not, this man deserves no attempts to soften his image. And I am offended that he would somehow be looped in with those who have been victimized or wrongfully incarcerated.
What you’re really saying there is that any team of prosecutors who willfully and blatantly lie and distort in order to fool a public, a jury, a judge, a media and you, are totally within bounds if the ultimate goal is to come to a conclusion that you are in agreement with. Because the fact is, the photo-still of him flipping off the surveillance camera, which was taken from that video, does no such thing as “exhibit his clear lack of remorse,” which, if you watched the video, you are or should be well aware of.
The U.S. is like a totalitarian system in which the worst crimes are committed by those running the country. The prison system in countries like ours is an expression of contempt for the ordinary citizenry. This is only a step or two away from the kind of nihilistic contempt for and disgust with life itself that you find in say, North Korea. One favored means of execution there is for the
convicted person to be set upon by a pack of hungry, wild dogs. Some of the people commenting here might wish we could adopt that method.
larry –
‘One favored means of execution there is for the convicted person to be set upon by a pack of hungry, wild dogs. Some of the people commenting here might wish we could adopt that method.’
No question about it. Wild dogs do type.
And your observation about just who commits the worst crimes is clearly true from individual institutions through nation-state scale. I learned unequivocally and first hand while investigating administrative crimes in a maximum security prison where the warden had blossomed as a murderous crime boss dwarfing offenses of even hardest time psychopathic lifers. Coldly rationalized manipulated murder is mere management tool $erving the greater good. Shawshank; no fiction.
There’s simply no ascendancy in halls of power anywhere today unless one’s very well practiced in arts of psychopathy. Likely always been the case in human institutions. Maybe it just seems more gut wrenching these days due to the sickening degree of pretension to principle involved along with our culture of electronic make death fashionable fantasies.
Naturally, we’re more concerned about explosive Bostonian death and mayhem than we are about what we produce by proxy or not in numerous other cities globally. Because make very much more death for the very best of reasons.
Who cares if he was bored? He was awaiting trial for multiple murders.
My only reservation with this article is the suggestion that the public reaction to Tsarnaev is entirely irrational groupthink. It’s definitely emotional, but also appropriate, I believe.
I want to preface this by saying that I do not support the death penalty under any circumstances, and I’m not inclined to make any exceptions for Tsarnaev. I grew up in the greater Boston area, where my parents still live. These attacks hit close to home and I’ve been generally sympathetic to the visceral public reaction against these attackers. But I recognize the extent to which that was exacerbated by their being Muslim and ethnically otherized, and I want a fair trial. I agree with Glenn that this photo should really not be a factor in the judicial process. I also agree that, looking at the full context of the video, Tsarnaev’s gesture is really benign.
All that said, the idea that one should feel shame or guilt in the wake of their moral failure is hardly an American idea. An appropriate sense of shame—and the belief that this can be conditioned—is foundational for Platonic, Aristotelian, and Confucian moral systems. The Confucians are particularly interesting, since they saw the project of cultivating shame in people as an *alternative* to corporeal punishment, and as a result they opposed capital punishment as early as the Warring States period.
This is admittedly not what Glenn is pointing out in our system, where the expectation of shame is tied into the demand for suffering that we make on those convicted. But if I think that if we want to rid our culture of the latter, we have to emphasize the former. The expectation that criminals and terrorists *should* feel shame for their actions (i.e., they are *morally obligated* to feel shame, such that it does become a second offense if they don’t) is rational on a utilitarian model in that expressions of remorse, if genuine, are one of the best indicators that a person won’t repeat the same bad behavior. If somebody doesn’t appear to feel remorse, it is reasonable to assume that they don’t actually think that what they did was wrong.
It’s also the cornerstone of rehabilitation (rational on a virtue model), in that that criminals must recognize their own wrong before they can be open to moral improvement. In this sense, I don’t think shame needs to be thought of as primarily oppressive or authoritarian. Public acknowledgement of remorse doesn’t have to be suffering; it can be a relief for those who want to re-enter into a community’s good graces, or just for those who want to be able to engage with others humanly and intimately again, on grounds of mutual trust.
Obviously, saying that our expectation of shame is a *rational* emotion is not to say that it is a perfect one. The apparent show of remorse or remorselessness has to be considered in context, such that Tsarnaev’s middle finger becomes relatively benign, while, say, Jean-Claude Romand’s apparent anguish at his crimes should be treated with suspicion. The question is always a matter of genuine feeling and intent. But as hard as these may be to parse out, it’s still a very relevant question.
The post, lightly [edited] for accuracy:
“Mr. Greenwald
[I’m making] another completely predictable attempt to turn [every decent person’s stomach. I just don’t care about the] victims of the American justice system. It’s a continuing theme for [me] to advance [my] own [hateful, ignorant, and disgusting] agenda whether it’s [Michael Brown], the [torture carried-out in countless “black sites”] or the [innocent men, women, and children burned alive and blown to bits with Hellfire missiles by Presidential decree] (etc.).
The usual victim[s of US foreign and domestic crimes don’t concern me. Sure, I] could have pleaded insanity (or stupidity) for [my many] idiotic [vomit-inducing] attack[s, but here’s something else:] the US was kind enough to have “democratic” referendums (at the point of a gun) [after it] fought two wars [in Afghanistan and Iraq] killing an estimated [1,000,000 +] civilians. You would think that would get my attention since [I’m] from [America]! Hadn’t [I] heard of the [many funeral, wedding, and] school massacre[s that came from America’s drone wars as well]? Better to go down taking out some more children in my opinion. The [human race] will be better off the second [my bad ideas are] dead as well.
No matter what it takes, [my irrational and hateful beliefs] deserve [to be ridiculed]”
Crucifixion! No wait, we cannot grant him the generosity of the death that was bestowed upon the dead lord baby Jesus, besides he might just rise after three days.
You are and will always be known as, in spite your early intellectual accomplishments, as the definition of a douchebag… Now that term has been around for a long time but allow me to clarify it a little it for you… “the criminal justice system excels at reducing the condemned to their single worst act” That’s exactly what they’re supposed to do so that the jury and the public can decide stripped away from opinion, is the accused guilty of what they are charged of? Do they deserve the ultimate punishment? That middle finger photo is as admissible as evidence of lack of remorse as the statements Timothy McVeigh made during his trial and if anyone deserved the death penalty, he did… McVeigh was never photographed flipping the bird to anyone but his attitude was “Fuck you all!” and the American public and judicial system responded in kind…Now Tsarnaev is a dimwit compared to McVeigh’s half-ass, narcissistic view of himself as a revolutionary but he is just as stupid, ignorant, arrogant and murderous and he deserves the same fate,,,
The kid is in bad shape …..the left side of his face is paralyzed, it even looks like bell’s palsy. Something about his hand (prosthetic) I remember he got shot in the face and hand.
Hahaha check out that map. Fyi Africa is bigger than the U.S. by a long shot. Australia looks pretty messed up to.
Mr. Greenwald
This is just another completely predictable article – an attempt to turn more murder committed by Islamic terrorists into victims of the American justice system. It’s a continuing theme for you to use Islamic terrorism to advance your own political agenda whether it’s Charlie Hebdo, the burning of the Jordanian pilot or the Boston bombers (etc.).
When the Boston bombing occurred, you accused Americans of racism for even suggesting that the bombing was another Islamic terrorist attack. This was followed by the usual victimization campaign blaming US foreign policy. Both of the Tsarnaev brothers could have pleaded insanity (or stupidity) for the idiotic attack on the US instead of Russia. Russia – which was kind enough to have a “democratic” referendum before annexing the Crimean Peninsula (at the point of a gun) – fought two wars with secessionists Chechens in the 1990s killing an estimated 75,000-125,000 civilians. You would think that would get their attention since they were from Chechnya! Hadn’t they heard of the Beslan school massacre? Better to go down taking out some more Russian children in my opinion. The Chechen gene pool will be better off with the second brother dead as well.
No matter what it takes, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev deserves the death penalty.
Bingo!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvfkWaBH27A
qassam/thwack!
Craig! You’ve surpassed yourself in non sequitur incoherence.
Carry on.
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/21/jeb-bush-praises-obamas-expansion-nsa-surveillance/#comment-125604
@Mona: Craig slipped this in FYI…
Whats up Doc LOL!
Trust me. Mona has already seen the reply.
It was 8 hours ago I posted that Craig…
Trust me too then… those quotes I advised you get hold of may come in handy.
Never did Guardian but I’ve always been here for you Craig ;)
Just a boy with a shit hair cut and no girlfriend?
Worzel Gummidge
Ah. I had indeed missed that iteration of an old ranting point for the Craig.
Zionism is racism. It’s inherent to the project of ethno-religious supremacy of one race/religion. Implementing Zionism, and the overt racism it generates among its supporters, causes a great deal of dissonance among liberal Zionists who detest racism, but who find themselves in the midst of it.
If you haven’t seen this, it’s 10 minutes of some English-speaking Jewish (mostly) young people in Israel ranting about African refugees in terms that are generally only heard at Klan rallies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPxv4Aff3IA
Chlorpromazine
“…..Zionism is racism…..”
On cue. Our Mona never disappoints. Enjoy getting to know her, Chlorpromazine.
I’m not sure what you find incoherent. If foreign policy was a driving factor in their radicalization, Russia was a far more logical choice. Indeed, if he was a student of history, he could have taken a page right out of the book written by other Chechen terrorists and attacked another children’s school in Russia – kind of like the TTP (Pakistan), or even al-Shabob in Kenya.
And ‘seriously’ if he were to ‘avoid’ the death penalty in the end…would that amount to a miscarriage of justice in your view (and any further legal position you may have)? Not a loaded question.
Which is why the article is interesting ‘to me’ because it could all come down to the finger/19 year old remorse!
“…….Which is why the article is interesting ‘to me’ because it could all come down to the finger/19 year old remorse!…”
Or lack of. The Intercept seems to be hung up on what may bring the death penalty. Is it the finger? Or is it that he was radicalized on line? According to Murtaza Hussain, it could all come down to whether he was radicalized online or not:
“…….The question of whether Dzhokhar was driven to terrorism by the influence of his strong-willed older brother, Tamerlan, or by charismatic online “jihadist” preachers such as Anwar al-Awlaki, is one upon which his life may now depend…….In testimony given last week, prosecution witness Matthew Levitt, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, attested to the existence of an online “global jihad movement” capable of indirectly mobilizing lone wolves like Tsarnaev. Repeatedly invoking Thomas Friedman’s aphorism that “the world has been flattened” by communications technology, Levitt suggested that the influence of Tamerlan was superfluous, since Tsarnaev “could just as easily been [radicalized] by someone online.” The testimony seemed to lay the groundwork for seeking the death penalty against Tsarnaev in a later phase of the trial……”
I have a much simpler explanation. How about giving him the death penalty for attempting to mass murder potentially hundreds of people crowded at the finish line for the Boston Marathon. He killed three and wounded over 200 people. I don’t know if its a miscarriage of justice if he gets life (Guantanamo would be the ideal location), but I prefer that he becomes a martyr for Allah.
yes.. lack of or degrees of in my ‘sentence':
the finger/19 year old remorse… 19 is the operative word/age
I liked the unloaded question though… ah well.. another time maybe.
P.S my little rant over on the other thread was intended to amuse but also offer my thoughts (not facts). The language was not perfect by any means and the ‘arguments’ would be flimsy under analysis. However all that crap really just punctuates the message which was that I disagree outright that mona is Anti Semitic, which you to my knowledge have never expressly said.. but that is certainly what it sounds like.
Therfore as a debating partner of hers If I were you I would refrain from such allegations unless you have hard proof… You wouldn’t want your sparring buddy harangued by some unknown person for example (un likely to happen but everyone knows who she is). Quite easy for you to mouth off most people don’t know who the fuck you are… You could be the real Sillyputty for all I know.
Take care.
Rowan Park
LastWordSydrome™
$$$$ De-Facto Anti-Semitism $$$$
Read you in the next thread. Over and out.
” I don’t know if its a miscarriage of justice if he gets life (Guantanamo would be the ideal location), but I prefer that he becomes a martyr for Allah.”
Admit it, Craig. You’d be quite happy if Eric Holder flipped a coin, or Obama cut open a goat to examine its bloodspatter, as long as Dzhokhar got the ax. As long as the outcome suits you, the rest is meaningless.
System? What system? There is only power.
OK Baldie – another fairly senseless post. He attempted to murder hundreds of people. It’s not the outcome I want, it’s the outcome he deserves. Yes, and I mean the death penalty although that might take decades. It would be almost better to let him go in Pakistan and drone him.
So, no response? A functioning justice system is “senseless” to you?
Glad I got your confession on tape.
It would be almost better to let him go in Pakistan and drone him – CraigSummers
You’re wallowing again, CraigSummers. It’s torture him first (to get all of that terrorist info from him, despite tortures yet to be confirmed efficacy status) then true-blue ‘Mericans like you get to release them in the desert in order to satiate your lust for human suffering and vengeance even more.
That’s why Baldie McEagle is right, and which you confirmed by you last statements.
As long as the outcome suits you, the rest is meaningless. System? What system? There is only power. – Baldie McEagle
“I have heard that we are spirits having a human experience. Perhaps those of us who have no conscience are dark spirits having a human experience.” – P.A. Speers, Type 1 Sociopath – When Difficult People Are More Than Just Difficult People
“Perhaps those of us who have no conscience are dark spirits having a human experience.”
That would explain Lord Voldemort!
sillyputty
“….That’s why Baldie McEagle is right, and which you confirmed by you last statements….”
No you dunce(s). It’s confirmed by his confession to attempting to murder hundreds of people. His defense admits that he was responsible for the Boston Bombings. So yes, I support the death penalty because he deserves to die for what he did. If you disagree, then fine. No problem.
It would be almost better to let him go in Pakistan and drone him – CraigSummers
My point, as illustrated by the quote above which, as usual, you conveniently ignored, wasn’t about the death penalty, per se (you dunce) as it was about the clear, psychopathic relish you would get droning someone who is already subject to the laws of the land re: his sentencing by an American court system, in America.
For someone who labels others ‘Anti-American’ at the drop of a hat, it’s ironic as hell that you exhibit and espouse the most Anti-American behaviors of anyone here: torture-mongering, and now drone-executions.
Because of the constant labeling, pigeonholing, and ad hominems, your arguments continue to have little to no intellectual integrity; and, as a fellow American, I’m here to explain to you that your stance on torture and drone killings leaves you as morally bankrupt as any American I’ve ever met.
“I regularly comment on my desire to exploit my admirers or to kill babies and cute animals, and I don’t even need to laugh or smile for people to think I am joking.” – M.E. Thomas, Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/21/jeb-bush-praises-obamas-expansion-nsa-surveillance/#comment-125647
My last 2 shekels
Thanks
What?
You think Russia should have copped it instead? Didnt they warn the US govt about the Tsarnaev brothers.? A warning that was airily dismissed and later turned up stuffed in a carton in a womens restroom
Your recommendation to kill Russian children says little for your mental state
Thanks Glenn for a thoughtful article, such a change from the howling for blood and death that seems to be a part of the American psyche
I couldn’t agree with you more. US intelligence botched the intelligence. I’m not actually advocating that anyone murders any children, just being sarcastic (except for mine).
This an important point and a word which cropped up in one of my recent posts in response to you on the difficulty of effective “Pigeonholing” by quoting Benito. Where I suggested that quoting you to ascertain a position or your actual thoughts on a subject would be a far easier task than quoting Benito for the same reasons.
Sarcasm.. Craig..
I’m guilty of allot of that but am trying to reduce it to a level where you have an idea of my ‘position’ which as we have found out is necessary for effective debate with you (getting direct answers to questions posed)….
In this my short study entitled : “CraigSummers and friends discover why it’s always sunny in Craigworld”
I seek to discover if this excuse should in fact (see de-facto) be admissible as an answer to a direct question in these circumstances.
Your posts have a minute amount of detectable sarcasm and you rarely reach for humour in either the defence of prior statements or otherwise.
Your use of brackets “(except for mine)” was quite extreme in this instance and reminded me of these bracketed words:
“calls for the murder of Jews (just like you do)” ~ Craig to Mona
Were you being sarcastic again? De-Facto Anti Semitism rears its ugly head?
1: Provide evidence for your assertion that Mona calls for the murder of Jews.
1 or 2 ‘Calls’ would do it for me. If she minces her words you alone will not be the judge of that in a fair and honest debate. It will be your job to provide the quotes of Mona’s to back up your claims however…. only fair because:
“Then you better find it and quote me. I’m not depending on your memory or mine for something I YOU say I said.” ~ CraigSummers
2: “…..Zionism is racism…..” is not: “All Zionists are Racist….”
It could be described as an aggressive stance (in terms of language) on a popularly held view that Zionism’s “Goals” (when defined as a ‘movement’) cannot be reached without oodles of ‘Zionists’ holding racist views… Perhaps that allow them to disregard others rights on the grounds of ethnicity.
A Zionist is in debating terms is rather like far leftist: it seeks to describe a group.
“Zionism is Racism”…. Mona’s language
“It would be almost better to let him go in Pakistan and drone him.” Craig’s Language
Aunt Sally X
Hi Craig, the Crimean population must surely be happy now that the illegal act of transferring the Crimean oblast to the Ukrainian SSR has been reversed. I’m sure you would agree, although you have not yet mentioned it. From Wiki: 1954 transfer of Crimea:
Decree
On 19 February 1954 the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union issued a decree transferring the Crimean Oblast from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian SSR. According to the Soviet Constitution (article 18), the borders of a republic within the Soviet Union could not be re-drawn without the agreement of the republic in question. The transfer was approved by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union; however, according to article 33 of the constitution, the Presidium did not have the authority to do so. The constitutional change (articles 22 and 23) to accommodate the transfer was made several days after the decree issued by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.[1]
Crimea wanted to become autonomous in 1991. In a 1991 Referendum, 94% of voters wanted to become independent from Ukraine. In 1992 Crimea wanted more independence. They wanted to hold a referendum about this, but Ukraine denied them this right.
Crimea again tried to hold an independence referendum in 1994, Ukraine declared it illegal, but they went ahead anyway. The results, 1.3 million voted, 78.4% of whom supported greater autonomy from Ukraine, 82.8% supported allowing dual Russian-Ukrainian citizenship, and 77.9% favored giving Crimean presidential decrees the force of law. the Rossiya bloc gets 72.92% of the vote. For people that don’t know, the Russian bloc is a party that “associates itself with the Russian Federation and employs the Russian tricolor. It promotes the idea of united, Pan-East-Slavic state”.
In 1995 the Ukraine parliament voted to cancel the constitution and effectively eliminate the presidency, which was held by Yuri Meshkov, about 200 Ukrainian Interior Ministry troops arrived in Simferopol, the Crimean capital, and disarmed Mr. Meshkov’s security men.
And more recently a poll done by PEW global: “91% of Crimeans say the March 16th referendum was free and fair” http://humanrightsinvestigations.org/2014/05/12/pew-poll-crimeans-happy-with-annexation-by-russia-believe-referendum-was-free-and-fair/
The Crimeans had their referendums a few times already Craig, but they were put down, and they lost their president at the point of a gun. Stop worrying yourself about them it’s all so unnecessary.
Is the USS Donald Cook still in the Black Sea?
Thanks Craig
You are really having difficulty with this one Rolling. Russians invaded and illegally annexed Crimea. What about that is so hard for you to understand? In terms of international law and their own agreement with Ukraine, it was illegal. If the Russian government was concerned about what people really wanted, they would have allowed a free and fair referendum in Chechnya instead of fighting two wars killing 75,000-125,000 civilians. Russia’s annexation had nothing to do with concern for the Crimean population. It was the Naval base they feared losing.
The US liberated the Kurds and Shia from minority Sunni rule under the brutal Saddam Hussein (without annexing anything). How do you feel about that issue? Did you support the liberation?
Sorry Craig. You may be digressing somewhat as we are discussing Crimea. The Chechen wars are a totally different topic. Indeed the two Chechen wars are two entirely different events, it’s a bit ‘lazy’ to link them, but you are very lazy Craig. As for the Kurds, Shia, Sunni, Saddam Hussein…I’m thinking of Boko Haram today, so I can’t answer. Maybe another day.
True, the Chechen wars are a completely different topic, but they have one thing in common with Crimea – seceding. In one case you are saying the Russians allowed a “free and fair” referendum. In the other (Chechnya), the Russians did not allow a free and fair referendum, but crushed them instead killing tens of thousands. So Crimea was not about “free and fair”. It was about annexation because of their Naval base. Had the local population resisted, they would have faced the same fate as the Chechens.
Regardless of that, the annexation was illegal – as was the invasion (and the killing of the 5000(+) people to date). These people are dead because ordinary Ukrainians ousted the Russian puppet and chose to have closer economic and political ties with Europe. What a shock after decades of domination by the Soviets.
“The US liberated the Kurds and Shia from minority Sunni rule under the brutal Saddam Hussein (without annexing anything). How do you feel about that issue? Did you support the liberation?”
I support the liberation of everybody Craig. For example the Yazidis, who you have not mentioned for quite a while. By peaceful means. I think the liberation of the Crimeans from Ukraine is a shining example of this. See, the Russians did not pound Crimea for a few months with aerial bombing etc. Their infrastructure is still intact. Most of the local Ukraine army supported the annexation and joined the Russians. Compared to your middle eastern examples, the liberation of Crimea was a most peaceful event. Probably less so than a typical day in the USA.
I would love to hear Benito Mussolini’s definition of International Law. I’m a bit sceptical of the thing myself
* Probably no less so than a typical day in the USA.
Last time I checked there is an ongoing war in eastern Ukraine supported by the same Russians with over 5000 people killed. The Yazidis were threatened with genocide by ISIS so I’m not sure how that compares to Ukraine(?).
Yes Craig, I was mistaken to compare the Yazidis to Crimea, if indeed I did. As far as I know, the Yazidis don’t fish. I’m not sure if Boko Haram fish too, they are close to Lake Chad, and may like fish and chips. It just helps to include some of your favourite groups to ensure you can make a silly comment.
Madeleine Albright stares remorselessly into the camera and, with casual indifference to the lives lost:
Lesley Stahl states: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright responds: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.
There must have been many fingers raised in defiance among those 500,000 dying children to justify those deaths with an easy conscience.
Or no conscience at all.
Spurred by Kitt’s Gandhi quote, I add this:
“That would be a good Idea” ~ Mahatma Gandhi (on being asked what he thought of modern civilisation)
Come in Roger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OysMNY1SBE
ah, just take him out back and put a bullet in his head. No loss to humanity
Unless, of course, you’re a David Patraeus or some other ‘In With The In Crowd’ hero. No need to prostrate yourself. After all, hasn’t “he suffered enough already?” (h/t: Dianne Feinstein) If you’re a David Patraeus you can laugh in the faces of “the little people,” as well as some even not so “little” on the power metric scale. All you have to do is stand up for as long as it takes a bull rider (8 seconds) to qualify for the prize money and say, ‘My bad. Sorry man.” And you’re done with it and can continue with raking in millions.
Petraeus, who admitted he provided the materials to his former mistress and biographer, will instead face a two-year probationary period. U.S. Magistrate Judge David Keesler also imposed a $100,000 fine — more than double the amount recommended by prosecutors — to reflect the “seriousness of the offense.”
Before the sentencing, Keesler asked Petraeus whether he wanted to address the court. The former CIA director apologized to “those closest to me and others, including this court, for the pain my actions have caused.” Washington Post
See:
Elite Intrigues: It’s Not About Sex, Stupid!
petras.lahaine.org/?p=1920
The former CIA director…
This epitomizes the pyramid structure inherent in both the justice system and the society as a whole – that those at the top realize increased benefits from a supposed shared society, and that they also realize deceased penalties for essentially (or even less) equivalent transgressions.
At the risk if suffering through yet another bout if inane questions from people that should (and have actually have proclaimed themselves) to have known better regarding the efficacy of various commentary and sundry talk-shows with regards to adding to the discussion on topics such as this, I’ll add John Stewart’s most recent comparison regarding the terrible imbalance of justice with regards to the educators in Atlanta’s public schools in relation to the consequences meted out to them when compared to those handed out the Wall Street moguls and bankers:
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/x4vg3f/fraud-city
It is hard to read that line and not get the feeling that we have fallen down some dystopic futuristic timeline. The American people have seen some real bullshit go down over the decades, but watching a director of the CIA get treated like some shopclerk who left a cash register open by mistake for leaking top secret information to his mistress …
What are we? France?
This is the same manipulative tactic used by Social Justice Warriors. Define someone entirely with a snapshot.
I will join the crowd and hate the boy when it can be proven to me thaat before he was born he consented to who he would become.
Meanwhile, Petraeus is sentenced.
If you call that a sentence….
rewarded.
Meanwhile: Israel sentences Palestinian teen Lina Khattab to 6 months in prison for protesting
http://pgs.altervista.org/pg/index.php/v-twitter/272-israel-sentences-palestinian-teen-lina-khattab-to-6-months-in-prison-for-protesting
The Israeli military takes the crime of protesting very seriously. And why shouldn’t they? Youth is no excuse, just as it is no excuse for murder among black American teenagers.
Imagine if you were surrounded by potential Dzokhar Tsarnaevs every time you went outside your house. There just isn’t a solution to this kind of problem. At least not one Thomas Friedman or Craig can think of.
The problem is that an argument between whether to kill him or lock him up for life is no longer about he’s done. If you believe it should go one way instead of the other, you won’t have any trouble finding cues that back up your view.
Remember how all cable news channels were up in arms over the Roling Stone magazine cover of the guy?
Well, guess who have been plastering the same/very similar images on our TV screens dozens of times every day for the last month?
Oops, with a slight tweak I’ve always thought this Gandhi quote was exactly correct:
I think it is the very rare human being convicted of a crime in America that is beyond redemption or rehabilitation. But we’ll never find out because America is a very long way from having a humanist viewpoint about “crime” and “punishment”.
For the infinitesimally small number that I believe, for one reason or another (biology or environment or some combination), cannot be redeemed or rehabilitated, a lifetime without parole but in a humane incarceration environment is the appropriate penalty or punishment. The death penalty on the other hand is a moral abomination, not because certain individuals haven’t “earned” it through their sometimes horrifically immoral actions, but because it puts us all in the position of then acting immorally, collectively, in the face of individual immorality. I’ve never been clear on how so many can believe collectively acting immorally in response to the immorality of the one makes a people better, safer or more moral.
You have not bothered to prove that punishing someone who has viciously, often with torture, murdered an innocent and blameless person. the vilest sort of immorality, is, itself, an immoral act. Looks like justice to me. The punishment of a crime is not a crime. Might as well claim that any act that causes unhappiness to a murderer is immoral, as though the acts the murderer committed are irrelevant. It is often claimed that life in prison could be considered a worse fate than death; ergo, sentencing a murderer to life in prison, by your logic, would also be immoral.
Despite the columnist’s assertions, Tsarnaev is not going to be executed for a vulgar gesture. He his going to be executed, I hope, for mass murder. However, he may have succeeded in creating the selfie by which he will, forevermore, be remembered.
The U.S. is an insanely blood thirsty country populated by millions of mass murderers and torturers, whining about one man who killed less than three dozen people. In my lifetime, the U.S. has butchered millions without remorse or a second thought.
I need provide no supporting links to substantiate that statement. (Your ignorance is your own problem.) I realize this does not pass muster in American Academe. So what. The shit pumped from these institutions do not merit the effort, time, and respect.
Speaking of respect… Have you ever overheard the way American – and British – investment bank employees (MBAs: not all, but most of those on the promotion track) talk about human beings while on the clock? Have you ever overheard the way belligerent, religious conservatives in Texas talk about human beings? I have. It is not pretty. But when you give them the finger after putting up with the bile for a few decades — in the most docile manner — be prepared for anything, up to and including physical torture.
Brave people like you can dish it out – in the form of hot white phosphorus, napalm, cluster bombs, DU, Agent Orange, 500 lb. bombs, coups, arming both sides of a conflict, and fuck knows what else you’ve fired at them… but are — as they themselves might put it – pussies when it comes to taking criticism. Or the bird.
John, what do you think your punishment should be? And do you think your lack of remorse should be factored into the severity of your punishment?
And you are being remembered for the selfies capturing the glee in torturers’ faces at Abu Ghraib.
The justice system is terrible and the incarceration rate insane. But the number one reason for the U.S. Incarceration rate is lawlessness and a huge percentage of our population being scum. As for the death penalty, when caught,bred handed, on video and multiple murders are committed, they should build scaffolds in the prison yard and hang ’em high.
Re: “… hardly evidence of some sociopathic lack of remorse but rather a predictable and very common sentiment on the part of those who are imprisoned.”
If this kid doesn’t accept that bombing the Boston Marathon, killing 3 people and maiming many dozen is a valid reason for him to have been imprisoned in the first place, then yeah, it may well be an indicator of sociopathy. Sociopaths generally don’t accept responsibility for what they do, and if they end up in jail, tend to view it as “unjust.” In this case the kid’s entire defense (i.e. that his brother somehow forced the poor little thing to bomb the Boston Marathon and that he’s actually guilty of no crime at all) is, at its core, sociopathic in nature.
Far from disproving the accusation that he’s a sociopath, everything his defense has done to date has actually supported that contention.
With a minor tweak I’ve always thought this Gandhi quote was 100% correct:
It’s a classic example of projection and willful blindness that the same people who would (and have) condemned other nations ‘justice system’ for using coercion and forms of torture to obtain ‘confessions’ support the American ‘justice system’ that uses coercion and forms of torture to obtain ‘confessions’ and attack those who document that.
I’m sincerely sorry that I mentioned the fact that you are disabled when I posted earlier, Mona. It was not my intent to draw attention to that, nor to imply anything.
I love this website — but am too often disgusted by it. That was my frame of mind when I posted — and if that’s led me to carelessly and callously hurt you, I am sorry.
Thank you texas. It actually didn’t hurt me (any number of people already know this about me), but I did take it as a measure of the kind of person who rails angrily at and about Glenn and me. That you do now see it was not appropriate is to your credit.
If I could buy you a drink, I would. Thank you for accepting my apology.
Why is it always so important for the state to pursue the death penalty? Why does no one ever see the logic that a lifetime of horrible, dehumanizing, isolating, boring, humiliating and mind-fucking imprisonment is a MUCH more suitable and, yes, PAINFUL punishment than death? Death is brrrzzzz….you’re dead. Whoopee. Life imprisonment is a big YOU’RE OUR BITCH NOW SUFFER day after day after day after day seemingly forever. Now which would you choose? You THINK prison. But you would change your mind.
The Chicago teen recently arrested for trying to join ISIS, is facing a 15 year sentence.What Tsarnaev actually did I hope would garner him nothing less than the death penalty. I know there are some that want to ‘ rehabilitate ‘ him so he can be a productive part of society. Since terrorists have no conscience, we shouldn’t either. Strap him in ,turn on the juice, go to lunch!
Fed. R. of Evid. 403:
From ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 3.8, special responsibilities of a prosecutor:
For whatever it’s worth. Loretta Lynch, call your office.
Even in that legalese language, it could not be made more clear that the prosecutor’s actions in this instance shatter every expectation of “Rules of Professional Conduct.”
No, maybe not under the Model Rules, but Rule 403 on evidence should at least have been in a defense motion.
And likely ‘over ruled’ by judge? or am I way off again (some similar ‘ruling’). Thanks for your input BTY.
My only other junior question would be when the case is over can these things be scrutinised.. appeal process?… sorry.
Probably overruled, but the defense attorney can at least try, and not just sit there. If nothing else, it would have come up during the appeal.
Nothing in there about making the rubble bounce.
As the ‘penalty phase’ is relatively short compared to trial… I think waiting a day or so for the jury to find out the prosecution were ‘over egging’ ..by showing photo ‘out of context’ is good for the defence … as they ‘destroy’ what has taken the prosecution a day to establish and discredit the ‘evidence’ of no remorse.
However is the evidence ‘shared’ by the defence and prosecution prior to this phase? I.e the defence knows what will be used in ‘evidence’..?
Did they attempt to object?
My point is are the defence team at all to blame here? Could they have submitted the Video footage at an earlier stage in the trial for instance… was it available?
Thorazine:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/03/05/bost-m05.html
wsws.org/en/articles/2014/04/15/bomb-a15.html
Thank you..
I really don’t care about Tsarnaev’s finger, but apparently the author cares deeply about it. What a long, strange, commentary.
DAMN, this site pisses me off! It’s so F-ing predictable!!
• Glenn’s brilliant mind, crippled by existential guilt, drives his him to write articles that are thought-provoking in their premises, but will never have societal impact because he can’t mask his arrogance.
• Readers (common folk) try to help Glenn see that he might be missing the trees for the forest.
• Called out, Glenn counters, obfuscates, justifies or ignores.
• On those rare occasions he engages, he does so briefly – then escapes – and turns the debate over to his attack dog Mona to “explain.”
• In the background, Benito Mussolini predictably tosses in his always-entertaining but ultimately useless satirical tripe.
I predicted a couple months ago that this site will be gone in a year. That’s why.
YAWN ….
Meanwhile, Glenn: I hope you’re paying your unemployed, disabled friend Mona well – and I hope for her sake that your contract with her is based on volume and message-alignment, rather than performance and effectiveness. Because brother: When you need it most, she’s weak. Your arrogance requires better.
And btw — the total lameness of this commenting tool says more about this website’s potential than anything you or anyone else pens.
You are a small and mean-spirited man. Is it really necessary to use my disability status as a rhetorical weapon in an extended ad hominem directed at both Glenn and myself?
Oh, please. I only know that because you brought it up to explain how you spend all day here. It’s a fact; not a judgement or criticism.
I don’t care if you’re an Olympic athlete. You withdraw more than you deposit on Glenn’s behalf.
It’s a wholly gratuitous invocation of my disability status, which I disclosed only to explain to a good faith inquirer why I had so much time to be online. There is no good faith reason for you to include that information in a very nasty piece of extended vitriol.
So substantively, you agree. Got it. Awareness is curative.
What?
I can imagine the encrypted message between two old friends that generally agree but not on everything:
“Dear mona please protect me from the one known as texas.” ~ GG
Bellow the belt… Some of my available time is due to a disability (thus the name)
Fix up.
It’s a fact; not a judgement or criticism – texas
That’s bullshit, plain & simple. One would think that being named after the ‘great state’ you’d know bullshit when it comes flying out of your mouth. On the other hand, you certainly deposit more bullshit here on your own behalf, as evidenced by your yawning and pointless diatribe above.
“Next time I come here,” he said to himself, “I must either bring sweets with me to make them like me or a stick to hit them with.” – Franz Kafka, The Trial
“…….That’s bullshit, plain & simple. One would think that being named after the ‘great state’ you’d know bullshit when it comes flying out of your mouth. On the other hand, you certainly deposit more bullshit here on your own behalf, as evidenced by your yawning and pointless diatribe above…..”
Hell of a rebuttal. No one can hope to debate with you, sillyputty. Jesus, You are good.
Hell of a rebuttal. – CraigSummers
Thanks.
Getting bad?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLiJAX-MXcM
1-800-438-4357 (1-800-GET-HELP)
Yes, well, you also “predicted” that I could not show you even one example of me disagreeing with Glenn. Whereupon, I linked you to two recent threads containing dozens of comments in which Glenn and I vehemently disagree.
You might want to avoid gambling, for you’d risk losing your shirt.
I challenged; I didn’t predict. Duh.
You shared your examples. I acknowledged them. I also stated the obvious: Those are rare exceptions. YOU didn’t challenge that.
Dead horse, Mona.
But again — this site is PREDICTABLE! And when that happens, watch out. Care to address that?
Kissin’ cousins, You were very sure I could not produce even one such example; I provided dozens.
It’s this really odd thing, but political people who become close friends, and who co-found a law firm that will include cases taken for political reasons, such people tend to be in significant agreement.
It is also the case, that 2 strong-willed people with passionately held views are going to on occasion disagree, and sometimes strenuously so.
So, what I’m saying is, Glenn and I have a healthy friendship: We are in broad, fundamental agreement, yet on infrequent but significant occasions we strongly disagree. Ain’t nothing wrong with that situation.
Does this site piss you off as much or more than the establishment does?
Until it does (which admittedly may happen one day), personally, I’ll defend it as a rare source of important insights.
Bringing up Mona’s disability is very low, by the way, and the cruelty of using it to disgrace her it makes me think you’re very angry about this issue – and your honest views on the subject would be more productive here than this sublimation. I don’t agree with Mona on everything, and she often does seem to function as an ‘attack dog’ for Glenn – presumably because she has the time, intelligence and inclination to do so (I doubt strongly she is being paid, outside the possibility she is one of the infinitely patient moderators, which may be the case) – but one should admit how incisive and brilliant her mind can be if sincerely assessing her input.
If By Mona™
H/T SP (the ‘unique’? from memory h/t cindy)
http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/index.php/logical-fallacies/108-if-by-whiskey
“You are a lost cause Mona. The sad thing is that you are supported by people on this site who provides you protection – including the biggest hypocrite on this site – sillywillyputty. Greenwald is a far left winger to say the least – as you are.” ~ CS
Being far left wing can be a handicap too I suppose..
Ça Ira ;)
Ah… of course you’re taglines for all, trademarked by noone guy.
I knew you would say that.
Mussolini Finds Out Hitler Has Parody Videos
//////// H/T Dearest Summersi ///////// “Mussolini was great, No?” ~ CS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y3eNzF9Y2w
He deserves the death penalty. Has his older dead brother become a martyr? Of course not. Neither will he. Erase him.
While it’s way too difficult to defind someone who is responsible for the killing and maiming of innocent people, we still need to address the question of why there are 50,000 mostly men on death row in this country? Why are jails and prisons the solutions used for drug use and other nonviolent crimes? And why do people think that locking people up will improve their behavior or greatly reduce crime? Prisons are a reflection of a poorly developed society. Just because this country has nice houses and lots of stores and gadgets, doesn’t mean it’s a socially developed society. Something is terribly wrong with this country, and we need stop thinking locking people up makes things better and saver.
Anders Breivik who killed 77 people in a terrorist attack was given a sentence of 21 years. Most Norwegians, including parents of some of the murdered children, thought it was a just sentence. http://www.businessinsider.com/why-norways-prison-system-is-so-successful-2014-12
From the article:
And, do you want safer society at less expense, or does your craving for imposing suffering on the bad people trump all other considerations?
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-norways-prison-system-is-so-successful-2014-12#ixzz3YC31tRSd
Precisely. And so if they’re not ever going back to society … who gives a shit? Might as well use them for easy political gain.
We’re about a half-step beyond whipping slaves in the town square.
The Norwegians are a lot more sensible than we are over here about this and a few other things, but they’re not that nice — the “21-year sentence” is actually prone to review and continuation after 21 years if the prisoner is still judged dangerous, which Breivik pretty much undoubtedly will be. But their conditions are still not so brutal – they don’t have to be, because their country isn’t so cruel to its poor that the prisons have to be made unliveable in order not to look like a favorable alternative to poverty.
What a moronic thesis for this column. The individual in question does not deserve any sympathy or handwringing and the sooner he is put out of our misery the better. His was a particularly heinous and depraved offense against humanity at large and an unbearably cruel attack against the innocent victims.
I agree our penal code and justice system is excessive and needs drastic reform but none of this applies to this mass murdering monster.
Dzhokhar was just 19 when he followed his elder brother in this hideous plot to plant bombs at the Boston Marathon. How many of us have done things we regretted at that age? I did. The executive desicion making part of his brain was not fully developed at that time, which leads many at this age to drive while drunk, steal, do drugs, etc. I agree that this was a heinous act. But I think that Dzhokhar should be allowed to live to regret what he did and learn that true Islam preaches peace. Believe me, punishment will be ample if he is incarcerated for the rest of his life.
It’s admirable that you want to defend people that are the lowest of the low on the totem pole, who no one else wants to defend. That said, I am confused by your confusion on this one. Yes, it is more sympathetic when someone murders people and feels remorse than when they murder people and feel no remorse. I’m not sure where the debate is on that? If you want to say it should have no impact on his sentence, fine, that’s a legal matter and maybe that’s true. But at a psychological level, we’ve long differentiated criminals by motivation and internal state and that kind of thing. Heat of the moment vs. premeditated, for example.
As to the state wanting people to be ‘submissive’ – that argument is a pretty tough sell when you’re talking about someone who murdered multiple people on purpose, with pre-planning. Showing a photo of teenage kid arrested on drug charges, striking a tough pose to impress his friends – that’s one thing. Pointing out that people are offended when someone involved in a terrorist bombing is seen flipping off security cameras in jail – I mean, what would an appropriate attitude be? Telling him “Yeah, rock on, down with the man, dude”? Like I said, he didn’t spray paint a swear word on his local 7-11, he maimed hundreds of people and killed three. Again – whether or not that should have any legal impact is a question I will defer to lawyers, but noticing that people have a problem with this and wondering if thats authoritarian – to me, at least – is like saying, hey, have you noticed that people get mad when you punch them in the face? Maybe this is a sign that we have severe anger management problems in our society. If this is some symptom of authoritarian thinking apparently I’m already too far gone to see your perspective on this one, because it doesn’t make any sense to me.
The one thing I will say is that the context of this video has been somewhat misrepresented. Granted, he still knew he was making this gesture at a security camera, but that decision might mean he’s functionally (I don’t like insulting even mass murderers by saying ‘innately’) dumber than a bag of hair, vs. defiant and angry. I don’t know much about him or this case so that’s entirely possible.
Have you seen any of the three death certificates? Has any member of the press? In footage of the event, a PA announcement can be clearly heard repeating over and over that a “test” is about to take place. The “bomb” is clearly a large “flash-bang”, all noise and smoke, and no blast.
“Medical” workers can be seen in photos to have poured out large quantities of a bright red liquid, which is nowhere near the color of real blood. The man who allegedly had both legs blown off was known to be a double amputee; this event was clearly disaster theater.
Well said, Nic.
Thanks Brooklyn.
Glenn Greenwald 23 April 15 at 7:28 pm
Nic: *Lather-Rinse-Repeat*
As is so often the case with you, you rambled on with an overly long comment and clearly did not even understand the point of the article that you read. At All. You never came close to addressing what Glenn actually wrote about. It’s weird reading your strange concoctions of fantasy.
As is so often the case with fangirls here, you managed to formulate a response that is all insult and no substance in terms of counterpoints; mirroring some of the interesting and quirky language that GG uses but without the corresponding insight, logic, and presentation of an interesting argument. This pisses me off because it’s like picking up what looks like a delicious glass of soda only to realize after you taste it that it’s RC, which is like half flat tap water and half preservatives and food coloring with a smidge of cola in there somewhere.
I don’t mean you personally, I’m sure you can do better. I mean the comment.
It would be superfluous for Kitt to address any of your points, because he is exactly correct: you did not address what Glenn’s actual arguments are. Indeed, it isn’t clear you understood the column.
Okaaaaaaay. I tried, but after posting under a couple of articles, I get nothing but the same round of cheerleaders going “You didn’t get it! You totally didn’t understand or address Master Glenn’s Big Beautiful Point That We All Love SO Much!”. Without, you know, elaborating on that in any way, stating what the supposed point that you all totally got but I didn’t even is, or addressing anything I said.
I’m sorry, but I can’t even. I understand what people mean about Glennbots now. I need another break. Have fun licking Glenn’s Point while I’m gone, y’all.
@Nic
I have read some articles by Mr. Greenwald, but not understood them. I have understood others, but not read them. I have never yet both read and understood one of his articles. So don’t feel bad.
Of course you haven’t! Only the Glennbots are qualified to interpret Glenn’s Divine Word and distribute it to the common rubes. I just wish they had a second, lower-tier comments section for people like me, the equivalent of a humble stable, if you will, where I could eagerly await his special devotees passing down of his wisdom in simple parables and pictures that I am almost capable of understanding. Perhaps I could confess to them if I erred and misunderstood Glenn’s Word in my sinful ignorance as well. The human ego is vile and prideful and prone to thinking it can interpret Glenn’s Word independently, without the intercession of an Ordained Commenter, but this of course is just Satan whispering in the mind.
I’m sorry, I said I was going, I’m going. I need to go fast and pray that I can better understand The Word, after all.
I think you may have missed Glenn’s point. He is arguing that defiance to authority is seen as the greater crime. You acknowledge that his act was pre-planned. Any remorse would be vacuous and pointless. His act is simply too heinous for any sort of remorse to have any moral meaning. Glenn’s point is that our society demands total submission to punishment to be partially redeemed, which in itself, is morally valueless, but serves to reward submission. The seriousness of his crime is separate from the submission issue. Also, this underlying principal of submission is used to demand confessions and influences punishment and prosecution in general.
I know your last paragraph was probably a side note, but the kid’s intention in making the gesture doesn’t matter in the context of Glenn’s argument, it’s how the image was used as a final nail in the coffin.
The real issue here is the our high rate of incarceration – mostly by young, black males – for minor economic crimes such as selling small quantities of drugs. The sooner we realize that drugs should be legalized and regulated, the better. The case of Dzhokhar Tsanaev is easy compared to the real problems we face. Hence the inordinate coverage by the mindless mass media.
No, Charles. That’s not the issue here at all.
Not that black incarceration rates and drug legalization aren’t ISSUES. They are.
But no.
I grew up thinking that America was fair…LOL, o.k. so I was wrong. What bothers me about this was that the prosecutor used video from when the guy was first arrested and used it in the penalty phase.
So did the prosecutor not think there was a real case and she had to use this video? Just this one part could be used and not the whole thing? So, the prosecutor thought that she needed this to get a death penalty?
Oh wait, This is Boston–right , this is where the prosecutors will go after arrested people with intent to kill those people.
. Yeah- Boston-yeah I remember that. The Boston prosecutors drove Aaron Schwartz to suicide——-Boston, yeah same creepy court tactics. Those tactics should be on trial too.
This writer failed to mention the cold blooded execution of MIT Officer Sean Collier at the hands of this animal and his brother. That set the tone for the rest of this unbearably ignorant screed.
Great points in this well-written article.
“To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed. It means putting oneself into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge — and, therefore, like power. . . . Photographs furnish evidence. Something we hear about, but doubt, seems proven when we’re shown a photograph of it. In one version of its utility, the camera record incriminates. Starting with their use by the Paris police in the murderous roundup of Communards in June 1871, photographs became a useful tool of modern states in the surveillance and control of their increasingly mobile populations. In another version of its utility, the camera record justifies. A photograph passes for incontrovertible proof that a given thing happened. The picture may distort; but there is always a presumption that something exists, or did exist, which is like what’s in the picture.” — Susan Sontag, “On Photography” 1977
I also think this photo of Tsarnaev looks like a “selfie” and in our social media dominated culture, probably conveys a false sense of endorsement of its proliferation by the subject.
While valid points of critical moral reflection are insightfully presented herein from good Mr. Greenwald, the overriding implication is that Dzhokhar as matter of unassailable fact, is actually guilty as charged. It seems we’re, too, being quickly ushered along to the sentencing phase with the restive TV incensed mob ranting rage at an unrepentant immigrant, child maiming and murdering, most evil son of a finger flipping bitch.
The sooner that Dzhokhar is put down, the sooner the righteous indignation is exhausted. Such a strangely recurrent burden for decent, tax paying civil Americans to bear. It certainly appears that there’s nothing else to question to uncover or reveal anything relevant about conflicting physical evidence, chronology, contradicting circumstances and statements or disappeared and/or murdered persons of interest as witness.
It must be mere coincidence that the same intelligence and police entities converge here, even with newly rebranded ‘security’ mercenaries, controversially for a certainty, and inexplicably involved in similarly conflicted and conflated events clearly identified post Oklahoma City bombing, WTC truck bombing, 911 WTC tower bombings? All with media ignored material contradictions and talking-point spin controls meeting classic criteria of cointel psyops everywhere.
So, seems we’ve learned nothing new of how to look through media phantoms to see when deception’s staring right at us, always next to the parade of ceremonial authority, solemn uniformed propagandists, fast talking spin doctors and their gloss-graphics reinforced mass media apologists with nothing so scripted relevant to cogently ask about the mass of glaring inconsistencies, stumbled misrepresentations, demonizing characterizations all in easily seen infrastructure of Homeland fantasy crisis production?
Just how gullible, indifferent or complicit is the mind-controlled populace of our American dreamland? Take a good look around here at what purports to be clear and critical views of what actually needs to be known. Our consciousness once again and so painfully ironical here, no less, being intercepted, diverted and driven too far from approaching even basic understanding of exactly what this nation, our culture, is truly up against in this gross Orwellian repetition of orchestrated malevolence of shock and awe.
I read somewhere recently that if Tsarnaev gets life instead of the death penalty he will spend 23 hours a day in solitary confinement for the rest of his life. This would be too much mercy according to those who are seeking the death penalty for him. Then of course there are those who are above it all. At his sentencing today Petraeus said he wanted to “continue to serve this great country.”
He has to die. His death will make him a martyr. As a martyr he will be used to insight more violence. More violence equals more military intervention. More military intervention equals more war machines being produced. More war machines means more money for universities and companies that produce war machines. More money for universities and companies that manufacture war machines means hope and financial security for america. This article reminds me of a great quote. Let him who is without sin, cast the first stone.-Jesus Christ
Worry not, most rational Americans wanted this sub-human piece of trash to be executed long before we saw the “bird” photo.
“The idea seems to be: it’s one thing to commit premeditated mass murder. But flipping the bird? That is beyond the pale. Off to the electric chair!”
It’s more than that. The crux of the defense’s case has been that Dzhokhar was bullied into committing the attacks by his domineering older brother, and that he did not share his brother’s viciousness or callousness.
If Dzhokhar were to display defiance and anger weeks after the attack (when his brother is dead and gone), that would rebut the defense’s case. As you point out though, the video makes the gesture seem more banal than the still photo does.
The media in this country whatever narrative sells airtime. The more extreme and un-nuanced the more lucrative the airtime spent on it. If nuance was a cash cow, we’d have subtlety up the yin yang. The other thing is that on one level thus was just a prosecutorial ploy to present its case in the most convincing way. The usual. But in terms of remorse, although the sources you cite are convincing, everything in life is not cynical power play politics. Remorselessness (which is not on display here) is frightening. From a murderer or an innocent child when he/she does something hurtful to someone. It disconnects the perpetrator from all sorts of emotional and behavioral consenses that bind people together…empathy being one of those. When one is remorseful for a hurtful act, they renter the realm that most of us occupy and to a great extent cherish…even depend on. I think that’s as valid an aspect of the debate about remorse as any. In my humble unsourced opinion :)
Parasite!..No not the murderer, who is sick..but Greenwald for filtering around people’s garbage bins searching for history changing revelations making himself half the story. BTW it is clear this monster has no conscience…and all this “wouldn’t you be bored, waiting in a cell” presupposes we would be capable landing there via this crime.
Two, okay, three, highly recommended books:
Deepa Kumar’s Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire (2012)
Frank Furedi’s New Ideology of Imperialism (1994)
John Pilger’s The New Rulers Of The World (2003)
To the poorly informed commenters who’ve ingested the ruling class’ Islamophobia and lies about US policy…
Understand that the media and US officials have poisoned your minds and manipulated you. Washington and London are not at war with “radical Islam” or “Islamic terrorism”. Washington and London have fueled right wing terrorism that is falsely associated with and branded with Islam.
The Anglo-American imperial policymakers have collaborated with and continue to support terrorist groups and dictatorships, and carry out covert operations that injure and hurt innocent people here and abroad.
Saudi Arabia, 9/11 and the “war on terror”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/02/06/pers-f06.html
Hard to tell…but I don’t see a scar on his throat…just saying…
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/29/us/boston-bomber-hospital-arrival/
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/bomb-suspect-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-throat-injury-self-inflicted-article-1.1323323
To anyone at the Intercept who chooses to answer.
DO you ever wonder if the gov’t has a person/s monitoring this site or commenting on it–or following the commenters? Are readers more at risk to their data being mined?
Just curious
I stopped wondering… It was a weight off my mind.
H/T CheWilhelmina to whom I have to thank for stopping ‘me’ wondering….
….although this guy just followed me on twitter LOL :
[Redacted] fmr. Central Intelligence Agency officer; Insurgencies: foreign and domestic
Irrelevant question for those who offended the U.S.’ Warrior Cult in early 2003, as they prepared to demolish a society which had absolutely nothing to do with the WTC attacks.
There but for the grace of God go I. My brother was involved in the Weathermen and I worshiped the ground he walked on.
As much as I believe this guy is a dirt bag who deserves life in prison (I do not believe in the death penalty – a conversation for another time), I did not appreciate the prosecution parading this picture out. Why? Because I have no idea why he was giving the middle finger. i certainly didn’t think he was giving it to “America”. I figured it was probably directed toward his jailers or something else. It felt manipulative for them to show this to jury as proof that he is unrepentant. I don’t know when that image was taken, what the circumstances were. Nothing.
While it’s possibly not alright for this image to be made public (I mean I’m glad I saw it but it is upsetting to family’s etc & war on terror mongering)…
Could you make the argument that if it had stayed inside the court room and not been banded around as such (incorrectly without footage etc) that that would lessen the outrage (not public outrage at lack of remorse but outrage for the court proceedings in question)?
Are a jury ever totally un aware of the ‘mood’ in the country on a huge case like this i.e have no idea of media coverage etc…?
Admissible evidence is often put forward first by prosecution no? (Legal dummy) so that the defence (some time afterwards) would then submit theirs: in this case the video. So that legally this aspect of the argument would involve the defence (if they were allowed) butting in to say: “this is misleading without the video”…
That would be logical to me.
So the fact that the prosecution were allowed to show it without video (out of context) is irrelevant if the defence have to wait to give their case (instead of screaming objection…. isn’t that how it goes?)
WG
Sorry the first two words of the article answer my question “Penalty Phase”… and others comments I now realise. Nothing to see here.
“My policy for retaining credibility is two-fold: 1. Refrain from making controversial or obscure claims where I don’t have support for them, and 2. When the fair evidence shows I’ve erred, I admit it. In order to adhere to #1 I must be reasonably well-informed on a topic or issue, and if I’m not, I don’t opine on it.” ~ mona
Good advice.. I was trying to talk myself out of using the word ‘irrelevant’ in summing up but failed.
Cheers ;)
Its not just that he’s extending his middle finger its that he dares to shiw any kind of contempt after he WILLINGLY and KNOWINGLY place a bomb next to CHILDREN killing one and maiming others. This gesture was done a mere 3 months after he helped murder people. This is him giving the American people the finger.
FBI’s ‘Smoking Gun’ Video of Boston Marathon Bombing Doesn’t Exist
http://whowhatwhy.org/2015/03/03/fbis-smoking-gun-video-boston-marathon-bombing-doesnt-exist/
Just like the 7/7 Bombings in UK as well.
Preposterous. He was a teen male locked in a cell, with nothing to do. Hew could have been riddled with remorse and regret, and still been going out of his mind with the boredom and control that is a purposeful part of the incarceration experience.
The notion that he thought all of America was going to see him making screwy faces, using the camera as if it were a mirror etc. is just silly, and utterly baseless.
So, as it would be in his native country, just take him out and behead him as they do to others who have opposing views. No we are a more civized country we at least give him a trial where he can defend his actions.
His “native country” is Chechnya. Do they just take people out and behead them there for having opposing veins? And do they not have trials there?
No. In Chechnya, which is part of Derkaderkistan, the village elders surround the accused man and should “Boogaboogabooga” at him until he either dies of shame, in which case he was innocent, or he gives them the finger, in which case he was guilty, so they turn him over to the Americans for rendering to Egypt.
V.Good! Extreme out loud laughter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZToMgkptAI
That would go over well for the next Super Bowl.
Yes… and forgot the H/T to you at my CS study effort.. I wont quote you but you said something like he was “easy to confuse… or … so stupid that if you quote his own posts back at him he becomes confused” (from memory)
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/17/ramstein/#comment-124849
In fact he said the greatest thing in response (initially): Thanks
Hah!
A monumental effort on your part, to rival the Pyramids perhaps.
Oh, come on. Who HASN’T flipped off a surveillance camera? For me it’s almost a matter of principle.
Remorse is essential.
The State grants itself the right to kill people and must maintain its legitimacy in the eyes of the general public. To achieve this, the condemned must accept the verdict and acknowledge their wrongdoing. If they profess their innocence, demonstrate a lack of remorse, or even just question the severity of their punishment, they are directly challenging the legitimacy of the State. If that is tolerated, others may follow suit.
The harsher the punishment, the more legitimacy it confers, since it demonstrates both the enormity of the crime and fulfills the need for katharsis. So every society inflicts the harshest punishment it can, the only limit being what level of cruelty its citizens can tolerate. Some countries are more squeamish than others.
In fact, States which don’t exercise their right to kill people, eventually lose that right. It is then just a matter of time before they cease to exist altogether, and their peoples are absorbed by some new, more vigorous state.
So are you saying the State should pull his finger?
So are you saying the State should pull his finger?
What? And give him a chance to fart in their general direction?
The horror…..
What? And give him a chance to fart in their general direction? – Pedinska
It’s a small world when Monty Python-esque retorts are the ‘holy-grail’ of comment board conversation, especially on the same day.
After someone wondered about the availability of a DVD copy of the Python classic on our local “buy/sell” page this morning, it soon degenerated into dozens of such repartee’s – amazingly all in context.
“We are but simple travelers who seek the enchanter who lives beyond these woods…”
“Wilhelminaaaa!….”
He’s guilty of 30 counts of murder and terrorism. I give a shit what finger he uses.
We train young men to drop fire on people
but their commanders won’t allow them
to write “fuck” on their airplanes
because it’s obscene.
I don’t care about the raised finger. I care about the bombing victims.
Hang him high so all can see. We should be doing it more often we have more than enough scumbags that are guilty and languish there while we pay for them. I have no sympathy nor mercy for the ones guilty of abhorrent crimes.
Hang him high so all can see. We should be doing it more often we have more than enough scumbags that are guilty and languish there while we pay for them.
http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42
Looks to me like he’s expressing a natural human reaction to being monitored.
Yep.
Exactly.
Yes. And to everyone who has made that gesture while looking into their computer or iPhone camera and thinking of the NSA, the photo they recorded will be presented at your sentencing hearing.
Which will be secret.
The question “How many fingers?” will take on new meaning.
Article is spot on. It is well written and provides ample historical and current sources to make its argument.
I personally think our prison system is sadistic in nature. What we as a society do not seem to understand that mental humiliation some time is worst then physical abuse. Calling somebody’s mother a whore is not like slapping somebody because former it is worst for most people. Punching somebody in the face or pulling ones pants in the market is not the same. If you look at the pictures from now infamouse Abu Garib Prision what you see is dead bodies piled up not living people. Because after that kind of humiliation a person dies inside. In western Society only person who seem to understand the concept of honor is a Klingon, a black-not-so-funny-looking-fictional-character from Star Trek with whom very few people can relate.
As i always said an independent inquiry is needed to investigate the whole fiasco that went around the Boston Bombing. What role FBI, and private security played in that event. What is the elder brother history with the FBI. Was it one of those sting operation or was it just a security exercise which went south. I am not raising a conspiracy theory but do not blame me if i do not trust a child molester to baby sit my kid. I have red enough Cry-Wolf stories to skeptic of the claims made by our government. These kind of stories stay on the media radar just to justify our crimes around the world. His one finger for most people is not only enough to justify his execution but also justify our action in Yaman. It may sound strange but you be amazed how people think unconsciously.
People acting undignified around executions (or their possibility) seem to be commonplace. Even some of the comments here: “Fry ‘im!” and the like. I’ve never quite understood it. Like clapping at verdicts. It seems to me out of place. When in the presence of such immense tragedy and horror, how can you express anything other than stunned silence? That’s how I feel anyway and I realize others are different. Still, it makes me uneasy, as if the gravity of the situation is not fully understood. Or is almost enjoyed. Anyway, as always Glenn, I admire your courage. To psychoanalyze America’s casual blood-lust is to invite the worst kinds of criticism. All the best to you.
Imagine the media uproar if Brian Williams had been taped giving everyone the finger…!
Martin Richard.
One thing that really mystifies me though is: if we have a death penalty, then why don’t we have a rape penalty? You see a pretty thing like Dzobar waggling that thick middle finger of his, you can’t help but think of ways to cure him of Islamic fundamentalism. Conversion therapy, anyone? Now some might say that a rape penalty is cruel and unusual, but how can it be worse than killing? We could even make it a voluntary choice – you get sentenced to death, but if you want a diversion program to get off of Death Row, you need merely request a transfer to Rape Row at any time. No one could accuse us of being cruel to prisoners then! And the constant stream of visitors to Rape Row would generate so much money for our new antiterror enforcement programs! (Not nearly as much as the video sales though!) I really don’t understand what we’re waiting for.
Could backfire:
He was wearing a mini skirt your honour…..we were sure he wanted to be raped and not killed
“slice him in 100 different places, pour acid into the wounds, periodically patch them up, and let him slowly bleed to death over weeks. Why should he be entitled to anything more merciful if he refuses to abase himself in the way that you crave?” ~ GG
Very good points indeed. Why is the “ultimate punishment” inflicted based on the flimsiest possible reasons? Middle fingers. Whether he “really believed” in Islamic radicalism. And of course, based on being male (the most important factor of all), and (possibly to his benefit) also with a heavy consideration of race. It’s as if someone saw a toddler playing with a pistol one day and decided it was such a good idea we should have one in every courtroom!
I don’t see why a picture like this should dictate whether he is executed or not. I think they were going to execute him anyways. I would have him executed even without the picture.
False Equivalency Reporting at its best.
Because all middle fingers are not equal?
I gotta say that I originally supported the death penalty for this terrible person. However upon reluctantly reading an article in beliefnet arguing against the death penalty, I changed my mind. Life in prison without a possibility of parole would be a far more unpleasant experience for this fellow and I am all for that. He thinks he is a martyr, I would not want him to have that privilige. Instead being confined to solitary confinement for years and decades, possibly being abused by prison guards, being kept away from other like-minded criminals. I’m thinking that would be a harsher punishment. No glorious martyrdom for this piece of scum.
“He thinks he is a martyr”
What makes you think that? Is he going around saying it? Is he agitating, slipping notes out and starting riots? Is he starting campaigns to get himself the death penalty? Have you ever even heard him say this even once? Did he write it in a prison journal you and only you have had the ability to read?
Why do you believe propaganda?
Whatever he did or didn’t do, he is going to wind up with the death penalty. The MAD (that’d be Boston’s federal district court acronym) unethically framing “evidence” about ANYBODY should be an outrage. The law exists to supposedly prevent lawlessness and encourage civility. It does’t exist to systematise it… And yet that is precisely what it us doing. Life is context.
Greenwald tweets about a different adolescent flipping people off:
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/591319060194926592
Court Says You Can Give Cops The Middle Finger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fkv-Gpfpkn8
Being a brit I shamefully admit that flipping the bird is not part of my vocabulary.. what a wonderful expression. ;)
The earliest recorded mention is a play “The Clouds”, written by the Greek Aristophanes in 423 B.C.
SOCRATES: Well, to begin with,
they’ll make you elegant in company—
and you’ll recognize the different rhythms,
the enoplian and the dactylic,
which is like a digit.
STREPSIADES: Like a digit!
By god, that’s something I do know!
SOCRATES: Then tell me.
STREPSIADES: When I was a lad a digit meant this!
[Strepsiades sticks his middle finger straight up under Socrates’ nose]
SOCRATES: You’re just a crude buffoon!
The war crimes alone are well noted and documented internationally.
Then there is that matter regarding misuse of power and authority granted by high public office to circumvent and violate multiple provisions of the Constitution with the creation of acts, laws, and executive orders. Otherwise known as treason.
Where is the arrest and the prosecuting attorney general in that case?
Sitting in hip-pocket of the “forward-looking” President who owes his allegiance to the same banking interests as his predecessor.
Both of them “flipping the bird” at the American people, all lifeforms on Earth, and the planet itself; while laughing at the scam they are perpetuating on behalf of their singular War Party International Banking Cartel masters.
How revolting is that picture to the self-righteous, morally elevated, media-stupefied and establishment technological human drones that ignore truth in favor of lies in the form of mass-media government propaganda?
Indeed, the Boy-Emperor may rebuke Us, but We may not rebuke the Boy-Emperor. So much worse, then, for this depraved Animal—a doomed murderer, a non-Roman, barely a citizen!—to raise a defiant digit to the People. For now he is proved utterly beyond rebuke, and Must be crucified for that act Alone.
What they should do is give him life. Then take out his eyes after all he took the sight of others. Take out a kidney, 1/2 liver, a lung, and any other part he does not have to have to survive after all he took that from others. Then set him in a room and let him think about what he did for the rest of eternity
Keep in mind that when you say, “What they should do…” You are being a coward. If you would like those things to be done to him, then it is you personally who should lobby for the opportunity to be the one to do it. After you’ve done all of that (unless of course you’re just talking shit and aren’t actually prepared to perform those horrors) ask yourself if you feel all macho about your actions and if you’ve accomplished anything positive for any human being on the planet due to your actions.
Sign me up. I may even wash my hands before hand. Then again maybe not.
As I said, sign yourself up, rather than, again, being a coward asking others to do it for you. If your desire is as you’ve described, then personally work on putting yourself in the position to make it happen. Otherwise you’re nothing but a bloviating coward on a comment board.
I had a lower than whale shit slim pus bag take my brother from me long ago. I was ready for the day he came out of prison but he killed to many to allowed out. When one plans and commits such things they become less than the devils testicle pimples. He does not deserve any life style. Even capital punishment but that would be second choice. So sign me up, I’ll even furnish the spoons and cutlery .
I volunteer!
Not my favorite Glenn Greenwald article. I understand the point he’s making, but I wish he hadn’t used a monster like Tsarnaev to make it.
That’s the whole fucking point, you moron. What is justice if it is set aside whenever a monster is encountered?
“Moron”? What is wrong with you today, Baldie?
see: http://www.salon.com/2012/05/08/a_vital_and_unlearned_lesson_from_julius_caesar/
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/03/the_we_are_at_war_mentality/
http://www.salon.com/2011/10/22/a_remaining_realm_of_american_excellence/
http://www.salon.com/2011/05/06/bin_laden_13/
Concur
Only the worst people in the world would flip off a camera.
http://love-it-loud.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Top-Ten-Johnny-Cash-Albums.jpg
You want that extra crispy? Fry the bastard. It’s more humane than he deserves.
Don’t worry, Abdul. You’re gonna ride the fucking handcart straight to hell, where 72 virgin pigs will ass fuck you for all eternity. May your first day last 10,000 years, and may it be the shortest!
“Abdul”? You have no idea what you’re talking about, and the tragedy is that there are millions of Americans who’ve been similarly brainwashed with Islamophobia.
Do you even know what the US and British governments have been doing, how Washington and London have fueled so-called Islamic terrorism, and why?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/al-qaeda-u-s-oil-companies-and-central-asia/762
Look:
theguardian.com/world/2003/sep/20/afghanistan.weekend7
Great job! Finally somebody decided to write a true. Justice in this country is a joke, and this flipping finger story is just laughable.
I am a great admirer, Glenn, but your advocacy and energy would better serve a more worthy subject then this warrior, murder, punk or pawn as the case my be.
And your segue from Judge Rakoff’s brilliant admonishment of the plea system in U.S. justice, when mixed up with Mr. Tsarnaev here, diminishes and distracts from Rakoff’s criticisms.
Liberty and Justice for ALL clearly has small print in your universe. Justice doesn’t equate to retaliation.
This guy isn’t Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning. Neither is he extrajudicially assassinated U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki or his young son.
Tsarnaev had his “liberty” and squandered it. He is about to get “justice” in on form or another consistent with United States law.
In what way has Tsarnaev been denied justice? What retaliation? From what “universe” are you viewing these events?
When a prosecutor presents evidence out of context? That is against the spirit of the law, and likely is illegal (if only there were anyone not with a conflict of interest with the power to do something about it that would). When a prosecutir not only presents evidence out of context, but does that post-conviction, in a sentencing phase, for pure propaganda purposes, and in doing so blatantly demonstrates a precedent that east coast federal courts, especially, are notorious for promulgating, that speaks to me of not only tainting the JUSTICE system but basically rendering NONE of it worthy of trust.
This isn’t even about him. Boston and NY are particularly “good” at parallel construction, incitement, illegal evidence collection, and stacked indictments, as well as framing such poisonous fruit in such way that people cannot get a fair trial (if they get that far; I mentioned stacked indictments; these make even innocent people fess up).
Are you suggesting he doesn’t deserve for the law to act ethically? Are you suggesting only people like you do? What if they decide they don’t like you, next?
Wow…in the world of fantasy in which the left lives can ANYONE ever commit a crime of such monstrosity that they deserve execution???
I can think of many people in power today(and yesterday) who have killed many many more than this guy,and are they in the dock?Hypocrisy,and a show trial of course.
Why did the USA let these obvious radicals into the the country in the first place?To tweak the bear?Why aren’t they held accountable?As with 9-11,another whitewash.
Glenn – It must be a long day inside of you head! …. Geeezzzz
I’m a frequent reader and an admirer of Greenwald’s work, but this is argument is far too much of a reach. Tsarnaev is not a “typical” teenager. He set a bomb off in a crowd of civilians, including small children, to murder and maim them. His “flipping the bird” gesture symbolizes to many of us, and probably especially to those of us in the Boston community, his heartlessness and lack of remorse. We interpret this gesture in the context of his specific crime, which was ruthless, cruel and violent. Most of us cannot fathom the horror we would feel had we killed and maimed so many. But he is bored? To most of us, that is the affect of a psychopath.
There are plenty of pathologies in how our society treats to crime and criminals. But the reaction to Tsarnaev in this instance is simple human emotion and disgust.
Poor people of Boston. They’ve been kept in the dark about what Uncle Sam is doing.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/03/31/tsar-m31.html
Judge limits evidence on role of main perpetrator
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/03/05/bost-m05.html
excerpt:
from “Tsarnaev found guilty on all counts in Boston bombing trial”
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/04/09/bost-a09.html
Thank you for this. I had wondered how this family of apparently aimless weirdos had ever managed to get visas to come to the States ( the entire family, from what I have read, was in dumb creepy trouble constantly). This would explain it.
And not necessarily justice. We are supposed to be a nation of laws and due process and not the hurt feelings of Bostonians.
Evidence in a trial shouldn’t be about what a gesture “symbolizes to many of us.” It needs to be about what facts it establishes. If the the best you can come up with to describe the photo is to talk about its symbolism and your emotional response to it, than that seems a good example of why it should have been excluded from the trial. And if you can’t fathom what you’d feel if you’d killed/maimed, than you are in no position to say you wouldn’t do exactly what he did (or some equivalent therein relative to your age/gender) while alone in a cell at one given moment months later.
I am a great admirer, Glenn, but your advocacy and energy should, in my opinion, serve a more worthy subject than this warrior, murderer, punk or pawn as the case may be.
That’s what I was told all those years during the Bush presidency when I opposing torture, GITMO, indefinite detention, rendition, Abu Ghraib, etc. etc. – why are you defending Terrorist monsters?
That’s what defense attorneys for criminals are told all the time as well.
When we object to abuse, we’re writing about ourselves and our own values, not expressing fondness for those who are subjected to it.
But in this case, I find this objection particularly confounding, since I wasn’t defending Tsarnaev at all (except from the suggestion that his sticking his middle finger up at a surveillance camera proves he’s a psychopathic monster. What I was doing here was writing about how we understand criminal justice and punishment.
I do understand and appreciate your intent.
But you are not Tsarnaev’s attorney, Glenn. For this reason, I feel your “values” (which I believe I share with you in most cases) are being displayed against a poorly chosen background.
You write that you were “told all those years during the Bush presidency when I [sic] opposing torture, GITMO, indefinite detention, rendition, Abu Ghraib, etc. etc. – why are you defending Terrorist monsters”. I’d like to suggest that there is at least one significant difference between the examples you listed above and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Mr. Tasrnaev was found guilty at trial and, it seems, was caught in the act. The tortured, the detained, the rendered you mention – even Anwar al-Awlaki and his son who you did not mention – were not, and it seems will never be, given recourse to anything remotely resembling Constitutionally sanctioned justice. All of those were and are worthy of your attention and efforts.
The prosecutions choice to use that photograph whether in or out of context may serve their cause of seeking death for Tsarnaev. But your choice to comment on that picayune “injustice” toward an morally indefensible (if eventually understandable) perpetrator of an act of extreme violence undermines your cause, and mine.
Why use Tsarnaev as a lead-off into your comments? It seems obvious that one of the reasons you chose him is that he and his middle finger were all over “mainstream media”. By one count, one out of every thirty-two Americans is incarcerated. Surely, from those millions, a better example could have been found.
It is precisely the cases which polarise that point out best how the average person allows their emotions to cloud their judgment. This article brilliantly points out that public outrage makes people into tyrants who not only do not stand behind their own forefathers’ ideas of equal treatment, but will adamantly argue against the misuse of propaganda, simply because an outcome is what they want to see.
The better question is why not use Tsarnaev? As you say, it’s a case (and an image from that case) that garnered a lot of attention, and the middle finger image is a really blatant example of dubious use of evidence by the govt and [much of] the media who lapped it up. If the govt is willing to do so in a case where so many people are watching, one wonders what they get up to when few are watching. And to use an image so blatantly in one’s opening statement and then again in trial in a death penalty context does not necessarily make it “picayune.” I think it’s also appropriate to focus on a death penalty case and a piece of (so-called) “evidence” from that case that clearly had no other purpose but to push jurors towards killing; the death penalty is the stench at the top of our justice system, spreading its funk down the line and sucking up resources as it goes. You claim that focusing on Tsarnaev hurts yours and Glenn’s cause, but I’d love to hear your substantiate that.
Thank you Glenn. Your reporting is by based on reality as opposed to bias and editors choice it seems. Rare in this age.
I think this fantastic article applies in many ways to the relationship between the police and the people.
Absolutely. Just look at how many people have been tasered for not displaying respect and obedience.
Contempt of cop. A taserable and even capital offense.
Contempt of F-15 pilot also requires commensurate punishment. Punching buttons from 30K feet is a dangerous job, far more so than being tortured at sea level.
And now you can have your neck broken for the crime of running away.
Felony fleeing, subject to immediate capital punishment.
What is the current punishment for the crime of making eye contact while being black?
Whatever it is, it escalates dramatially for each additional second that contact is maintained.
Defiance is not tolerated.
“Absolutely. Just look at how many people have been tasered for not displaying respect and obedience.” –GG
Speaking of which, see “Pennsylvania Lawmaker Wants To Make It Illegal To Taunt A Police Officer”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/23/dom-costa-taunting-police_n_7127652.html
Jesus.
It is interesting to contrast this aspect of the criminal justice system’s dealings with individuals versus the way plea deals are handled for corporations who not only do not have to admit guilt, but also do not have to abase themselves whatsoever for financial crimes on a scale that precipitates similarly egregious harm to their customers and/or the world economy.
For instance, take the manipulation of currency markets by Citibank, JPMorgan Chase Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC Bank And UBS:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/12/banks-fined-currency-probe_n_6143454.html
The banks involved were fined,
That is because the corporation is king, and the king derives his authority from God. Getting ride of kings backfired; they have been recreated in a way more fitting to our modern world, and the most important purpose of the justice system is to moderate inter-king behavior.
And Jamie Dimon continues to be permitted to giggle in Congressional hearings, and even gets a meeting with Warren.
And Jamie Dimon continues to be permitted to giggle in Congressional hearings,…
Yes, I found his self-satisfied smirking in those circumstances so fucking annoying that it was hard to hold down the schadenfreude on reading this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/01/jamie-dimon-throat-cancer_n_5549585.html
Ah. It won’t kill him though. It might humble him slightly.
I don’t think there is anything under the sun that would bring even the tiniest amount of humility to this man.
When the video was manipulated to convey the impression that Tsarnaev was refusing to play his role, it was anger at their own submissiveness that people directed at him.
This “person” and his brother made a bomb , placed it in a spot surrounded by a lot of people in hopes of killing as many as they can! The pic and the video which it came from shows no remorse that he isn’t concerned what his actions have done. I do not have compassion for this “person”! He does not deserve it!
The prosecutor knew exactly what they were doing when they showed the finger. Admissibility is now irrelevant because not only did this jury see it, millions of other potential jurors around Boston did too. He’s done, and simply because he was too stupid to mind his p’s and q’s before the end of trial. Good riddance to bad trash
“The criminal process demands — in exchange for tiny amounts of leniency (we’ll imprison you for life instead of killing you) — that the guilty party prostrate himself before the judicial authority, before all of us. He must condemn himself at least as much as he’s condemned by the court. He must declare his internal pain, his self-contempt, his complete and utter submission.”
Yes, absolutely. If you set off a bomb which kills 3 people, maims dozens for life, terrorizes a metro region, and then the day after, shoot an officer on your way to set off more bombs elsewhere, and then begin throwing bombs at police officers in the middle of a residential area, then, yes, you need to condemn yourself and your actions in the harshest possible terms in order to expect any sort of mercy from society.
This, of course, all begs the question of what the purpose is of criminal justice. I know Americans like you assume that there is only one answer: impose maximum suffering on Bad People. But that’s a minority view in the world, and throughout history, and very far from Gospel.
If you tacitly adopt this framework, then what you say makes sense. But the mentality on which it is based is at least as primitive and violent as the behavior you’re seeking to punish.
If you really believe what you said – that he’s not entitled to “any sort of mercy from society” – then you should favor executing him in the most painful and prolonged way possible: slice him in 100 different places, pour acid into the wounds, periodically patch them up, and let him slowly bleed to death over weeks. Why should he be entitled to anything more merciful if he refuses to abase himself in the way that you crave?
The criminal justice system is the enforcement mechanism of our society’s laws. Our constitution, which establishes the framework for our society, bars cruel and unusual punishment, and I fully support that. I also don’t support the death penalty, and I hate that they are seeking it, but I don’t make those decisions. The acts Tsarnaev committed were deliberate, not accidental. The consequences of those acts are not secret. He knew fully well would happen as a result, and he decided to set off the bomb. Why would there be any expectation of mercy without expressing full throated remorse?
Hey, American. Why should you expect mercy? Where is your remorse?
What did I do? If you are talking about what our country has done, then yes, absolutely, i feel remorseful about the many many crimes that have been committed in our name.
Steve, you posted a boatload of assertions that are non-responsive to Greenwald’s points and question.
He said:
Do you, in fact, believe that? If yes, then:
Well?
Perhaps i worded it wrong. He should not expect any mercy from society as it pertains to how we administrative justice.
Why? How is the way “we administer justice” moral? Why should inflicting massive suffering on a murderer be limited in any manner? Is there any moral argument for limiting it? Or is the goal of inflicting massive pain itself immoral?
This is a philosophical nuanced argument, and that’s probably why you didn’t get it. Why should remorse matter at all? Some might argue that he should get the same punishment regardless of remorse. This makes perfect sense if you consider that remorse is easily faked. The nature of the crime and the damage done is not changed by remorse. Furthermore, the expectation of remorse elicits false confessions, as the article explains.
Boston MIT Cop Cover-Up
http://whowhatwhy.org/2013/05/23/officer-collier-shooting-rosebud-moment-of-the-boston-bombing/
“Yes, absolutely. If you set off a bomb which kills 3 people, maims dozens for life, terrorizes a metro region, and then the day after, shoot an officer on your way to set off more bombs elsewhere, and then begin throwing bombs at police officers in the middle of a residential area, then, yes, you need to condemn yourself and your actions in the harshest possible terms in order to expect any sort of mercy from society.”
Your assumption is faulty. Do you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the information which you have been provided by the media regarding the Boston Bombing and the supposed guilty parties is correct, factual, and complete? How can you be so ego-centric, self-righteous, and judgmental when you accept as true the guilt or innocence of another person in a trial where there are so many unaddressed questions regarding the media-reported facts?
Your “exceptional” abilities are truly amazing.
Even his lawyer appears to be operating from the assumption that he did it. Based on what is known, why should anyone else have any doubt?
” Based on what is known, why should anyone else have any doubt?”
Read the many articles provided at the following link:
“Boston Bombing Investigation”
http://whowhatwhy.org/category/boston-bombing-investigation-threats-to-democracy/
Also read the hyperlinks in Mr. Greenwald’s paragraph from this article:
“None of this is about the crime itself (which I’ve written about before), nor about whether there are mitigating factors for it. One can think Tsarnaev committed an atrocity quite independent of his fleeting bird-flipping gesture. It’s about why the image of Tsarnaev’s middle finger produced such potent reactions and dominated media coverage, at the expense (as usual) of compelling substantive questions that have been almost completely ignored. And the explanation says a great deal about the primitive, brutal, and quite definitively American views of the purpose of the criminal justice system and how and why punishment is administered.”
I have plenty of questions regarding the facts and a so-called defense which opened with a statement of guilt —- “It was Him’.
I would suspect that anyone not driven by ego-centrism, patriotic self-righteousness, and a self-anointed supreme ability towards judgement would question the MSM reporting of facts in this situation.
My reaction to the photo was : Typical teenager. I think most of the rage comes from the believers in American Exceptionalism. It’s not that he killed innocent people – that happens every day somewhere in the world – it’s that he targeted citizens of the Greatest Country Ever, and is not even sorry for it.
Actually, I think most of the rage still comes from the fact that he blew up innocent people.
So THAT’S why the Right hates Obama. All those innocent people he’s blown up!
I bet Dan doesn’t know what you’re talking about.
This.
In America, it’s all about you. You should be outraged that he flipped you off. He probably even dances. Look at the picture, he’s flipping off every single American, including you. What are you going to do? You should demand death for the unrepentant killer – that’ll teach him. You know you’d feel better if he was dead. You are exceptional so demonstrate your outrage for all others to see. It’s what makes you pure.
Made me giggle.
What could be more contemptuous than the presidential declarations, speeches, and statements? For example, the SOTU?
How is the entire presidential election season a forever-extended middle finger to the world? How is the “news” a repeated slap in the face to viewers?
An Open Letter to the Graduates of West Point: Refuting President Obama’s Lies, Omissions and Distortions
http://petras.lahaine.org/?p=1989
Call it katharsis…
Sometimes I like to pretend that such wisdom and common sense will get the attention of powerful people in the US news media. That they will read Greenwald and feel some sense of shame and it will bring about some repentance on their part, some resolve to stop acting like the propaganda wing of some dictatorship and start doing journalism responsiblly.
Americans in 2015, inundated with the relentless, miserable, “protracted presidential campaign season” –more accurately, the ruling class manipulative imposition of its imperial and corporate technocrats and administrators–could learn a few things about revolt, real defiance, rebellion, resistance, disobedience, dissent, noncompliance. (And Glenn has previously written about this, beyond just the Milgram experiment.)
Instead, many Americans buy shit that we don’t need and feel guilty and instead lash out at whistleblowers, calling for their heads.
There’s a world of difference between the fleeting extension of the middle digit of Tsarnaev and the contrived regular guy folksiness of ruling class charlatans ( whose fake populism is amplified by the pro-1% media). The Beltway media endears our oppressors to us. The Beltway media gets us to swallow whole the official big lies, and hate whatever scapegoat is being offered, and keeps us distracted from asking about the intelligence ties of Tsarnaev, McVeigh, OBL, etc.
Oh, look, it’s Obama having a beer. Here’s Bush clearing brush!
Here’s W flipping the bird and having a good ole time.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SeJmmQ5y9eQ
Where were the headlines about how Tsarnaev tousled his hair and scratched his scalp so contemptuously, taunting the perpetually Victimized and fragile American public with his bored, vacant gaze?
Been an immigrant US citizen for the past 50 years I can’t believe that you try to justify in some way this individual. You mention that this is the most cruel system in the world. I dare you to compare this penal system with TV air conditioned , Gyms regular meals to the prisons in other countries for example Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela where people are keep under torture and without the basic needs and rights. You should be a shame by making some general statements without the proper information, I FEEL PROUD OF THIS COUNTRY AND THE SYSTEM.
Yes,I notice you refugees from Latin America love a strong caudillo,and an efficient execution(firing squad) system.Americans used to hate thugs,now we embrace them as hero snipers.
Is flipping the bird now a terrorism supporting gesture?uh oh.
It is subversive.
https://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2010/10/01/flipping-the-north-koreans-off/
Tsarnaev Guilty, but Who Made the Bombs?
http://whowhatwhy.org/2015/04/13/tsarnaev-guilty-but-who-made-the-bombs/
Just wanted to recommend the great work by the folks at whowhatwhy:
http://whowhatwhy.org/category/boston-bombing-investigation-threats-to-democracy/
And the WSWS:
wsws.org/topics/militarismCategory/bost-bomb/
CS Lewis, to repeat: http://www.angelfire.com/pro/lewiscs/humanitarian.html
But make it clear it was the progressives who demand this. That instead of trying to find just desert for some real crime, that we go to a “repent” model. And not repent before God or the people who were injured.
Consider the multiplicity of laws. A wedding photographer or baker that finds gay marriage objectionable is forced out of business – unless they do the same or worse kind of repenting before the judges. Consider the recent Rolling Stone rape article – lots of people were damaged, demands to bow down to “rape awareness”, but there is no evidence. Or go back to the boorish Duke Lacrosse version. I can add Aaron Swartz.
You want to have laws to change thought and behavior. Then complain when they are enforced.
At least this was a real murder – lots of people are dead. Should the finger matter? No. But when the IRS wants to imprison someone for not checking a box on a form, you cheer. When some gun owner is raided and the identical abuse takes place you cheer. When it is cases of boorish discrimination, you cheer. You scream for more. You want these tax cheats, gun nuts, and bigots not to merely get their desert – whatever that would be if anything. You want them to bow down before the progressive god in sackcloth and ashes.
Power corrupts, and any law will need to be enforced, so all corrupt laws breed corruption throughout the system. Its evil for the right to try to control personal behavior and opinion, but it is also wrong for the left to do it. But the guns are now in the hands of the left.
As a Progressive, I invented a special method of execution for Conservatives. It was a coin operated Electric Chair, where the condemned operates the coin mechanism with his her foot.
Thus, Conservative can finally, Pay as They Go.
;)
Si1ver1ock:
I found this which illustrates your method… nearly ;)
“Get out your Batarang… I’ll slip in a dime” ~ BM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3c7qpToDM0
You should really step away from whatever inebriant is making you think you’re making salient, insightful points.
Your fantasies about what people are “cheering on” and the religious imagery you attribute to some all-encompassing political dogma of “progressives” sounds more like the boilerplate rhetoric of TV talking heads and NY Times columnists than anything that remotely reflects reality.
Agreed.
The rest of your comment is hysterical (literally), unhinged silliness.
“But when the IRS wants to imprison someone for not checking a box on a form, you cheer.”
Um, what?
This article touches on several different aspects:
The 97 percent plea bargain rate clearly shows the the legal system is broken.
The idea of a trial as community ritual seems sound. People expurgate the evil in society and affirm their own goodness by sacrificing “the Evil One.”
In my opinion Boutique Liberals cause some of this problem. They don’t understand that you can’t be MeanNice, that is to say mean in a nice way.
If you are going to punish, then punish. But, Boutique Liberals want to punish people without actually hurting them. This is conflicted thinking. My personal preference is for Corporal Punishment, that is, flogging. So, for first offense of rape, you would get twenty lashes. Then, if you did it again within a three year period, you would get double, forty lashes. After three years of compliance it falls off your record.
Instead of years in prison, you might get a flogging plus thirty days.
Is that this “sharia law” thing I keep hearing about?
I’d like to hear from criminal defense attorney’s about how usual it is for this kind of evidence to be deemed admissible during penalty phase? How can it be the case that young men can be executed for flipping the bird at their captors, something that must happen literally every day?
He’s not going top be executed for flipping the bird. He’s going to be executed for the premeditated murder of 3 people and attempted mass murder of hundreds of innocent people. Just sayin.
If he gets executed it’s for planting a bomb behind a group of children, not for flipping off the camera. How is it that you can’t put that together in your mind? The picture was to show that he didn’t have any remorse for what he did. The simple fact that he was bored means what exactly? Three months after what he did, I wish his victims had a chance to be as bored as him in this video. Do you think his victims felt bored?
No,he was giving the people who had mistreated him(you don’t think that is true?) and of whom he knew he was to be toast.Do you think he had a fair trial?I don’t,not in Islamaphobic America,no way in hell.
And that doesn’t mean I don’t condemn the actions he is “accused” of.
Dahoit America is the least Islamaphobic society on Earth. Even ISIS is killing Muslims for being Muslims (just not the right kind of Muslim).
Of corse he got a fair trial. It was his own lawyers who admired his guilt. Good lord you people look for conspiracies everywhere but where they actually happened.
JamesB and Binh:
Why doesn’t it show a young teen male making faces in a virtual mirror and flipping off his unpleasant captors? Since the crimes for which he’s convicted are quite heinous, what’s the point of a picture of him lifting a middle finger at his guards? Subsequent to traumatic and devastating events, people do learn to laugh again, to be bored again, to be angry at controlling people again.
And moreover, what moral difference does it make whether he has remorse or not?
I’d like to hear from the defendant.
Being forced to debase oneself and admit to crimes one did not commit (although that is definitely not true in the case of DT) are opression mechanisms typical of fascist or communist dictatorships, such as the one I grew up in. Seeing that very same thing, today, in America, as this article eloquently describes, is painful and alarming. When my family escaped from Communism, we had somewhere to go–the West. But where do we flee from here? We need another planet.
Never mind too-big-to-fail banks just pay affordable fines (for them), always avoid criminal trials – and never admit guilt.
Justice is a joke in OUR country – all the way to the laughing banks.
Once again…we completely agree NFJTAKFA.
I think this analysis is right on, but another factor isn’t just American attitudes toward crime and punishment — it’s the way the circulation of snippets of information (photos, videos, audio clips) can be deployed as really effective propaganda. Although it’s traditional to lament the internet at this point, this image reminded me of nothing so much as the clip of Lori Berenson yelling in the courtroom at her first trial in Peru back in the (mostly) pre-internet mid-90s — apparently she thought she had to shout to be heard. In any event, the “angry woman” images helped along a tide of intense and vicious public hatred that served the aims of a regime bent on eliminating opposition while posturing as defender of the homeland, and had nothing to do with the basic questions of her legal culpability.
I think there’s another engine driving the outrage, which is our bizarre collective puritanism about uncensored profanity – there are still mainstream cable networks that blur middle fingers like they do nudity, and practically everyone bleeps the ‘7 words you can’t say on TV’. Of course violence is much more accepted – I’ll never forget the video I saw on prime-time broadcast TV back in the early 80’s – it was CCTV of a child molester being led through a courthouse lobby, and the father of one of his victims jumped out and shot him in the head – he dropped to the ground and a pool of blood spread around his head, and one of his guards cursed in shock — and they bleeped the curse. I guess this is also the driver of the whole ‘civil discourse’ hysteria.
The worst is the whole writing of “N Word” and then pretending you didn’t just say “Nigger”. The idea you communicated is the word you wrote.