Mass sexual assaults in Cologne

[norton ash]

FOX? Seems to me that a shill network for the Republican Party has a lot of "untouchable areas" as well, many of them far more convoluted, at their moral heart, than progressives' hardheadedness here, which is after all motivated by fears of majority-on-minority violence of the type we famously saw in the 1930s and during Jim Crow.

I get the doctrinal wall, but it IS a doctrinal wall.

My progressive hardheadedness isn't motivated by fear, it's motivated by compassion and belief that maybe the privileged have a duty to save the lives of those who are otherwise doomed.

[FourthBase]

Wow, you guys are going full-on FOX now, aren't you? We Western progressives just aren't capable of reason.

So here's hoping your Provincetown scenario takes place and we can slam the door on refugees forever. That's really what you're after, right? Meanwhile, I'll continue to extend the benefit of the doubt to those who've been starved and terrorized and have no homes, and you can continue to bitch about the scary, rapey Muslims and the sucker progressives.

What I'm really after is how you would or would not respond differently, and why. I'm not "after" anything, the way you are. I'm not a fucking ideologue like you, lol. What kind of scenario do you imagine? Aren't you beginning to worry that your unconditional shielding-of-Muslims is turning into rape-denialism? You probably ought to be less insulted about being a sucker and more ashamed about being an enabler.

[kool maudit]

FOX? Seems to me that a shill network for the Republican Party has a lot of "untouchable areas" as well, many of them far more convoluted, at their moral heart, than progressives' hardheadedness here, which is after all motivated by fears of majority-on-minority violence of the type we famously saw in the 1930s and during Jim Crow.

I get the doctrinal wall, but it IS a doctrinal wall.

My progressive hardheadedness isn't motivated by fear, it's motivated by compassion and belief that maybe the privileged have a duty to save the lives of those who are otherwise doomed.

How would you describe the interface between this compassion and the reports that came out of Cologne in early 2016?

[MacCruiskeen]

Wow, you guys are going full-on FOX now, aren't you? We Western progressives just aren't capable of reason.

So here's hoping your Provincetown scenario takes place and we can slam the door on refugees forever. That's really what you're after, right? Meanwhile, I'll continue to extend the benefit of the doubt to those who've been starved and terrorized and have no homes, and you can continue to bitch about the scary, rapey Muslims and the sucker progressives.

Thanks for that, norton. "Location: Canada" - a place where the sane are not yet in the minority. It's unignorable that the seediest fantasies and the most callous lies inspired by Cologne are coming from citizens* of God's Own Country, the military-industrial superpower that's been busily making most of the Muslim world uninhabitable ever since the enabling act of 9/11, a plain and obvious lie about which they have still done precisely nothing.

handwave away mass rape

See, that's how the magic works amongst the denizens of post-reality: they can conjure up "mass rape" whenever they feel like it.

Why not, indeed. If it can't be made to function as yet another American casus belli, the "mass rape" lie will at least give US citizens reason to carry on hating the people their Pentagon has been murdering with impunity for the last 15 years. It will also allow them to smirk and cackle and wag their finger at any other nation that has to try and cope with the inevitable consequences, which now include millions of refugees.



*No one need feel addressed who isn't.

[kool maudit]

Regarding Cologne and the skewed nature of conclusions formed at a distance and through biased media, I 100% agree. I'm headed there for Carnival to check out the lay of the land. I'll report back with what surprises I hear and see.

[MacCruiskeen]

Good to hear it, maudit. (Damn, I just noticed you're from Canada, too.)

Have a good time on your travels. It's a nice town, Cologne. Karneval (like Oktoberfest) ain't exactly my thing, but I did enjoy myself with some nice people at Carnival there, and in Mainz and Koblenz, years ago. The south German Carnival reminds me a bit of the Edinburgh Festival, which has been compared to a snooty old lady who lets her hair (and her knickers) down once a year.

[norton ash]

The scenario I imagine is that some refugees are going to be criminals and assholes, and it looks like a few actually were in Cologne. Unconditional shielding of Muslims? Ha. Their politicized medieval religion is responsible for too much of this fucking mess. Do I say the West should take in refugees? Why, yes I do. I'm an ideologue.

[MacCruiskeen]

The surrealest thing of all is the ongoing refusal by most German politicians* and pundits to place this refugee crisis in any context whatsoever, least of all in the obvious context, the one that's staring everyone in the face: the fucking War on Terra, i.e. the USA's war on the planet and especially on the bits of it that are inhabited by Muslims. The brutal destruction of Syria is just the latest of the 9/11 Wars, an ongoing proxy war fought for the USA by some of the cruellest scumbags on earth.

But then the USA has always supported (and armed and trained and financed) the cruellest scumbags on earth, whether it's in Latin America, in SE Asia, in Afghanistan, in the Middle East, or anywhere at all, for precisely as long as the USA could hope to profit from that cruelty.



*Sahra Wagenknecht is one honourable exception.

[kool maudit]

The surrealest thing of all is the ongoing refusal by most German politicians* and pundits to place this refugee crisis in any context whatsoever, least of all in the obvious context, the one that's staring everyone in the face: the fucking War on Terra

I can't believe how few European politicians (I am from Canada but live over here) see fit to pair their 'Syrian refugees' talk with some Syria talk.

Nato I guess.

[Wombaticus Rex]

What I'm really after is how you would or would not respond differently, and why. I'm not "after" anything, the way you are. I'm not a fucking ideologue like you, lol. What kind of scenario do you imagine? Aren't you beginning to worry that your unconditional shielding-of-Muslims is turning into rape-denialism? You probably ought to be less insulted about being a sucker and more ashamed about being an enabler.

Doing everyone a favor, especially you: enjoy a week off.

Get a fucking Disqus account, and you can spit venom at progressive assholes all day. Get on fucking Twitter like the rest of us; I just spent last night advocating for the nuclear destruction of the Davos conference. Get an outlet that's not RI.

[jakell]

FB hasn't said anything that justifies him being silenced.

[Wombaticus Rex]

FB hasn't said anything that justifies him being silenced.

Thank you for your single-sentence contribution to a process you have absolutely no say in.

If you want to discuss my moderation, do it somewhere other than this thread.

[jakell]

I would say that, on balance, you make people more angry, not less (lately at least), so 'moderation' is not a word that springs to mind.

Do what you like to my account, but I feel that someone has to speak out....

[Wombaticus Rex]

I would say that, on balance, you make people more angry, not less (lately at least), so 'moderation' is not a word that springs to mind.

Do what you like to my account, but I feel that someone has to speak out....

Yeah, your bravery will be rewarded in Valhalla.

[backtoiam]

Well, just wait until I post a list of the military contractors that are frothing at the mouth to "help the refugees." Contractors pretending to be philanthropic benevolent aid organizations that plan to take "X" amount of dollars per head from the public tax coffers to turn the refugees into slave labor workers and profit from it....That will probably really shit the pants.