I grieve for the deaths of innocents. The latest in Nice...families with small children celebrating their equivalent of our fourth of July, watching fireworks just as we would here...gathered as a community not suspecting that a lorry would jump the curb and mow through fragile bodies for nearly a mile...killing 84 and leaving another 50 in critical condition, clinging to life.
"Terrorism is a threat that weighs heavily upon France and will continue to weigh for a long time," Prime Minister Manuel Valls said after the emergency meeting. "We are facing a war that terrorism has brought to us."
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We must assess our role in the recruitment of young, disenfranchised men and women who feel threatened by our rhetoric...and are bolstered by Daesh's propaganda which plays into their fears...the anti muslim rhetoric in this country could well cause more Orlandos...a young man, unaffiliated, swore his allegiance to both ISIS and Hezbollah before dying...not even knowing their history well enough to understand these are warring factions...one Sunni, one Shi'ite...It doesn't matter...the tipping point was reached in many ways with this man...and with people in France and Belgium, and all across Europe. We are protected by a large expanse of ocean, but ginning up hatred and exploiting fears by using our own "leaders" words against them helps to recruit lone wolves who can very easily find a crowd and use a truck to plow into them...perhaps a truck filled with explosives. Daesh's goal is to divide America and set us at each others throats. They're already doing a bang up job.
"Terrorism is a threat that weighs heavily upon France and will continue to weigh for a long time," Prime Minister Manuel Valls said after the emergency meeting. "We are facing a war that terrorism has brought to us."
***
We must assess our role in the recruitment of young, disenfranchised men and women who feel threatened by our rhetoric...and are bolstered by Daesh's propaganda which plays into their fears...the anti muslim rhetoric in this country could well cause more Orlandos...a young man, unaffiliated, swore his allegiance to both ISIS and Hezbollah before dying...not even knowing their history well enough to understand these are warring factions...one Sunni, one Shi'ite...It doesn't matter...the tipping point was reached in many ways with this man...and with people in France and Belgium, and all across Europe. We are protected by a large expanse of ocean, but ginning up hatred and exploiting fears by using our own "leaders" words against them helps to recruit lone wolves who can very easily find a crowd and use a truck to plow into them...perhaps a truck filled with explosives. Daesh's goal is to divide America and set us at each others throats. They're already doing a bang up job.
Donald Trump, being chosen as the head of the Republican Party, could cause a split in the nation wide enough for civil war to break out. “They love him from the sense that he is supporting their rhetoric,” Rita Katz, an expert from the SITE Intelligence Group states. “When Trump says, ‘No Muslims should be allowed in America,’ they tell people, ‘We told you America hates Muslims and here is proof.'”
Today the parties have swapped sides from the days of Lincoln, but the pattern is the same. Political leaders have for years used inflammatory rhetoric to bolster a system that favors the very wealthy. Once again, their rhetoric has created an insurgency that they cannot control. Once again, that insurgency appeals to Americans who have never actually had to grapple with what it might mean to fight for an ideology.
It is this kind of self-implosion that ISIS in America may hope to inspire and exploit. We must find it within ourselves to come together and end the divisiveness.
