dagblog - Comments for "How the US Turned Three Pacifists Into Violent Terrorists"

Yeah, running around with

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 21:08:46 +0000

In reply to Where does one draw the line

Yeah, running around with long knives and throwing yourself in front of a car is likely to get you busted or sent to a nuthouse, either one. But not sent away for 50 years for doing something huge and fantastical far past your intellectual pay grade.

I might even be receptive to undercover agents monitoring some of the guys (with court-approved warrant) if it really looked like their wing of the movement was likely to take off & do serious violence - not just spout off 1st amendment speech & position protests. However that would be someone who not only threatens, but manages to get off his/her butt to actually start stumbling towards causing mayhem.

But time and again, we see the fruit of these asshats, and it's simply they're too lazy to go out and find hardcore criminals, or even incompetent but dangerous ones. They have to prop up cripples, put them on crutches or wheelchairs, lead them down the ramp, give 'em a buck to clear their head, and put all the paraphenalia in their hands to then say "busted". Sorry, putting the guy with the knife in jail for his own & society's good until you find something to do with him - fine - he's sick & confused. Creating a WMD fantasy to shove inside his brain far bigger than his own nonsense he's stuck with? FBI agents should be put in jail for this - it's sick. It's just messing with the disabled and pretending to earn their pay.

Where does one draw the line

artappraiser — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 19:16:55 +0000

In reply to Well no, a mental case is a

Where does one draw the line between a sane white supremacist and an insane one? Or the line between a sane Islamist sympathizer and an insane one? Or a sane guy with sick sexual fantasies and and insane one? Isn't it more civil libertarian to look for the ones who are willing to plan actual actions rather than monitoring the speech of all of them?

Well no, a mental case is a

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 17:58:37 +0000

In reply to The story is striking but

Well no, a mental case is a mental case. If they open up the nut ward onto the street, I can probably convince the Stonewall Jacksons and Napoleons to go with me to storm the Bastille/Ft. Knox.

In any case, that was 1 out of 5 idiots, and having a drug dealer/thief handle the FBI recruitment in exchange for govt protection of his crimes? I'd rather have the local establishment locking up the mentally ill in the facilities more or less designed for it, even if not perfect.

The story is striking but

artappraiser — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 17:35:09 +0000

In reply to Rolling Stone article on how

The story is striking but doesn't hit me in the way it hits you, not like Lulu's pacifiists story. It's more like this: if no one else will get the mentally ill with violent fantasies off the streets, the FBI idiot terrorist task force might be able to do it. Excerpt, my bold:

"It's just so hard to sleep outside," Baxter complained to his friends. He was loath to return to Lakewood, the site of his traumatic childhood, where a restraining order barred him from his mother's house. Such a constant font of positivity was Baxter that few realized he had grown up in a household his sister Rachael Garcia calls violent. "He was very fragile as a child," she says. "He was so sensitive. He'd come to me every day, crying," given to nervous tics, doodles of people hanging in nooses and writing violent poetry. "In my deepest darkest fantasys [sic] I see myself as evil," he wrote, "lacking all reason and empathy spilling the blood of the innocent."

When Baxter was 17, the stress had reached an apex. Believing his stepfather had beaten his mother, Baxter pulled a kitchen knife. "Cut me if you're going to cut me!" the stepdad urged, before Baxter sliced the knife across his chest. Baxter did a stint in a psych ward, says Garcia, after which he was legally forbidden from coming within 500 feet of his stepdad, and maintained little contact with his mom. Instead, he'd moved in with his biological father, a tense, out-of-work roofer whom he barely knew.

Occupy had been Baxter's escape hatch. Now he reluctantly returned to his father's home, which the bank was trying to foreclose on. Dad was scraping payments together by selling Native American handicrafts online. Baxter continued to faithfully walk or bike the seven miles into Cleveland for Occupy's meetings. Late one February night, furious with himself at his inability to somehow repair a broken world – or even his own broken life – Baxter had what he called a "mental break." He leapt in front of a moving car, shouting, "Kill me!" Police responding to the driver's 911 call found Baxter standing on the railing of the Hilliard Bridge, looking down onto the lanes of traffic below and screaming incoherently. The cops talked Baxter into coming down, then tackled him as he tried to flee. He had a 10-and-a-half-inch knife in his coat and a smaller one in his pants pocket. Charged with carrying a concealed weapon, he was sent to Lakewood Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. On his way out of the police station, Baxter gave officers the finger, yelling, "Fascists!"

Days later, Wright and Azir picked Baxter up from his dad's house and took him to lunch at a Lakewood restaurant. They wanted to talk about fucking shit up – for Occupy's sake. Baxter was in.

They brainstormed and discussed possible targets [.....]

Take the FBI out of this story, replace them with local authorities locking up kids in mental institutions for forced treatment, and you've still got a civil libertarian vs. safety of the public story Complaining that the FBI are idiots ends up basically being a distraction from a difficult problem. This kid sounds as harmless as the Unibomber was before he sent his first bomb. The FBI's terrorist task force is obviously not the way to deal with it, but that doesn't make the violent mental illness vs. civil liberties problem go away. Jobs program? More like occupational therapy program for years and years....or society could try the cheaper solution of forcing the ever increasingly popular pyscho pharmaceutical guinea pig method.

Say it aint so, Joe.

A Guy Called LULU — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 14:24:54 +0000

In reply to Rolling Stone article on how

Say it aint so, Joe.

The nominee for FBI director

rmrd0000 — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 12:33:59 +0000

In reply to Rolling Stone article on how

The nominee for FBI director should be questioned about his stance on entrapment program like the one described in Rolling Stone.You can generate good numbers on halting terrorism when you provide the means for the terrorism.

The nuclear plant invasion is even more difficult. The vulnerability of the plant was exposed. Security did not stop the group. The charges increased because the hole in the nuclear security was put on full display. The focus could be shifted to the invasion of the plant rather than the fact that real terrorists could now imagine breaching a nuclear facility to do real harm. In one sense, the breach of the plant by the nun and her allies was a public service and a warning.

Rolling Stone article on how

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 04:26:21 +0000

In reply to But government will handle

Rolling Stone article on how FBI used criminal informer to set up gang of confused Occupy idiots. Even giving them jobs, driving them to work, keeping them stocked with beer & pot.

Imagine if the US government wanted to do something radical, like a workable jobs program.

But government will handle

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 03:24:23 +0000

In reply to How the US Turned Three Pacifists Into Violent Terrorists

But government will handle our data responsibly.

Really, we're safer with the terrorists than the people supposedly protecting us. Frankly, who at this point are we even in nuclear threat with, vs. the much more pressing daily abuse of nominal freedoms.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/t

ocean-kat — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 02:48:21 +0000

In reply to How the US Turned Three Pacifists Into Violent Terrorists

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-spokesman-condemns-disproportio...

The White House on Friday condemned the "disproportionate" two-year prison sentence a Russian judge imposed on members of the punk band Pussy Riot, found guilty of "hooliganism" for an event mocking Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"The United States is disappointed by the verdict, including the disproportionate sentences that were granted," spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.

"While we understand the group's behavior was offensive to some, we have serious concerns about the way these young women have been treated by the "Russian judicial system," Earnest said.

At the State Department, spokeswoman Victoria Nuland bluntly urged Russian authorities to review this case and ensure that the right to freedom of expression is upheld."

"The United States is concerned about both the verdict and the disproportionate sentences handed down by a Moscow court in the case against the members of the band Pussy Riot and the negative impact on freedom of expression in Russia," Nuland said in a written statement. Three members of Pussy Riot were found guilty of hooliganism and sentenced to two years in jail in connection to an incident earlier this year in which they mocked Putin during a "punk prayer" in a Moscow cathedral.