Remember when Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) led that heroic, morally-fueled filibuster against drones targeting Americans on U.S. soil?
Good, because Sen. Paul seems to have forgotten. At this point someone in his camp should remind him that speech recording technology is a thing.
And on TWiB!, two unique takes on the effects of terror:
First, TWiB! staff writer David von Ebers examines a history of bombings on American soil and its legal consequences:
Today it’s controversial for the president of the United States to even suggest that a homegrown bomber like Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a naturalized American citizen who’s lived more than half his life here, should be charged with federal crimes and processed through the civilian criminal justice system… What the hell happened to us?
— America & Terrorism: What a Difference 100 Years Makes by David Von Ebers
And #TWiBRadio co-host and TWiB! managing editor Dacia Mitchell asks if the way we digest media affects how we value tragedy:
The way violence is portrayed in the news media values the spectacular over the everyday … with endless speculative chatter and misinformation, the devastating calculus made by the media and understood in society is that the body subjected to quotidian violence is less valuable than the body subjected to spectacular violence.
— Things Like This Don’t Happen in Watertown by Dacia Mitchell
Also, on today’s #TWiBRadio Okla. Rep. Dennis Johnson apologizes to the Jews, Rand Paul has a change of heart about drones, and Fatima Gossgraves of National Women’s Law Center speaks on holding schools accountable for the harassment of students who report rape.
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And this morning on #amTWiB, #TheMorningCrew discusses the race to patent “Boston Strong,” the search for missing teen and misidentified bombing suspect Sunil Tripathi, and no refund for a woman deemed too fat to tan.
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Roger Moore
The links for the first two quotes are backward.
The Dangerman
If I volunteer as a human target for the LAPD, can I get something like $4.2M, too (I’d have no fear of being hit; the cops apparently emptied their clips, reloaded, and emptied them again and the worst injury was a butt wound)?
ChrisNYC
Except it wasn’t at all controversial, giving Tsarnaev regular criminal process. Lindsey Graham and John McCain said “enemy combatant.” Then a thousand blog posts bloomed. Then the WH confirmed what was clear from the start — the US attorneys being at the press conferences being a big big hint. That’s not controversy. That’s two days — Saturday and Sunday — without WH press briefings.
NotMax
I believe the word better used as a descriptive than ‘spectacular’ would be ‘sensational’ in the sense of the quote.
scav
Will make no sense only seen here. Except, I’m pretty sure the FBI have indeed been involved in the Sunil Tripathi case since in March (he disappeared on March), and some surveillence video showed up in that case too. Video mentioned here
Elon James White
@Roger Moore: Thanks, all fixed :)
Gex
My goodness! Who are the white male 30-something libertarians for whom drone attacks are the only danger our government poses to us going to worship and fellate now?
Ah, who am I kidding? There’s no amount of hypocrisy that the Paul clan can commit that will deter their true believers. I’m pretty sure the gold standard will fix all of this.
Dacia
@NotMax: I went with spectacle on purpose. While I didn’t reference it in the piece — because it would open up an academic, Situationist can of worms — I used “spectacle” in the Debordian sense. The spectacle involves alienation of the audience from the subject represented in media, which is exactly how we participate in an economy of tragedy over time. Our relationships with people mirror our relationships with commodities, some are more valuable than others and we determine that value in the way they are exchanged.
Suffern ACE
@Gex: no. Look apparently drones so advanced that they can spot men with guns and leaving liquor stores with money and can pick suspicious Muslims out of a crowd are being used the right way. They are probably controlled by local governments or private firms, so that will be ok.
Hal
It never ceases to amaze me how often the Pauls are given credit for positions they don’t actually have. Rand Paul was never against drone per se, he was against Jethro being targeted in the Wal-mart parking lot by evil Obama. His father is not pro-gay or pro-choice, he just finises his BS with Libertarian double talk.
All of the subterfuge is only enhanced when progressive blogs have postings like “Rand Paul more progressive than Obama on drones!!!” Paul needs to be called out on his real positions more often, like he was at Howard, lest people think he stands for things he really does not.
Chris
@Hal:
His ability to draw people from all over the fringe is remarkable. Everyone from socialist/anarchist college hippies to unrepentant white supremacists to both-sides-do-it Very Serious Centrists thinks he’s on their side.
dewzke
OT: is it wrong that I am trying to keep the troll occupied on the last thread?
beltane
Who could have imagined that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a big Alex Jones fan? http://www.salon.com/2013/04/23/tamerlan_tsarnaev_was_an_alex_jones_fan/singleton/
TooManyJens
Who gets to explain to Rand Paul that the cops are supposed to arrest people suspected of crimes, not execute them?
Of course, I can see how a person could get confused about that in this country sometimes.
scav
@dewzke: OT bis. You have delusions of being Sisyphus?
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@dewzke: We’ve all gotten caught up in playing with the various trolls here at one point or another. Hazard of being a BJ commenter.
Ben Franklin
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
We’ve all gotten caught up in playing with the various trolls here at one point or another. Hazard of being a BJ commenter
I think you’re a mite confused about who has been played..
Ben Franklin
@dewzke:
Please let me suck on your kneecaps….
ChrisNYC
@beltane: That’s the beauty of CT though. Alex Jones now says, “I’m not surprised. I’m clearly a target of the security state.”
“I’ve seen this before,” Jones said. “The federal government trying to connect me to tragedies.”
Ben Franklin
His ability to draw people from all over the fringe is remarkable
Rand is a lightning rod for those who find democrats more like a AA battery.
Ben Franklin
@scav:
Will make no sense only seen here
You obviously feel confident of your status with BJ commentariat.
PurpleGirl
@Chris: The only side the Pauls are on, are their own.
Baud
We started hand-wringing about everything a handful of idiot Republican drama queens say.
TooManyJens
Holy shit, the clip of the “I apologize to the Jews” guy is priceless. I didn’t get the full flavor of it just from reading about it.
It’s about 23:30 in if people want to go directly to it.
ChrisNYC
@Ben Franklin: Way way way to sexual wrt Rand Paul.
Ben Franklin
@ChrisNYC:
Never entered my mind (heh)
scav
@efgoldman: Not my status here, doubt I have much of one — at least not a coherent one. just didn’t want to wander over to TWiB and register for a single comment to a podcast. should have just gone with the shouting random things on the bus approach instead of a vain attempt at signaling.
NotMax
@Dacia
Thanks for the response. Not trying to get all Chomskian (or, cosmos forfend, McLuhanesque) on you particularly, but still find it an odd construction from just the snippet posted here.
Rather an oblique reference, made all the more so by non-referencing it. Too, by morphing from using spectacle (noun) to using spectacular as an adjective, it allows more readily for a layman’s interpretation of staged elaborateness coupled with an “ooh, ah” positive spin and, IMHO, removes the construction one more step from the Debordian thesis.
Personally, have found going back and rereading some Eric Hoffer instructive in the sense of forming perspective in the immediate aftermath of Boston and the breathless mile wide, inch deep mass media inundation.
scav
@scav: Whoops, sorry, skipped a line, It was the slightly bruised master of shouting random things I should have replied to. Freudian or unconscious self-protection?
ETA. totally agree with what efgoldman says, so long as the individual knows what they’re getting into with the rock.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Ben Franklin: I think you’re a might confused generally. Now fuck off.
rikyrah
Paul is a racist grifter just like his Daddy.
his ‘fight for freedom’ ends at my uterus, which he wants all up in……and, he had no problem with my ancestors living in the Police State known as Jim Crow America…so, call me silly for not believing in the rest of his bullshyt.
TG Chicago
@TooManyJens:
Yeah, that’s what I thought was the most shocking thing he said in that clip. If someone leaves a store with money and a gun, you just murder them without any hesitation? How horrible.
For folks who worship money and guns, it seems especially odd.
NotMax
@NotMax
Lordy, one sentence I typed is a clunker indeed.
Make that “Rather an oblique reference, made all the more so by non-coupling it.”
Another, simpler, tack:
Sensationalism already exists as a known term often applied to segments of the media so far as use of slant, agenda, emphasis and/or selectivity of message(s) designed to arouse, incite or animate an audience is concerned.
Spectacular (again, this all necessarily IMHO) is more commonly applicable to individual events designed as or by their nature awe-inspiring, unusually entertaining, inspirational, thrilling and/or stimulating. For example, opening ceremonies of the Olympics, the Boston Pops’ 4th of July concert, Night of 100 Stars, the Leonid meteor shower, perhaps even stretching to encompass the Mount St. Helens explosion.
Dacia
@NotMax:
Gotta disagree with you there, using “spectacular” instead of “spectacle” isn’t morphing the meaning, Debord used it throughout his work, namely in his chapter on the consumable nature of time. While Hoffer is useful for an analysis of resistance and practicing activism in mass movements in the face of oppressive state power, that’s an entirely different post. If you read my post in its entirety you’d see it was just a brief reflection on a particular moment I experienced during the manhunt last Thursday night. Debord is certainly an inspiration, but adding a disclaimer about my use of “spectacular” over “spontaneous” would just be, well, extra.
NotMax
@Dacia
You call it extra; I call it context.
Kay
Rand Paul is going to run into these problems again and again because his arguments are incredibly weak logically and also poorly informed.
I’m mildly curious whether he’ll continue to conduct this learning curve he’s on publicly. I think he will because he’s arrogant and also lazy.
He didn’t understand the civil rights act when he pontificated on it, and he didn’t understand the DOJ position on drones, either.
I think he’s got the civil rights act (now, after 6 months) but he still doesn’t understand the DOJ position on drones