What the hell is a "terrorist"?
I went online to try to get at least a broad
definition of what constitutes a "terrorist" and the best I could
come up with was something to the effect of "someone or some group that
uses violent means on a—sometimes civilian—population in order to utilize fear
in the spread of some ideology or crusade. Then I went to a real world context
and tried to remember how "terrorists" have been presented to me in
the media and in my own social interactions. I figured maybe I could find some
common denominator there.
The media was the easy one. Every station or
outlet already has some well-defined political leaning and cannot see the
greater context of socio-political events because they are an essential part of
it; no one notices something cultural until someone draws attention to it.
(That's how we figure out our paradigms.) By and large the right and left wing
organizations will both call lots of people terrorists whether they be ISIS
soldiers in Iraq; "extremists" from Pakistan; Al-Qaeda operatives in
Yemen. Sometimes though you will have some talking head on a 24 hour news
channel who will get so riled up by a guest or off their own ego (I'm looking
at you O'Reily and Hannity) that they call anyone they disagree with a
"terrorist."
When Occupy Wall Street was filling parks from
the Shore to the Bay they were deemed terrorists by the right-wing media; The
Tea Party has more than once been labeled a "terrorist organization"
on MSNBC. They spew shit at each other like they are both ends of the Human Centipede.
Apparently to cable news networks a "terrorist" is defined as a
politically or socially motivated group or individual who engages in some form
of public display to make a point or demand a change, whether it be rallies and
protests or jihad and suicide bombings. Now I hope I don't have to point out
the quite sizable distance between a protest and a suicide bombing, but it
needs to be considered that pundits of both sides of a very influential form of
media get away with lumping social activists in with jihadis.
What surprises me most is the trickle down
name-calling. I hope that I have presented a good enough case to convince you
of the conniving nature of the cable news narrative so that you understand just
how much of a population control experiment it is. Our cultural paradigm has
such a thick skin that we cannot see past the source of our angst.
I recently wrote a piece about the conflict in
Gaza and how I could not believe the depths of morality that a government can
sink to in purposefully wiping out civilians in its expansion effort. I also
noted in that piece that the Israel/Palestine conflict has colonial roots and
how it was only after a western occupation—aka at the barrel of a western tank—that
the Israeli government was able to even establish a state. The US has then been
propping up that occupation for more than half a century. So, according to the
US narrative Israel is the good guy, right?
Now if we go back to the beginning of this
piece we can figure out who in this scenario fits the description of terrorist.
Israel is this situation a) is a group, b) that is politically and/or
religiously motivated, c) uses violence in the forms of a relentless air and
ground assaults, d) uses that violence on civilians, and e) uses fear of its
superior arms to intimidate the occupants of the world's largest prison
cell. Sure, Hamas fits most of
that same description, but they are barely able to put up a fight in the first
place. They are so desperate that they have even taken to firing from civilian
areas to keep Goliath off the scent. That's shameful, but I also understand
because I can see that a true Gazan defense or assault is a joke. In case you
weren't aware Gaza doesn't have a military. The only resistance at all to
a massacre by a western devil are these men with rockets. If your husband or
wife was buried under rubble 100 ft. deep then you might reconsider whom you
support too. Either way Hamas is no match for the mighty Israel sitting tight
inside their iron dome with Netanyahu on his iron throne with his iron will
bringing iron obedience. So, who are the terrorists?
Would you not resist such an occupation? I bet
you would and I even have a good ol' fashioned anecdote to illustrate my point:
Cliven Bundy. Here we have an old white man who wears a cowboy hat and
stirrups, waves an American flag while refusing to acknowledge its referents
existence, and talks about race relations like he lives in the eighteenth
century. This man grazed his cattle on public land for decades without paying
the mandated grazing fees. He figured if he didn't acknowledge the existence of
the federal government then he didn't owe it any money. (If only we all lived
in such a fantasy world.) Now when he refused the pay the fees federal officers
planned to come to his ranch to confiscate his cattle as payment. This story
got out on right wing television and consequently the Internet. When it got to
Fox News there was a torrent of support flooding in from all over the country (and
magnified by the mouths of the talking heads) from self-proclaimed resistors
who would be willing to take up arms to keep the federal government off their
"friend's" land. The feds showed up and so did the "freedom
fighters". The government backed down and the white dissidents celebrated
their manly show of strength, but what they failed to realize is that they had
become the very thing they always claimed to detest— extremists. Who were the
terrorists in this situation?
Now think about Afghanistan. The entire
justification of the war was to neutralize Al-Qaeda and Taliban networks. Who
was in that terrorist network? Men (by and large) who had been leading a tribal
life for centuries and succeeding until this western style government-at-the-edge-of-a-sword
oligarchy came in to their land to demand allegiance. When they resisted they
became part of a wider population of people who have been faced with a choice:
assimilate or die. When they declined our offer of western
"enlightenment" (through
the mouths of marionettes) then they instantly become part of the enemy. Who
are the great enemy? The terrorists. Oh, and they are Muslim too? Perfect!
That'll make a great headline. "The Islamic Extremists Strike Again!"
it'll say on the Cooper Blitzer O'Hannity Report.
The definition of "terrorist" that we
have been fed by the media doesn't seem to incorporate the seismic shift in
power that results when an invading army or a central government invades a
relatively unarmed country. What once was your land isn't anymore. Now someone
else claims to own it and he has a gun pointed at you if you disagree. It was
ok for Cliven Bundy and his bunch to raise arms against the federal government
of the United States of America; it is apparently not ok to be a poor brown
farmer whose only choice is "give up the way you have lived for centuries
and live like us. If you don't we'll kill you, your family, and your village
and spin it as "collateral damage" on the evening news." Between
the Afghan oppressed and the privileged horse riding, gun-totting, NRA
card-carrying, living-in-a-dream-world conservative cattle rancher who is the
real extremist?
It seems to me that the real terrorists are
those who use their overwhelming force to intimidate populations into
submission and using fear as the balancing factor of dissent. This is
consistent in Israel, Syria, Egypt, and the good ol' United States of America.
That's right folks we have a whole branch of order bringers right here at home
that are state sponsored and funded —the police.
They maintain an order that is defined by them
(often times in conflict with the actual law), is profitable, and based on
fear. Modern police tactics are more military than protection these days. And
why wouldn't they want to be? They are supplied with military surpluses such as
riot gear and tanks and are dressed up like they are auditioning for RoboCop.
It's a basic principle of bored humans that if you have a toy you want to play
with it. So they use their power and ability to circumvent the law to harass
and imprison entire people groups for offenses no more harmful than drinking a
beer. Yet the means used to arrest and incarnate this person more often than
not looks more like a UFC match than a civil restraint. And they get away with
it with impunity. So they cruise through the streets in their new
air-conditioned American made pigmobiles like a possessed wolf sniffing out his
kill. Why do they hide in darkness to surprise you? Because they want you to be
afraid.
"That's right, you've heard the
stories! You know all those stories about black and brown boys and men being
viciously beaten and sometimes killed by an army designed to make you afraid of
it… and we got away with it. So watch your back."
Signed sincerely, The Undercurrent Of Every
Police Interaction You Have Ever Had.
That's what you get to do when you are police:
you get to go to work, put on battle armor, and cruise the streets in fast
fancy cars to search for prey to try out your new toys out on. And god help
anyone who makes them mad because they have a blank check and will write your
name in at any time. That's a real base of fear and it is all courtesy of the
Church of the Capitalist Police State. Like the Afghan farmer if you disagree
with the new order then you can get ready to have hell and all its army descend
on your house, kick your door in, and black bag you down to a dark alley where
you will never been seen again. That's fear; that's power; that's terrorism.
The eternal civilized conflict is pitted
between an invading force against a person who stands their ground. That's the
way it has been and that's the way it always will be and if you resist you will
be given a scarlet letter—a red crescent— to inform the watching world what you
have been labeled as—a terrorist.
PS- I wonder how long it will take for this
post to get me on that terror watch list? Am I the millionth-and-first
customer? Do I win the prize? My picture in the cross hairs of a flying robot
of death?
Addendum: I do want to acknowledge that there are people in this
world—truly evil people—who indeed terrorize peoples, villages, cities, and
countries with the reckless abandon that is nothing short of the possession of
the devil himself. I acknowledge that these people exist and deserve the name
and to be treated as such. I just don't think that every Muslim or farmer who
resists central control of his families land should be lumped into the same
category. There is a sizable gap between a resistor and a terrorist. The reason
for so much hate in the world—especially in the American narrative—is the
failure to notice the distinction. Great change is hindered by blind obedience
to dogma. My thesis is simple: be wise and discern your enemy and so that you
learn to recognize friend from foe.
