All snark aside (no ... really), I was actually wondering this very point before I stumbled over Glenn Greenwald's piece expressing the same confusion. (That link is to Glenn's main blog page. Weirdly, he gave the article in question the unwieldy name of "%E?;E?" which screws up the link, so just go to the main page and scroll.) Glenn writes:
I would really like to respond to the hysterical celebrations among Bush followers over the fact that a group of Muslim extremists were apprehended in the midst of planning terrorist attacks, but it's literally impossible to understand the point they think they're making.
Um ... yeah. Exactly.
If you saunter over to the Blogging Tories, well, holy snapping arsholes, they're going just ballistic over this story! Yee ha! Woo hoo! Smackdown, fuckin' A, I mean, this is so righteous! And on and on and on. And you get the distinct impression that they're just looking across the ideological divide, howling, "So there! Whaddya have to say to that, eh?"
To which one can respond, a little baffled, "OK, what's your point?" I mean, are we on the Left suddenly supposed to have our eyes opened to the evil in the world? What are we suddenly supposed to sheepishly acknowledge that we hadn't until now?
That terrorism exists? No argument there. That Muslim extremism exists? No shit, of course it does (not to take anything away from Christian extremism, naturally). That there are bad people in Canada who want to do bad things to us? Well, duh.
So what's the lesson here, exactly? Seriously. The unbounded giddiness emanting from the Right over this is almost unnerving, so I can only conclude that they're somehow feeling vindicated in a major way. But over what? Can someone explain this? Cuz I'd really like to know.
AH, GOOD POINT. Commenter adam reminds us of the "fight them over there rather than fight them over here" idiocy that's been pushed for so long by the cementheads on the Right.
So, can we finally all agree that, even if we are sending troops to fight them over there, why, they really can still show up over here. Yes? Do we all understand that now? Please?
7 comments:
Don't you get it, CC? It's proof - just like O'Connor was saying - that because we're fighting them over there in Afghanistan, we don't have to fight them over here! The right was right all along!
No? Um, it's proof that we should have invaded Iraq? Proof that Islam is an evil cult? Um, only Stephen Harper can keep us safe?
Oh, now I see: it's all the fault of multiculturalism and Pierre Trudeau...
harper will use their fear, whether it's gays or muslims.
i doubt these "sources" adding info on the arrests. i wouldn't be surprised if csis is playing the crowd.
Did you hear Michael Enright and his guests on "The Sunday Edition" this morning? First, his guests seemed to suggest (which Michael seemed to accept) that "everything has changed" and then that multiculturalism "doesn't really work." And *then* Michael talks about how Canadians have now "lost their innocence" this weekend.
Gah! It's like we're those virgins who keep re-virginating ourselves after every sexual experience, so we can "lose our innocence" for the nintieth, the hundredth time!
So I wrote the program, reminding them that we Canadians were NOT asleep during 9/11, nor the Millennium terrorist plot, nor the Air India saga -- and remember the FLQ crisis??
Human nature being what it is, of *course* there are always people plotting to kill someone else because they don't like society's rules.
The arrests demonstrate that the law enforcement and legal system ARE WORKING. Sure, they'll miss the occasional one, but they STOPPED THIS PLOT.
Our freedoms are preserved WITHOUT OUR DESTROYING THEM OURSELVES.
But you can bet Harper and his crowd will be trying to destroy them with much more vigour now.
Dare I say we dodged this because of multi-culturalism.
Because of multi-culturalism, we have Mounties and CSIS agents the speak any one of the 141 languages spoken in Toronto, know the cutlural norms of those in these groups and have connections back to the old country. I will bet that at least a few of those 17 were either undercover or informants on the inside.
And remember, CSIS originally started watching these guys after a group of teens discovered the questionable eschanges on internet sites and reported it. Chances are those teens were Muslims too and knew these guys were wrong. I can't imagine that happening without the multicurlturalism and understanding in our country right now.
No, this plot was stopped by multiculturalism, not caused by it.
The right is so giddy because they think the anglos will finally rise up and kick the brown Canadians out (at least the non-Christian ones).
What's that sound?
The sound of Canadians going about their regular business.
Mike, what an excellent, excellent observation! I suspect you're absolutely correct.
=="What's that sound?... The sound of Canadians going about their regular business."==
I agree, Wrestler. But it's not the average Canadian I'm worried about. It's the Harper wingnuts who think we've had a 9/11, and who now will plan to ram through whatever civil liberties restrictions they've been drooling over through the history of their party. :-(
When Air India was blown up, I don't remember calls for stopping Shikh immigration. 100s of Canadians died on Air India but they were INDO Canadians -- I guess the pee your pants cowards that are Bush supporters sees a difference.
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