“Yes, a majority of Americans said they were against such measures, but let’s not brush past the obvious point: a third of the country is an alarming number of people.”
The problem with making a point like Steve Benen’s is not that it is somehow wrong or grotesquely exaggerated. Rather, the problem is that such straightforward, dramatic statements find themselves anywhere near the realm of American reality.
This is very nearly amusing:
Donald Trump may find it tough to get Republican leaders behind his campaign, but he’s got some faraway fans trying to get the gods on his side.
Around a dozen members of a right-wing Indian Hindu group lit a ritual fire and chanted mantras Wednesday asking the Hindu gods to help Trump win the U.S. presidential election.
While Trump has dominated the Republican primary race to decide the party’s candidate for the November election, his calls for temporarily banning Muslims from America and cracking down on extremist groups abroad have earned him some fans in India.
“The whole world is screaming against Islamic terrorism, and even India is not safe from it,” said Vishnu Gupta, founder of the Hindu Sena nationalist group. “Only Donald Trump can save humanity.”
Once upon a time, a Britishman explained to me, with that weary edge of patience that stands for English anger, that if I wasn’t British I had no right to opine on what went on in Northern Ireland. Then again, neither am I an Irishman, so what the hell ever. And if we need a beeblebrox it does well enough to remind that we are, in fact, the United States of America, and when we are part of the most powerful and accomplished empire in the history of the human species we don’t really have the luxury of telling other people to keep their opinions of our affairs to themselves.
Even such, you know. Whatever. Not all of us are so nationalistically sensitized as to take offense at something like this.
Nonetheless, it seems worth recalling that after the 9/11 atrocity some Americans were in a bad enough mood to beat Sikhs, Hindus, and even a Jew, as I recall, because they couldn’t tell the difference. Furthermore, we might also observe that these elements persist a decade and a half later and, moreover, are among those President Trump would bring to bear.
To that end, yes, it is very nearly amusing to see right-wing Hindus cheering on the crowd that would stomp them into the pavement for being too Muslim.
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Image note: Activists of Hindu Sena or Hindu Army conduct hindu rituals to ensure a win for U.S presidential candidate Donald Trump in New Delhi, India, Wednesday, 11 May 2016. The activists said that Trump will be a better choice when it came to dealing with terrorism most of which, they alleged, was masterminded by followers of Islam. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)
Associated Press. “Divine intervention? Indian Hindus ask gods to help Trump”. 11 May 2016.
Figure this one out, if you can:
A man who described himself as a “patriot” confessed to placing homemade bombs in a Georgia park to help people realize “that this type of activity could happen anywhere,” according to court documents obtained by TPM on Tuesday.
Michael Conrade Sibley, a resident of Marietta, Ga. was charged last week in a federal court in Atlanta with attempting to damage federal property ....
.... He said he purchased a backpack at a garage sale and, according to the documents, wrote the name “Mina Khodari” inside the backpack because he said “it looked foreign.”
Along with the bombs, Sibley put print-outs of the Atlanta Falcons’ schedule as well as public transportation timetables and the locations of Marcus Jewish Centers into the backpack because he thought officials would see those as “soft targets,” the documents said.
Sibley told the agents he also placed a copy of the Quran and a book titled “The Rape of Kuwait” in the bag.
Sibley said he placed the bombs in the park because he’s a “patriot.” He said he regretted that people weren’t “paying attention to what was going on (sic) the world” and he wanted to remind people “that this type of activity could happen anywhere,” according to the documents.
(Garcia)
While “patriot” may well be the wrong word to describe Mr. Sibley, the term apparently still has certain benefits. That is to say, Why isn’t this person charged with attempted terrorism?
We might speculate that apparently he’s just not Muslim enough to be a terrorist.
Or, you know, hell, too patriotic an agent provocateur.
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Image note: Police and federal agents investigate a suspicious package at Vickery Creek Park, 4-5 November 2014. (Photo: Duffie Dixon/11 Alive)
Garcia, Ahiza. “‘Patriot’ Allegedly Confesses To Leaving Two Homemade Bombs In Georgia Park”. Talking Points Memo. 24 March 2015.
This Is 