UPDATED 5:36 AM central
There have been a series of bombings in Brussels, at the Brussels airport and one or more Metro stations. As I write this, different media outlets are reporting different numbers of those killed in the attacks, with figures ranging from 13 to 23.
Horrific. My heart goes out to all WHTM readers in Belgium; I hope you and yours are all safe.
Please post links to any useful information you find in the comments below.
This is a thread for the WHTM community (and others who are broadly sympathetic to feminism and this blog); MRAs and trolls will be banned.
They want us to blame refugee so they will go back to Syria and daesh can force grow it’s ranks through fear. They punish Europe for helping refugees. So we should continue to help and show daesh that hate kills everything, even daesh.
We all agree, that is horrible and hope it won’t happen near us. So far, so good. Now, the really tricky question: How do we prevent such terrorist attacks from happening (again)?
I live in Indiana, dead center for Trump/Cruz fans. The reaction here has been vomit inducing. My heart goes out to all those in Belgium today, stay strong, stay safe.
And to the idiotic racist around me who want to kill everyone even tangentially related to Islam I say: go eat a bag of salted rat dicks.
@Aris well I overhears someone at my work say “well if we just get rid of all the Muslims we won’t have to worry about terrorism any more”
And the shadow of the holocaust clutched at my heart upon hearing this. I imagine similar conversations were happening in Germany in the late 1930’s.
@Joel
OK, we agree, that your co-workers’ solution is no solution at all. What would YOU propose?
P.S.: The Jews didn’t do much terror back then AFAIK.
Okay, I thought this was a no troll thread.
I wouldn’t worry about feeling selfish. It’s natural to wonder and even worry what will happen to you & yours.
And everyone here seems to understand that “you & yours” is also the world.
May reason and peace prevail on our planet.
@Wwth
Agreed.
@aris
How would you know what it was like to be a jew in 1930s Europe? How would you know what it’s like to be a muslim in 2010s Europe? They are telling the same lies about Muslim that they told about Jewish people to justify irrational hatred. These syrians are running from the same people who are bombing Europe. They are on our side and it’s our duty to protect them.
Aris, drop it, we’re not having a debate here.
@Valentine
I know how to read, for example? Again, did the Jews back then blew up stuff all around the globe? You see, I’m for accepting refuges, who are really fleeing persecution, but the state has the duty to filter out the bad eggs among them, that come here to blow stuff up. Before all these terrorist attacks you probably would’ve claimed, that terrorist attacks surely never gonna happen here.
@David Futrelle
Really? When I read the title, I saw “Open thread for discussion of Brussels bombings”. A discussion thread without debate? How’s that gonna work??
@David
Please ban him, every thread that fuckwitted MRA (but I repeat myself) touches turns to shit. Not even interesting or funny shit, just plain shit.
Also, hugs for everyone who needs one (except for the troll, he can hug a cactus instead). Ugh.
@SFHC
I’m not a MRA (I think they’re total shitheads) and I’m also not a troll (I mean every word I say and don’t post to rile up people). Trying to have those disagreeing with you banned does not reflect well on you.
Oh, fuck off. Demanding posters who express a desire for people not to respond to terrorism with genocidal rage provide you solutions is stirring up shit. And you know it. That is not the purpose of these kinds of threads. We have these because the rest of the internet is filled with assholes after acts of mass violence and we like having a place to discuss these things in peace. You’re deliberately trying to ruin that and that is fucking trolling, whether you want to admit it or not.
@WeirwoodTreeHugger
Well I DO want a discussion! I want a discussion on how to prevent such things from happening. I don’t see how that is riling up anyone. We all know that these terrorist acts were horrible and that the “solutions” of the right wing for that are crap, so how about alternatives?! If you don’t provide alternatives, you are helping the right wing!!
If there was any easy solution to terrorism that we could come up with one the fly, someone would’ve found it and we’d have world peace already. By implying that we can’t express our wishes for people to not respond with hatred unless we have a solution ready, you’re effectively siding with the bigots.
We’re telling you we don’t like you, don’t trust you, and don’t want to have a discussion or debate with you. Be respectful and leave the thread, or one of us will be emailing David and you’ll probably be banned as the troll you are.
Shoo.
That’s a false dichotomy. The people who can most usefully produce solutions are those who have expertise in diplomacy or who have a previously-unheard perspective. For the rest of us, listening rather than speaking would prevent us from drowning out those informed voices.
I would go so far as to argue that demanding that laypeople like us come up with ideas despite our lack of expertise plays into the hands of those who prefer ideology over expertise, and therefore does more to strengthen the Republicans than silence does.
@Vanilla Ice
“You owe me a polite discussion!” – otherwise known as 50% of your posts, with the other 50% being “Freeze peach!” – is such a bog-standard troll line that there’s even a name for it:
http://i.imgur.com/PL8CJqK.jpg
So don’t bother lying about your intentions. We’ve seen it all before.
@WeirwoodTreeHugger
Threats won’t work with me, buddy. David is watching the thread, if he thought I’m a troll, he’d have banned long time ago.
And you are of course strawmanning (I didn’t even imply what you said I did). The best way to combat these right-wing extremists is to show alternatives to their talking points. You don’t do that and thereby leaving them the field. YOU are helping the right-wing extremists, not me. But sure, try to have me banned, I can only win. If I’m banned, then this is the proof, that this blog is an echo-chamber. If I’m not banned, it proves, that David doesn’t just ban people for dissent. In both cases it’d be a proof for you and Chairs trying to ban people instead of discussing with them.
@EJ
So doing nothing but read stuff is the way to go to combat bigotry, eh? My god, this is just rich. ROFL. Extreme slacktivism.
@Chairs
Cute strawmanning again, huh? I never said a word about “Free Speech” and also never “demanded” what you said I demanded. You’re a real riot and behaving just like these MRA assholes claim feminists behave. If I’d be into conspiracy theories, I’d say YOU’RE a MRA sailing under a false flag.
Challenge accepted.
(By which I mean I’ve emailed the Dark Lord.)
Good (provided you actually did send him an e-mail), it’s a win-win for me. Let’s just wait and see, what he decides. I’m actually confident he’s not gonna ban me (it’s not the first comment I wrote on his blog and not the first to be called trolling by weirdtreehugger and you), but surprises (both negative and positive) happen on- and offline.
@Aris:
You’re saying a lot of things which are obnoxious and very few things which are useful or constructive; I appreciate that you might enjoy a fight when you’re feeling stressed but most people don’t. Why don’t you sit the rest of the thread out and come back when you feel better?
@EJ
“A fight”? The fuck you’re talking about?! I wanted to turn this thread from talking about banalities (we all know, that the right-wing sucks ass and that these terrorist attacks were horrific) into a serious discussion about how to prevent such stuff from happening, but they and you calling me a bigot, a troll for that and even trying to talk David into getting me banned (or claiming to do so, since he apparently watched this thread here anyway)! What the fuck is this shit?! This is ridiculous!!
Aris, from the OP:
That’s not the policy with most of the threads here. But it is for this one.
I probably should have put you on moderation or banned you when you ignored this, but instead I asked you to stop.
At which point instead of stopping you decided to get more obnoxious instead. So you’re banned now.
It was working fine until you showed up.
This is a community, not an “everyone must debate what I want to debate” club. Feel free to go elsewhere on the internet to explain how to solve the terrorism problem forever.