Monday, January 04, 2016

Something to Think About . . .

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Related Off-site Links:
Response to Oregon Militia Standoff Reveals Stark Double Standards – Tom Cahill (U.S. Uncut, January 3, 2016).
Tamir Rice and Oregon's White Terrorists – Rini Sampath (The Huffington Post, January 4, 2016).
This Comic Sums Up the Double Standard Used to Excuse White Violence – Tom McKay (Yahoo! News, January 3, 2016
Oregon Standoff and a Clear Case of White Privilege – Khaled A. Beydoun (Aljazeera, January 5, 20156)
Why Aren’t We Calling the Oregon Occupiers "Terrorists"? – Janell Ross (The Washington Post, January 3, 2016).
Stop Calling Terrorists "Militiamen" – Tom Mockaitis (HuffPost Politics, January 4, 2016).
Don’t Call Them Patriots. They’re Terrorists Occupying Sacred Native American Land – Amanda Girard (U.S. Uncut, January 3, 2016).
What's Happening in Oregon Is Nothing Less Than Armed Sedition – Charles P. Pierce (Esquire, January 3, 2016).
If the Oregon Militiamen Were Muslim or Black, They'd Probably Be Dead By Now – Wajahat Ali (The Guardian via AlterNet, January 4, 2016).
Here’s What Happened 30 Years Ago When Black People Tried Armed Occupation – Carimah Townes (Think Progress, January 4, 2016).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Something to Think About – December 29, 2015
"We Are All One" – #Justice4Jamar and the 4th Precinct Occupation: Photos, Reflections and Links
An Update on #Justice4Jamar and the 4th Precinct Occupation
Quote of the Day – November 25, 2015
Rallying in Solidarity with Eric Garner and Other Victims of Police Brutality
Quote of the Day – June 19, 2015
"Say Her Name" Solidarity Action for Sandra Bland
In Minneapolis, Rallying in Solidarity with Black Lives in Baltimore


2 comments:

Andrew said...

Interesting Michael, so we should also refer to student protesters occupying universities during the Vietnam War and American Indians, notably at Wounded Knee in 1973, as terrorists? Let's not leave it there, let's add Occupy.

Michael J. Bayly said...

The only group you mention, Andrew, that comes close to being comparable is the American Indian Movement (AIM) at Wounded Knee in 1973. (The anti-war student protesters of the '60s and the Occupy movement of today weren't/aren't armed and are not calling for the overthrow of the U.S. government. You seem to be conflating civil disobedience directed toward specific issues and policies with outright sedition.)

Yet as Jeff Shaw notes in his recent article, there are some significant differences between AIM and the Oregon "militia" which for me would mean the term "terrorist" is not applicable to the former.

Shaw writes, for instance, that: "The tribal members were armed, like the Oregon militants. Unlike the Oregon militants, they had read and understood the Constitution of the United States, which declared that their treaties were the supreme law of the land. I imagine they had a good handle on the federal supremacy clause, too.

". . . [T]he Oregon militants are not patriots. This is a group of irrational fanatics whose wilfully inaccurate readings of the Constitution and religious texts are excuses to commit violence. We must not ignore, or worse, whitewash their potential for violence.

"[W]e [also] cannot ignore the role that race plays in the response to the Oregon militants. . . . [W]e live in an era when it is legal and, in some quarters, acceptable to shoot an unarmed black child like Tamir Rice, or to choke and then deny aid to a black man for selling single cigarettes. Race has consequences (or, for privileged groups, benefits) that play out across the news every day."

For the full article, click here.