Open letter to Spain's voters: Where is the courage of 1937?

In that case...

I just saw a post (and a woman) who wasn't there......

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Finn,

I am remiss in that I earlier portrayed it as "believing" facts when I should have also mentioned that there are subjective elements of my subsequent interpretation that are separate from belief of the simple numbers.

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Craven, I thought of you yesterday evening as I was listening to an interview with a Canadian reporter who has been in Spain for some time. She was talking about the effect text-messaging may have had on recent events in Spain, including the election results.

http://www.cbc.ca/dispatches/

Quote:

<snip>But first to Spain, where cellular science has been turned into the technology of terror. Our correspondent views the attacks on Madrid through the backlit screen of a cellphone.

<snip>

You see a cellphone, but they see a trigger. Those annoying little instruments have a sinister new significance since their role in the bombings of Madrid has come clear.

CBC correspondent Laura Lynch hears the chirp of the cellphone as the tribal drumbeat of the digital generation...a beat that's now being sampled by assassins.

Listen to Laura's dispatch

(there is a link to the report at the link above)

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Using cell phones as a trigger will be more common in the future IMO.

I'm not into electronics and even I could make a phone become a trigger, it's that simple.

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the thing that struck me was how text messaging was used to get the demonstrations organized. text messaging went up 20% the saturday before the elections, and 40% the day of the elections. One of the demonstrators that was interviewed, talked about how they'd been furious when Spain got involved with the U.S. action in Iraq, and how text messaging was helping them organize.

Quote:

the tribal drumbeat of the digital generation

<nods>

the trigger in terms of triggering human activity, vs bomb activation (that's kinda retro)

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Ah, I'd missed your point.

Have you heard of flash mobs Beth?

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Yeah, I've been hearing and reading quite a bit about flash mobs. I hadn't realized the magnitude of some of the events that have resulted.

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Craven wrote:-

Quote:

Have you heard of flash mobs Beth?

ehbeth wrote:-

Quote:

Yeah, I've been hearing and reading quite a bit about flash mobs. I hadn't realized the magnitude of some of the events that have resulted.

The Internet has spawned a gaggle of new verbs ?- Googling, surfing and flaming are words most of us are used to hearing in everyday conversation. Now you can add "flash mobbing" to that list.

In recent weeks, New Yorkers have been using forwarded e-mails to coordinate "flash mobs," or not-so-random crowds that appear and dissipate within a matter of minutes. Is it performance art? The cutting edge of a new social movement? Or just an easy way to flummox carpet salesmen?

To protect the planned serendipity of each event, participants aren't told exactly what the mob is supposed to do until just before the event happens. For the most recent New York happening on July 2, participants passed around an e-mail telling them to assemble at the food court in Grand Central Station, where organizers (identifiable by the copies of the New York Review of Books they were holding) then gave mobbers printed instructions regarding what to do next.

The result: Shortly after 7 p.m., about 200 people suddenly assembled on the mezzanine level of the Grand Hyatt Hotel next to Grand Central Station, applauded loudly for 15 seconds, then left.
?-Maureen Ryan, "All in a flash: Meet, mob and move on," Chicago Tribune, July 11, 2003

Just a little bit scary or am I the only one ?

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You're not the only one..

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When you put that in the context of tens of thousands of people demonstrating, or the possible effect on an election, it's clear we've all got to pay attention to the changes happening ever more rapidly around us.

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Oh, awful! Shocked

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Craven wrote:

Earlier you painted in terms of "appeasement" or "stand firm".

Craven you seem to tend towards an unfortunate desire to argue against what you will, rather than what I have written.

I did not "paint" the spainish people in terms of appeasement. I did question whether or not Europeans, given time to consider the issues, would appease the wolf once he has tasted of European blood.

Craven wrote:

It's easy to say this, but the Socialists have just as hard a line on terrorism (as opposed to invading Iraq) as the incumbents.

This may very well be, and, in fact, supports my contention that the backlash against the PP had nothing to do with the relative merits of the Socialists. Their (the Socialists) line on terrorism may be rock hard, but this isn't why they were given power. Their notions on redistribution of wealth were also not why they were given power. They were the convenient alternative to the, immediately, flawed PP.

No one, that I know of, is suggesting that the Socialists are "soft on terrorism." Deliberately igonorant of the consequences of their policies, but not intentionally defeatist.

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Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

Craven wrote:
Earlier you painted in terms of "appeasement" or "stand firm".

Craven you seem to tend towards an unfortunate desire to argue against what you will, rather than what I have written.

I did not "paint" the spainish people in terms of appeasement. I did question whether or not Europeans, given time to consider the issues, would appease the wolf once he has tasted of European blood.

Finn you seem to tend towards an unfortunate desire to argue against what you will, rather than what I have written.

Nowhere did I say that you called the Spanish issue one of appeasement or stand firm. In fact I took special care not to.

I said that you had painted in those terms (which you had) and then I expressed my opinion to the effect that Spain had stood firm.

Quote:

This may very well be, and, in fact, supports my contention that the backlash against the PP had nothing to do with the relative merits of the Socialists.

Few elections these days seem to be driven by the merit of a party as much as the perceived lack of merit of their opponents. <shrug>

Quote:

Their (the Socialists) line on terrorism may be rock hard, but this isn't why they were given power. Their notions on redistribution of wealth were also not why they were given power. They were the convenient alternative to the, immediately, flawed PP.

I agree. But do not see this (a party winning on a counter platform) as especially different from quotidian politics

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No one, that I know of, is suggesting that the Socialists are "soft on terrorism." Deliberately igonorant of the consequences of their policies, but not intentionally defeatist.

"Deliberately ignorant" of what consequences of what policies, if I may ask.

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NeoGuin wrote:

How about a take on this from someone other than blind cheerleaders for Bush...

I must have some filtering on my version of these discussions, because I keep missing the posts from these supposed "blind cheerleaders for Bush". Shame, because I do see the endless stream of posts from the "blind Bush-hater" crowd.

I also see posts on both sides of most of these issues from people who neither love nor hate Bush, but who are simply trying to look at available information and form opinions about the issues without any blind intent to support or denigrate Bush.

But--as I've written ad nauseum--those who hate Bush can't imagine any rational person not hating Bush, and this irrational view leads them to irrational conclusions about others.

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The very first thing Zapatero said on winning the election was that it was his governments aim to focus on the defeat of terrorism. To this end he will withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq by June 30, unless they become part of a UN peacekeeping force. There is no inconsistancy here.

At least another 7 coalition troops killed today, mostly Americans. Just what are these poor lads doing in Iraq?

Zapatero is right. The war and its consequences is a disaster. Bush and Blair have embarked on an illegal invasion of a sovereign state to take control of that space, to exploit its oil and to use it as a base for force projection in the area. There never were any wmd. There never was any real intent to build a new free democratic Iraq. All that mattered was to grab and hold the bits of Iraq that USUK wanted. Well actions have consequences. Newtons third law, action and reaction. The French Germans and Russians predicted disaster. Bush and Rumsfeld were intent on "invasion lite" (why pay for lots of troops when you have full spectrum dominance?). You piss off the UN. Blair divides Europe. Iraq opens up for al Qaida to come in for a little live fire jihad excercise. Now international terrorism strikes wherever and whenever it wants and A Q Khan supplies the nuclear capability. Who cares?

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We learn today that the latest GIs killed were dismembered by a mob with spades and knives and their body bits hung over a bridge.

Boy are these natives pissed. It was said we had "bombed them back to the Middle Ages" and here's the proof. Enemies heads on poles, bodies displayed in the streets.

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Craven wrote:

Nowhere did I say that you called the Spanish issue one of appeasement or stand firm. In fact I took special care not to.

I said that you had painted in those terms (which you had) and then I expressed my opinion to the effect that Spain had stood firm.

Craven - If I "painted" in terms of appeasement and standing firm, and you expressed the opinion that the Spain had, indeed, stood firm, then it follows that you infered my 'Painting" to have been done on the canvass of Spain.

Craven wrote:

"Deliberately ignorant" of what consequences of what policies, if I may ask.

That by pulling Spanish troops out of Iraq (assuming they go through with their stated intent) they will have allowed the terrorists who attacked their country to feel victorious and, likely, emboldened to strike elsewhere for similar victories.

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Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

Craven - If I "painted" in terms of appeasement and standing firm, and you expressed the opinion that the Spain had, indeed, stood firm, then it follows that you infered my 'Painting" to have been done on the canvass of Spain.

When you say it you claim it's not an inference to Spain so there's simply no way I'll accept your arbitrary distinction that when I say it it is.

I took care to couch it in the exact manner I wished to word it, and further speculation about inference will have to continue without me.

Quote:

That by pulling Spanish troops out of Iraq (assuming they go through with their stated intent) they will have allowed the terrorists who attacked their country to feel victorious and, likely, emboldened to strike elsewhere for similar victories.

This is very simplictic reasoning, and Al Quaeda is already trying to exploit it.

They released a statement saying how much they love Bush as a president hoping to capitalize on the wariness simplistic mindsets feel when they exhibit exhuberance.

Why simplistic? Because they lack the capacity to realize that terrorists of this ilk almost always act victorious. When they don't, it's a "righteous rage" and they are poised on the brink of victory.

They are demented, and those who worry too much about how they feel have an odd way of looking at things.

They suggest that this emboldens them and motivates them, all the while ignoring that these types are past the need for motivation and even in the face of delibating loss they press forward in their dementia.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=507514

02 April 2004

[quote]A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida's plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened.

She said said it was clear there was sufficient information during the spring and summer of 2001 to indicate terrorists were planning an attack.

She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was "an outrageous lie".

....senior US senators testified to her credibility in 2002 when she went public with separate allegations relating to alleged incompetence and corruption within the FBI's translation department.

The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used "state secrets privilege".[/quote]

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As you will Craven

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Open letter to Spain's voters: Where is the courage of 1937?

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