Has He Gone Too Far? John Stewart On Carleston Shooting: We Still Wont Do Jackshit’
Jon Stewart dropped his usual news satire Thursday and opted for a passionate five-minute commentary on the massacre at a historic black Charleston church that left nine people dead. The Daily Show host apologized for not having any jokes to offer, adding, “I honestly have nothing other than just sadness.” Stewart’s powerful speech addressed U.S. defense spending abroad and a failure to protect American citizens at home, pointing out that blacks in South Carolina are still forced to drive on roads named for Confederate generals. “By acknowledging it,” Stewart said, “by staring into that and seeing it for what it is, we still won’t do jackshit. Yeah, that’s us. That’s the part that blows my mind.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/19/jon-stewart-on-charleston-we-still-won-t-do-jackshit.mobile.html
about guns and things..."
I thought it was really more of a commentary about the American people as a whole. We care about terrorist attacks, but crap like this still happens all the time and we really don't care or dedicate much towards it.
Many people are sugarcoating this, but he put it very bluntly. This was a terrorist attack. It was domestic terrorism. A white supremacist attacking a historic black church in South Carolina should not happen 50 years after the civil rights movement, but it still does. Heck, I live in Alabama - I still see people driving around with KKK bumper stickers. How the hell do we not pursue putting every member of hate groups like that behind bars with the same vigor we try to find all Al Quada, ISIS or other Muslim extremists and send them to prison or GITMO?
"Domestic terrorism" means activities with the following three characteristics:
◾Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law;
◾Appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination. or kidnapping; and
◾Occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S.
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/terrorism/terrorism-definition
The first and third are easy ones. The second one, he confirmed himself through comments he made in the past on social media and to other persons. He intended to "start a civil war" by doing what he did. He most certainly intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population (in his view; anyone that wasn't white in America).
He killed more people than the Boston Bombers, but we'll easily call them terrorists since they are Muslim. That was part of the point of Stewart's commentary. If it falls into the easy category of international terrorism that we've all come to know so well post-9/11, then American society can "deal with it" easier than if attacks come from within. We won't call a spade a spade. A hate crime is a couple white supremacists beating up a minority. A domestic terrorist attack is a guy walking into a church and murdering 9 unarmed people not just because of the color of their skin, but because he wants to start a war between whites and everyone else in the country.
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You can't predict what unreasonable and irrational People will do. Trying to force law abiding Citizens to conform to a standard that won't work on unreasonable & irrational People is not only foolhardy, it's asking for more trouble.
The adage that criminal don't follow gun laws is absolutely true. Disarming society is not going to make anyone safer. It is going to give the illusion that "we are trying to do something."
The TSA hasn't made us safer. The NSA hasn't made us safer. Saying we can't protest in DC hasn't made us safer. Creating the FISC hasn't made us safer. What's next Quartering Troops in everyone's home? That's the only Protection that doesn't seem to be under $^&$%$%^&%$c attack.
I understand the emotion Jon Stewart has. I agree with the emotion, but he is on the wrong side of this issue. It wasn't guns that killed these People. It was a madman. You cannot account for the actions of a madman. If it wasn't a gun, it would have been a pressure cooker, or a plane crashing into a building, or a car loaded with fertilizer. Guns kill an insignificant number of People compared to Heart Disease and Motor Vehicles. It doesn't even break top 10 on the CDC list. Let's start focusing on the big ticket items. Especially when the message is coming from someone who makes their living enjoying the full Protections of one Amendment.
,if not, he needs to come out of his tunnel vision, and look at all things which encompasses the weapon issue. In MHO.
In a sense I am glad that he expressed sadness for the massacre in the Charleston Church.
That being said I generally do not concur with his expressed views and disagree with him about gun control in particular.
I would like to hear from the black community in one voice, in unison what they feel will bring an end to racism in America. What is their definition of the solution, what do they want to have in order to say they feel equal? We have a black president, isn't that a good enough example to say, "look everyone in America regardless of race has the same opportunity to make it to the top"? What more is needed to gain racial equality? Being white I assume that disqualifies me from being in a position to understand the real issue of racism.
Our armed forces have no jurisdiction in our country for policing so yes, in some respects it is "easier" to address a foreign threat more immediately than a domestic threat.
How many gun related massacres - Columbine, Aurora, Sandy Hook, Charleston - have come and gone and neither federal nor local governments can pass meaningful legislation surrounding gun control because the argument from the 2A side predominately seems to be , "You're only punishing the legal gun owners and the criminals will still get the guns when they want." Here is yet another case of just that - a person who should never have had one and couldn't get one legally ended up with one. IMHO, 2A as it stands will never be amended to allow for the gun control that is needed because of the overwhelming support for it the way it is. That being said, legally, what else can be done? Pretty much nothing.
The bit about driving down roads named for civil war generals, seriously? Longstreet Ave, Lee Blvd, Hood Road, Jackson Highway, Stuart Drive, Armistead Way, Pickett Lane, Ewell Street - these names are offensive? Fort Bragg, NC, Camp, A.P. Hill VA both located in the south and named after Confederate generals, should we change those too? Have blacks refused to serve at these posts because of the names?
The Civil War was just as much about state's rights than ending slavery, probably a bit more so. To say the southern generals were fighting solely to oppress & rape black people is neither historically accurate nor correct. It's a tainted statement at best.
If you perpetuate 150 year old emotions and aggressions and attitudes as "this is still the way it is in America" then things will never change. 150+ years ago is just that, if we can't get past the Civil War, if people still expect reparations to be made and rely on the NAACP and Affirmative Action to "level the playing field" then we will never get beyond where we are. If every time a white person does something to a black person we automatically assume racial overtones things will never change. If we keep saying isolated incidents are all linked by conspiracy under this cloud of racism, things will never change.
I want it to end as much as everyone else but the rhetoric, media overkill and passion plays don't end every time an incident like this happens. and IMHO perpetuate the problem.
http://ewross.com/americans_that_own_use_and_respect_guns.htm
AMERICANS THAT OWN USE AND RESPECT GUNS - EWRoss.com
At the “Nation’s Gun Show” at the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly, Virginia, this weekend, law-abiding Americans that own, use, and respect guns gathered as they do there every couple months to buy, sell and trade guns and all the paraphernalia that goes with them. What struck me when I went to the gun show wasn't that there may be a mass murderer lurking in the crowd, but the kind of people that come to these shows and why they come.