London bombings.

[nik0tine]

What's all this garbage about having no national pride, and national pride causing racism etc. The people of Britain, particularly London where people of all races/religions live together in harmony under one country's flag are uniting together and helping eachother out, showing the terrorists, and the world that the Great British spirit cannot be so easily dampened.

It's not garbage, it's the truth. Britain doesn't need national pride to help each other out. They don't need national pride to get through this, they just need a strong sense of humanity, and I have faith that the Brits have it.

After a terrorist attack, you don't need to wave your stupid little flags and shout "USA! USA! USA!" with a crowd of idiots. (Obviously the British aren't going to be hailing the United States, but you get my point) All this "National pride" did after September 11th was get people killed, restricted our rights, and made any form of dissent virtually impossible for quite some time. In the past, what has patriotism ever accomplished? It unites small groups of people, blinds them, and pits them against anybody who could be construed as "different". National pride is not good.

[Gnostic Yevon]

What's all this garbage about having no national pride, and national pride causing racism etc. The people of Britain, particularly London where people of all races/religions live together in harmony under one country's flag are uniting together and helping eachother out, showing the terrorists, and the world that the Great British spirit cannot be so easily dampened.

It's not garbage, it's the truth. Britain doesn't need national pride to help each other out. They don't need national pride to get through this, they just need a strong sense of humanity, and I have faith that the Brits have it.

After a terrorist attack, you don't need to wave your stupid little flags and shout "USA! USA! USA!" with a crowd of idiots. (Obviously the British aren't going to be hailing the United States, but you get my point) All this "National pride" did after September 11th was get people killed, restricted our rights, and made any form of dissent virtually impossible for quite some time. In the past, what has patriotism ever accomplished? It unites small groups of people, blinds them, and pits them against anybody who could be construed as "different". National pride is not good.

There are ranges of National Pride, you know. Even in America, not everyone grabbed a flag and started chanting. I think it's a good to celebrate what's good about your country. You don't have to be blindly patriotic, but pride that there wasn't panic in the streets isn't harmful.

[nik0tine]

I've never seen a patriot who wasn't overly patriotic.

[Gnostic Yevon]

http://mediamatters.org/items/200507080002

Fox's Gibson on "golden opportunity" missed: If France had been selected for 2012 Olympics, terrorists would "blow up Paris, and who cares?"

The day before the July 7 terrorist attacks on London buses and subways, Fox News host John Gibson stated that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) "missed a golden opportunity" because, if France had been selected to host the 2012 Olympics, terrorists would "blow up Paris, and who cares?" Following the London attacks, Gibson reiterated that the IOC ought to have selected Paris instead of London, because the British should "let somebody else be worried about guys with backpack bombs for a while."

From the July 6 broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, guest-hosted by Gibson:

GIBSON: By the way, just wanted to tell you people, we missed -- the International Olympic Committee missed a golden opportunity today. If they had picked France, if they had picked France instead of London to hold the Olympics, it would have been the one time we could look forward to where we didn't worry about terrorism. They'd blow up Paris, and who cares?

From the "My Word" segment of the July 7 edition of Fox News' The Big Story with John Gibson:

GIBSON: The bombings in London: This is why I thought the Brits should let the French have the Olympics -- let somebody else be worried about guys with backpack bombs for a while.

Well I knew this crap would start sooner or later.
America needs to learn the concept of "Shut the Hell Up"

[Psychotic]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4668313.stm

Now they're evacuating Birmingham city centre. (Second largest city in the UK, for those who don't know). Apparently the London attacks have increased the paranoia level of the authorities substantially.

[The Man]

Fox News is an abomination. If the right held itself to the standards to which it holds the left, they'd be shut down for saying things like that.

[Cloud No.9]

so american news condones the killing and maiming of innocents if they are french? why does this not suprise me? everyone here would be in outrage if i said 9-11 was a good thing cos it happend to america (not saying that by the way it was just a point before you all get up in arms) they need to learn some respect and should be taken off the air permanantly and immediatly for such a statement.

would it be fine if the bbc said blowing up manhatten was cool?

[nik0tine]

so american news condones the killing and maiming of innocents if they are french? why does this not suprise me?

It's really quite popular for American right wingers to hate the French. Worry not, however, the people on the right are stupid.

would it be fine if the bbc said blowing up manhatten was cool?

No, because the BBC isn't American, right wing news. Therefore it is not acceptable.

[Gnostic Yevon]

so american news condones the killing and maiming of innocents if they are french? why does this not suprise me? everyone here would be in outrage if i said 9-11 was a good thing cos it happend to america (not saying that by the way it was just a point before you all get up in arms) they need to learn some respect and should be taken off the air permanantly and immediatly for such a statement.

would it be fine if the bbc said blowing up manhatten was cool?

Yep. And it's getting rediculous. Actaully, there was a worse one that I found after I posted this one.

"SMITH: Some of the things you might expect to happen, for instance, a drop in the stock market and some degree of uncertainty across this country -- none of that really seen today, and I wonder if the timing of it -- that it happened in the middle of the night and we were able to get a sense of the grander scheme of things -- wasn't helpful in all this.

HUME: Well, maybe. The other thing is, of course, people have -- you know, the market was down. It was down yesterday, and you know, you may have had some bargain-hunting going on. I mean, my first thought when I heard -- just on a personal basis, when I heard there had been this attack and I saw the futures this morning, which were really in the tank, I thought, "Hmmm, time to buy." Others may have thought that as well. But you never know about the markets. But obviously, if the markets had behaved badly, that would obviously add to people's sense of alarm about it. But there has been a lot of reassurance coming, particularly in the way that -- partly in the way the Brits handled all this, but also in the way that officials here handled it. There seems to be no great fear that something like that is going to happen here, although there's no indication that we here had any advance warning."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?...ectID=10334864

So Fox News is pretty idiotic to say the least. RW people especially.

[Cuchulainn]

Reading some US right wing websites, it's pretty clear they despise the Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland and believe the Orangemen & Ulster Protestants are Godlike entities fighting the devil (they drew links to the IRA & these Fundamentalists). They're idiots who speak on topics they have no real grasp on.

It's very very dangerous for people with such power to couple that with such strong views on a subject they have such little understanding. It may not only cause wars with 'towelheads' in the not to distant future. They're alienating the world.

[Cloud No.9]

one must also remember that the ira was some great big joke to america a few years ago and they supported it. 3,000 dead americans later and suddenly the french are evil and terrorism is not a laughing matter for them.

[Madame Adequate]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?...ectID=10334864

So Fox News is pretty idiotic to say the least. RW people especially.

My friend and I were making plenty of jokes about it on Thursday when we went to the movies. I mean, we spent most of the hour-long walk both ways making jokes about it. We're hardly idiotic or evil.

[War Angel]

one must also remember that the ira was some great big joke to america a few years ago and they supported it

WTF? Dude, you really stop saying $hit like that. Seriously. America was well aware of Al-Quaeda, as well as many other world-spread terrorist organisations, and has done a lot (but obviously not enough) to deal with that threat. Yes, as it showed later on, the US didn't take Al-Quaeda quite as seriously as it should've. As for the supporting thing - the US never supported any terrorist organisation. They did support the Afghan Mujahideen, while those were fighting the Soviet Union, around the mid-1980s. The Islamic combatants were then fighting an enemy mutual to the US, and supporting them was the right thing to do, in the view of the time. Retrospectively, it was wrong. But the older, the wiser, eh?

[Cloud No.9]

the ira are not islamic terrorists. there are other kinds. and it was well known that alot of people in america actively supported and funded them. ted kennedy for one openly supported the ira's cause back when it was cool to do stuff like that. it was how the ira got their hand on a stinger and psg they were imported from america.

[Cuchulainn]

The IRA and Islamic Fundementalists cannot be categorised in the same bracket. Infact you cannot lump every guerilla movement & 'terrorist' in one bracket. You do yourself, it's victims, it's members & it's cause an injustice in doing so.

If requested I could give a brief history of the Republican Movement & differentials between the two.