Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder Think about it. The KGB framed them or the Iranians railroaded them seems to make a whole lotta sense to us when we hear it.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt Witnesses saw them leave the backpacks before the bombs were detonated. The whole framed thing sounds like a tinfoil hat conspiracy to me. The more the relatives talk the crazier the whole family sounds.
Originally Posted By ecdc I'm not endorsing or excusing conspiratorial thinking, I'm just saying I understand the mentality that gets someone there. And if you understand the mentality, it's much easier to combat and reason with that person. If you think a mother who believes her children were framed is just stupid and crazy, you'll never get anywhere. If, however, you understand that the human brain evolved to aggressively eliminate cognitive dissonance, even to the point of accepting seemingly absurd explanations, then you have a starting point. This mother presumably loves her sons and thinks they are good, decent people. She is now seeing hard evidence that they are terrible, cruel murders. The cold, Spock-like logic would tell you to follow the hard evidence. But humans aren't like that; we're emotional beings and it's easier for this woman to believe in a conspiracy than to believe her sons are murders. (There's also the human reflex against looking foolish or inconsistent; a mother who has pride in her children would suddenly feel the unconscious need to guard her ego after telling others how great her children are.) If she goes to her grave believing her sons are innocent, it's not a testament to one woman's stupidity or ignorance, it's a testament to the human ability to convince ourselves of nearly anything in order to eliminate dissonance, maintain ego, and otherwise make sense of a disordered world. Make no mistake, we all do it to one degree or another.
Originally Posted By hopemax So I was reading an article today that made me think that the "conspiracy" being presented by the family isn't a conspiracy by the US as I assumed. Brought on by distrust of all government after growing up an ethnic minority in the Soviet Union ( the parents and aunt). But a conspiracy by Russia to provide Russia with a reason to take military action in Chechnya. Capitalize on anti-Muslim sentiment in the US, that action must be taken. Russia would come to the defense of its "friend" and deal with its rogue element. Even if they come to say the brothers physically did it. They would say they must have been influenced by secret Russian operatives. Playing along for just a second, I think that would be worse than an Al Queda attack.
Originally Posted By hopemax Oh, and it wasn't any statement by the family that put the notion in my head. But a comment by a Chechen rebel leader insisting Chechens have no beef with the US. Russia is there enemy and insinuating that Russia would have motive to see Chechnya get blamed.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan When you see the almost universal reaction of support for Boston law enforcement and the FBI, and the support and grief over the victims of this senseless act, you once again have to wonder what terrorists ever feel they achieve by these acts. It doesn't make people sympathetic to their cause -- not sane people anyway. It doesn't prove them right, it actually unites people like little else (the sense that we're all in this together over the past week was reminiscent of the days following 9/11). Seems to always result in the exact opposite of what is intended.
Originally Posted By Mr X I disagree. If their intention is to bring about a more restrictive society, and to cause anxiety and panic, America gives them what they want in spades. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A5vfyFyptQ
Originally Posted By Mr X <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=B_Gb6i5DF9k" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?f...b6i5DF9k</a>#!
Originally Posted By mawnck This: >>Londoners, who endured IRA terror for years, might be forgiven for thinking that America over-reacted just a tad to the goings-on in Boston. They're right – and then some. What we saw was a collective freak-out like few that we've seen previously in the United States. It was yet another depressing reminder that more than 11 years after 9/11 Americans still allow themselves to be easily and willingly cowed by the "threat" of terrorism. After all, it's not as if this is the first time that homicidal killers have been on the loose in a major American city. In 2002, Washington DC was terrorised by two roving snipers, who randomly shot and killed 10 people. In February, a disgruntled police officer, Christopher Dorner, murdered four people over several days in Los Angeles. In neither case was LA or DC put on lockdown mode, perhaps because neither of these sprees was branded with that magically evocative and seemingly terrifying word for Americans, terrorism.<< >>Last week, a fertiliser plant in West, Texas, which hasn't been inspected by federal regulators since 1985, exploded, killing 14 people and injuring countless others. Yet many Republicans want to cut further the funding for the agency (OSHA) that is responsible for such reviews. The vast majority of Americans die from one of four ailments – cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and chronic lung disease – and yet Republicans have held three dozen votes to repeal Obamacare, which expands healthcare coverage to 30 million Americans. It is a surreal and difficult-to-explain dynamic. Americans seemingly place an inordinate fear on violence that is random and unexplainable and can be blamed on "others" – jihadists, terrorists, evil-doers etc. But the lurking dangers all around us – the guns, our unhealthy diets, the workplaces that kill 14 Americans every single day – these are just accepted as part of life, the price of freedom, if you will. And so the violence goes, with more Americans dying preventable deaths. But hey, look on the bright side – we got those [SOBs] who blew up the marathon.<< <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/americans-ignore-daily-gun-deaths-2013-4#ixzz2RM0qchdC" target="_blank">http://www.businessinsider.com...RM0qchdC</a>
Originally Posted By ecdc Also this: >>Let us say that a guy got drunk at a bar outside of Mobile, Alabama, got in a fight with some dudes about University of Alabama versus Ole Miss college football, and ended up shooting them dead in the parking lot. Terrible, right? Stupid, violent, too many damn guns, shame, right? Now imagine that some foreigners slapped a crappy pseudo-anthropological analysis on top, full of weird historical references, non-sequitur references to the church, and misguided assumptions about ethnicity. DATELINE APRIL 21, 2013 IT HAS HAPPENED AGAIN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: Yet another massacre has occurred in the historically war-torn region of the Southern United States – and so soon after the religious festival of Easter. Brian McConkey, 27, a Christian fundamentalist militiaman living in the formerly occupied territory of Alabama, gunned down three men from an opposing tribe in the village square near Montgomery, the capitol, over a discussion that may have involved the rituals of the local football cult. In this region full of heavily-armed local warlords and radical Christian clerics, gun violence is part of the life of many. Many of the militiamen here are ethnic Scots-Irish tribesmen, a famously indomitable mountain people who have killed civilized men – and each other – for centuries. It appears that the wars that started on the fields of Bannockburn and Stirling have come to America. As the sun sets over the former Confederate States of America, one wonders – can peace ever come to this land?<< <a href="http://www.ericgarland.co/2013/04/22/if-media-covered-american-culture-the-way-we-cover-foreign-cultures/" target="_blank">http://www.ericgarland.co/2013...ultures/</a>
Originally Posted By barboy ///I admit to being uncomfortable when I was up that night and reading the reports of the man who was ordered to take off all his clothes in the middle of the street and was taken into custody naked./// A "weed free" barboy signing in from SE Asia........ Back in the first half of the 1940's during the Pacific campaign Allied troops commonly ordered captured "Japs" to undress completely to avoid a very real chance of them holding explosives in their uniforms/underware with the full intention of blowing themselves and Allied soldiers up .........If indeed police had some acceptable level of cause, well, I guess I can't blame them too much. But if there were a workable way to keep the guy from such humiliation/fear, then some police heads should roll and the guy should be compensated.
