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Friday Nite Videos | March 24, 2017

Portside
Bernie Sanders: We Beat Right-Wing Extremists Today. Inverted Beethoven. This Is Your Brain on Terrorism. Downbound Train | Chuck Berry. Grassroots Protest Set the Stage for ACHA's Defeat.

This Is Your Brain on Terrorism

We watch news coverage of terrorism because we think it'll make us better informed about how to keep ourselves safe. But what if it does the opposite?

books

Book Excerpt: America's Addiction to Terrorism

Michael D. Yates, Monthly Review Press Book Excerpt Monthly Review
The following excerpt is the Foreword to America's Addiction to Terrorism. Portside is pleased to share this with our readers. In the U.S. today, the term "terrorism" conjures up images of dangerous, outside threats: religious extremists and suicide bombers in particular. Harder to see but all the more pervasive is the terrorism perpetuated by the United States, itself, whether through military force overseas or woven into the very fabric of society at home.

The Reign of Absurdiocy

Uri Avnery Gush Shalom
There is no such thing as "international terrorism". To declare war on "international terrorism" is nonsense. Politicians who do so are either fools or cynics, and probably both.

 ISIS Wants a Clash of the Civilizations: Let’s Not Give In

Juan Cole The Nation
For Baghdadi to call his band of human traffickers, rapists, drug smugglers, and looters the “Islamic State” is rather like a Mexican drug cartel adopting the moniker “the Vatican,” and our adopting that term thereafter (“The Vatican kidnapped 30 people today”) when reporting on its violence. Journalists would resist such linguistic coercion in the case of Catholics; they should resist it in the case of Muslims as well.

The U.S. Aids and Abets War Crimes in the Philippines

Marjorie Cohn truthdig
People and groups have been labeled terrorists by the Philippine government, the U.S. government and other countries at the behest of the U.S. government. The Philippine government engages in - red tagging - political vilification. Targets are frequently human rights activists and advocates, political opponents, community organizers or groups struggling for national liberation. Those targeted for assassination are placed on the order of battle list.

Call It What It Is, Or Be Complicit

Terrance Heath Campaign for America's Future
Reasonable people cannot deny that the Charleston shooting was a racially driven act of terror. To deny the connection between Roof’s actions and extremist rhetoric that tells young people like him that black people are inherently violent and criminal is to be complicit in the actions that such rhetoric inspires.

After the Charlie Hebdo's Massacre - Support Those who Fight the Religious-right; "There is no way they will make us put down our pens."

Secularism is a Women's Issue; Karima Bennoune
The tragic massacre in Paris will undoubtedly give fuel to the traditional xenophobic far-Right and the danger is an increase in racism, marginalization and exclusion of people of Muslim descent in Europe and further. We do not want to witness "anti-Muslim witch hunts". One way to commemorate this terrible event and memorialize its victims is to unequivocally defend universal human rights, including the right to freedom of expression, and they apply to all.
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