[liberationtech] Price of the #MuslimBan

[Doc Searls]

We are in new territory here, and need to be careful with characterization—and much more.

A few days ago I spoke with a woman I know, a hard-core Orange County (CA) Republican, who held her nose when she voted for Trump. Also a good Catholic, she now prays every day for the country, "because he's crazy." Yet when I asked her how she would vote if the election were today, her answer was "I could never vote for that woman." Would she still vote for Trump? "I don't know," she said.

The Times reports a hotel hacked and shaken down for bitcoin, : <https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/world/europe/hotel-austria-bitcoin-ransom.html> The Verge reports that other reports weren’t quite true: <http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/30/14438226/hackers-austrian-hotel-bitcoin-ransom-ransomware>. Bottom line that isn’t: it’s complicated. And there are many "its."

No doubt Trump and his boy Bannon are expert at understanding and playing their opponents, which happen to be the news media on which most of the rest of us rely. I could go on about that, the problems here are obvious. As for the consequences, we only see the early and immediate ones, and much of those are (for all their good intentions) knee-jerk blowback.

So I caution everybody to take as sober, removed, informed and considered a view as possible—and to avoid falling into the default grooves of thought and sympathy. We all need to be broader than that, just to begin to get handles on what’s going on, then what to do.

My 2¢ anyway, on one Monday morning.

doc

> On Jan 30, 2017, at 10:35 AM, ernesto ortiz <ernestortizcu at yahoo.es> wrote:
> 
> El 30/1/17 a las 6:51 p. m., Rich Kulawiec escribió:
>>> I've tried to avoid commenting too much on Trump's election to avoid
>>> demonizing Republicans and people in my network who support him.
>> And that's fine, and noble, and nice of you.  But understand very,
>> VERY clearly: they will not hesitate to do that to you.
> Really? Are you sure that Republicans here -all of them- are so bad that
> undoubtedly do not hesitate to demonize the others? That's precisely the
> typical scheme of someone who demonise the people just for having a
> different ideology or creed.
>> 
>> If you're not a (a) white (b) Christian (c) American citizen then you're
>> going to be targeted.  It's not a question of "if", only of "when".
>> (And some people who are all three will be targeted anyway: women,
>> LBGTQ, journalists, academics, scientists come to mind immediately.)
>> 
>> 	When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag
>> 	and carrying a cross.
>> 		--- Sinclair Lewis
>> 
>> This current episode is just a test to see what kind of reaction ensues.
>> It's a probe for weaknesses.  It has NOTHING to do with stopping terrorism:
>> in fact, it's designed to increase the probability of attacks -- because
>> that will make subsequent steps much easier.  (Note the careful exemption
>> of majority-Muslim countries in which Trump owns hotels/resorts.)
>> 
>> ---rsk
> 
> -- 
> Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at companys at stanford.edu.