Isis set off a couple of bombs in Beirut Lebanon yesterday that killed 40 people. Why is no one paying any attention to that?

I had not heard about it and just because I haven’t does not make me a hypocrit, it makes me an uninformed person.

I’m paying attention to it.

My Facebook is full of discussions of both Beirut and Baghdad as well as Paris.

Maybe you are a hypocrite, @elbanditoroso, I am not.

I understand it like this: Say I know that I have 4 or 5 tumors in my body. I’m not happy about that, and I treat them and monitor them. I worry if one gets a little bigger, and I feel relief if another shrinks a bit, but over time I get somewhat used to their being there and carry on with my life. But what really alarms me is when the cancer metastasizes to a part of my body that had been healthy thus far.

Because the media can’t seem to sensationalize on it like they can with the attacks on paris??

@thorninmud is right. In Lebanon the bombs are expected.

Lebanon has been stable for quite a few years.

It bothers me that we dismiss it because it’s in the Middle East.

I’m not dismissing it. I’m following the story on several sites.

I can pay attention to several atrocities at once and not demonize any one religion for them.

Exactly. As I hear often these days, “It’s not a competition.” Or as Hillary said, “I can do more than one thing at once.”

How quickly indignation grows and spreads and metastasizes into outrage. “You’re not paying enough attention to something to satisfy me. You must be the enemy.” This is not a marker on any path to peace.

Just until recently, it would rear it’s ugly head in the IRA theater.
I probably shouldn’t say that too loud either.
Jinx.

What @chyna and @Jeruba said.

On the topic of hypocrisy, however, I’ve seen a lot of posts from people claiming it’s wrong to lump all Muslims into the same category of evil just because of ISIS. Many of those people have previously made horrible blanket statements about Christians. THAT’S what pisses ME off. Seems like it’s okay to make a generalization about Christians being right-wing whackjobs, but NOT okay to make a generalization about Muslims being infidel-hating whackjobs. Just like it’s now the norm to be outraged over white on black crime, but ignore black on black crime. Yeah, okay then.

Bombs in Lebanon are expected.
Paris is beloved as the City of Light and Love.

Beirut was once a beautiful and beloved and cultured city for many @filmfann .

As others have said, bombings are common enough in Lebanon that perhaps we have become jaded to them. It is wrong, but I admit I was aware but not as interested as with the novelty of terrorism in Paris, where it rarely happens.

@WillWorkForChocolate It’s wrong to lump any group together, period. What I get pissed off about as a non-religious person is that plenty of Christians constantly group all Muslims together and then get beyond livid when someone points out that the same can easily be done to them. Also, I feel the need to point out that people who talk about “black on black” crime like it’s a relevant thing are misguided or flat out ignorant. You never hear anyone mention “white on white” crime, so what gives? Historically, even today, “white on black” crime – although not always racially motivated – absolutely is racially motivated a lot of the time. And yes, I’m sure there are instances of “black on white” crime being racially motivated, but not as much as the other way around.

To reply to the actual question. I had some people on my FB feed who were talking about eradicating and deporting all Muslims, because “why ignore the problem for so long that it spreads throughout the entire world?” But I found it interesting that those very people, when talking about how important it was to pay attention before things “get really bad”, only paid attention when it happened in France. They didn’t even know about the other attacks. These are contractors who go to the Middle East to “protect” our troops and fight for “American values”. Is it a race issue? Are they just ignorant because they’re typical Americans who only pay attention to the news that is spoon-fed to them? I can’t say for sure one way or another, but it’s not hard to draw certain conclusions.

Wooooooow. Okay then. Some of the most ignorant shit I’ve read here. That’s my cue to go again.

@WillWorkForChocolate I’m sorry you feel that way instead of wanting to have a conversation about it. I wasn’t trying to attack you. I was merely stating my own opinion. If you change your mind, I’d be happy to talk about it.

The real answer Paris is the largest of cities to be hit, causing the most death of all the bombings. Paris hasn’t been hit with a major terrorist attack in a very very long time so it’s not so much that people aren’t paying attention to the other bombings, they’re just paying more attention to Paris because it was the most crippling and unexpected. Hence “Eiffel tower gone dark”

@Obscurethinktank 147 people died in Kenya when ISIS/ISIL claimed responsibility. The scale was nearly identical to Paris, but it didn’t make the news like Paris did. So, although you are correct to some degree (especially because Paris is the most recent), I don’t think that’s a complete answer.

@WillWorkForChocolate
Hey!
Please don’t go. Everyone seems to be in a weird mood for this tonight. Like we all ate a stink-bug for lunch. Yes, I’m in there also.—I prefer mine without hot sauce- perhaps a little water with lemon…—
Everyone just breathe and step back for now.
No one here is wonderful, and everyone plays Chutes and Ladders with their opinions. But that’s the best part- no one’s is the same.
It’s just mad-dog rules in bringing things up.
Perhaps many finished their Halloween candy and now is in withdrawal?
C’mon. Please stay?
Just let this evening go down with the sun, and come back tomorrow!
Please?
Ok, shit. Did I just date myself mentioning the Chutes And Ladders Game?
Well, hell.

Everyone chill out please- calm.

Let this be for now-
By the way, I love the meowness of your icon. :)
yellow kitty love!

By the way: 147 deaths in Kenya means that, no, Paris did not have the most deaths of all the bombings. The Paris attacks were more widespread, but a smaller amount of people died. I think that if “facts” are used, they should at least be accurate.

I also don’t think that saying because the attacks in Paris were unexpected it’s really any more of a valid reason for the world not to plaster Kenya all over the news like they did with Paris, especially when more people died. Maybe if people paid as much attention to the bombings in places that we “expect” them to be, they couldn’t and wouldn’t spread so far into the rest of the world.

And that’s a wrap!
Let it gooooo
Please?

Maybe interestingly illustrative: the bombings in Lebanon were last week Thursday, the death toll was 43.

@msh One of the things this site is good for is discussion and that’s what I’m doing. I won’t shy away from it simply because it’s a serious subject and there are opposing opinions. People are free to feel however they want to about it, but @Obscurethinktank literally said that more people died in Paris, which is flat out wrong. I don’t see a problem with correcting it.

I was very “OMG! Support Paris!!” immediately, for two reasons: it was the only attack I knew about at the time, and my daughter lived in Paris for a semester last year (I had flashback panic). Switched my Facebook profile pic to the Eiffel-Tower-in-a-peace-sign right away, of course.

When I later learned about the other attacks, I didn’t initially think, “OMG! Support them too!” More like, oh that’s so sad. But still, support Paris!! Thankfully, a Facebook friend asked a pointed question about why FB wasn’t offering flag profile pictures for all of the other countries affected by ISIS terrorism.

I had to take a long hard look at my own initial reactions after the attacks, and what I found in my own head upset me.

I realized that I subconsciously think of the other countries as war-torn places where things like this happen all the time, and France as a safe place. Terrorist attacks feel more shocking and upsetting in some places than in others, but it shouldn’t be that way. We should be shocked and outraged no matter where it happens, you know? Maybe we should even be more upset that it ‘happens all the time’ anywhere.

I changed my Paris FB profile picture to a peace sign made out of every flag in the world.

I asked @augustlan if I could kindly steal the image, because as I told her, I was already in the process of creating an image with every flag on it. But then I saw the one she used and it was already perfect. She said I could use it, so I did – on FB and on here. For the exact same reasons she so eloquently stated, which I would probably struggle to put into words, simply because I wish people looked more deeply into certain things and I get (frustratingly) worked up about things sometimes. But I genuinely wish that more people could discuss things like this and open their hearts and minds, because it’s exactly what the entire world needs.

And I’m a sappy dork who genuinely wishes that the world was a much better place. It can’t get better without discussion, though.

Sappy dorks will make the world a better place. How else would we all find out about these things and change our minds in the first place? :)

@DrasticDreamer
Yesss, I think I have the gist of the site. Thank you.
It’s the attacks that got wayyyyy outta hand and were downright nasty words on others-( you were there- right in the middle of it, didn’t you feel it shift away?) and that’s when it moved out of discussion into personal and vehement nastiness. Calling out others?
That’s when feelings got put to the side. Really a question that turned towards getting the townsfolk to go after someone with pitchforks and torches, not intense discussion.
Go to the very tippy top waaayyy up there- it got long, and re-read over the whole dynamic.
I am, in no way, wanting to stop anything….to do with this topic. It’s not mine to do so.
Don’t wish to. What’s more, how can we, it’s in our faces from media to beyondddd!
But – when things get really, really downright mean? Possibly hurtful?
It’s time to cool off for a bit and stop taking swings at others.
That’s all.
Time to back off.
Come back later, well-chilled.
Then go on to Discuss.

@janbb Lebanon was once beautiful, and birthplace of many prophets, however it is now common to hear of bombs and destruction there. That addresses the OP.

To all that think of Lebanon as a place that has this happen all of the time…. I spend a small vacation in Lebanon with my wife, last year.

It still is a beautiful place. A place that takes too much of a grunt on the recent crises. Still a beautiful place with beautiful people, though.

@whitenoise takes too much of a grunt on —> bears too much of the brunt of?

@msh What attacks and nasty words? I genuinely didn’t attack anyone. I said something was ignorant, but that, to me, is not name-calling.

You didn’t say ignorant! It was what you think. That’s always OK.
All of it had just hurt some feelings. It got too hot.
Go ahead now, everyone has cooled off a little bit.
You were upset also. I wasn’t trying to change your mind- or argue.
Start over. From here! Two have tried today – look above this post.
Everything is fine. Ok? :)

The answer is simple: We are Euro-centric. We are a country that is predominantly culturally, historically, and since WWII, militarily connected to Europe through our NATO alliance, Euro-centric. We report and feel bad when over 100 university students in Ankara are slaughtered by ISIS. It is in the news and discussed by commentators and only a nutcase wouldn’t feel bad about it. But it doesn’t dominate the news and our consciousness, like when people with whom we feel culturally closer to are hit. That is the answer. Some people are not comfortable with that and refuse to admit it even to themselves.

@Espiritus Corvus
Nothing infiltrates through all the layers of the human brain, that’s for sure. I wonder if it is like a waterfall of words, poured through a sieve in our brains, and we retain whatever doesn’t wash right on past.
Back when schools had just been invented, the courses I took were all of only certain prescribed information, not to encourage anyone to look up and question anything. But then rocks had just been invented moments before said school, sooo, yeah. Students now are receiving a world-wide view of a gazillion times more information than what was.
I don’t know what makes things stick.
Personally, one of the situations that I am always checking on are the activities of the Boko Haram terrorist group. I cannot get the images of the young women, and later, young men, being taken by those jackals in Africa. No one made a move. Not one country. Not the UN. Zero. Zip. Nothing. Silence.
Darfur, women gathering firewood and carrying on in horrid camp conditions, and these horrid groups in their early incarnations, laid in wait for these inescapable fuel foraging trips. Capturing these women was sport. Assaulting these women, everything done up to killing them, they then brand the women to draw attention, so that when the women made it back afterwards, they then became an ‘embarrassment’ to their families! Dishonoring the families? Killed for such, or the male member of the family committed suicide out of shame, thus leaving the woman to support their family alone. Clinton’s Administration.
On to Bush’s Administration; US troops went into Northern Africa after the leaders of the Middle East were beginning to crumble. When asked why the troops were doing so, it was immediately covered up. The media was soon to drop it also. Were they looking for areas for oil exploration? Taking an extended fieldtrip to get to get to know the locals? Who knows? No one will answer.
I can’t seem to stop looking there. The whole country is one of the last areas with fluidity in it’s borders, uncontained cruelty, and a desperate sort of survival.
And so, I bring up yet another dirty secret. Another black eye for all who have constantly maintained a sense of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ from around the world-towards these peoples. Some of the bombings of areas, other than Paris, at least have earned a place on the evening news, no matter how briefly. There are so many left out entirely.