Bleeding Edge, pp. 312-313

[Mark Thibodeau]

The Glasgow terrorists from last year? They were DOCTORS. Like, finished
med school, opened private practices, successful member of society DOCTORS.

That's probably the scariest terrorist-related thing I've ever heard.

MT

On Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 1:45 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:

> It's way too easy to write these guys off as losers who can't get laid.
> Hey, I've known plenty of people who've never had a serious relationship,
> and rarely, if ever have gotten laid. They channel their frustration into
> obsessions with art, film, music. You know the type. Should we start
> pointing fingers at anyone who hasn't been in a relationship?
>
> That Guardian article Mark posted makes it clear: ISIS attracts many
> people with solid people skills, who, in turn are able to spend hours and
> hours on line, luring others (girls as well as boys) into the movement. Few
> losers-who-can't-get-laid have that amount of social finesse. And a big
> selling point is the trading of a humdrum life for the romance of fighting
> and/or dying for the "cause." Sure, it's easier to lure in the mentally
> ill, the lonely, the broke. But their ability to lure in romantics and
> idealists, and skew their world-view so much that the death of innocents -
> even little Muslim kids - becomes lost in the swell of glory of the cause,
> well, that's the truly scary part.
>
> It emphasizes the stupidity of cracking down on the Occupy encampments -
> they provided a solid grounding point for restless romantics. We need more
> of that.
>
> Laura
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> From: ish mailian
>
> Sent: Nov 16, 2015 11:11 AM
>
> To: Pynchon-l at waste.org
>
> Subject: Re: Bleeding Edge, pp. 312-313
>
>
>
> Nah, they are losers. They tried to fit in, to have a girl....these boys
> and the men who sent them to an early grave did not act heroically, this
> was no  "brilliantly coordinated act of war" (the Esquire article); that
> the fools exploded their vests, spilling their guts outside the stadium is
> evidence that they were boys sent on a mission, like the boys who marched
> across minefields, like so many boys in war....
> Poor boys. Never even made love. They never made war either.
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 10:03 AM, David Kilroy <thesaintgodard at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> These 'losers' are indoctrinated and brainwashed same as any marine
>
> sniper. As damaged, in their way, as any Starkweather. To simplify
>
> them as Losers is too 2-D, too subjective, too dismissive. These
>
> people, their worldview, has to be understood to be effectively
>
> opposed. Not everyone who opts for celibacy hates sex. Sex is life but
>
> it isn't the only reason to live. Additionally it's a fair bet the
>
> bombers wanked as much as anyone. The 100 percent celibate is very,
>
> very rare. Masturbation may be self-love but it's hardly a substitute
>
> for empathy. Empathy is what's damaged in these killers: they're
>
> taught to not see humanity but an evidence of humanity's failure in
>
> the eyes of Allah. WE are the 'losers' to them: we are the Them to
>
> their Us. Sex alone cannot cure that psychosis.
>
>
>
> On 11/16/15, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Even the losers get lucky sometimes. But these losers, boys for the most
>
> > part, don't get that, so they hate themselves, hate women, hate sex, and
>
> > sport, and rock and roll and restaurants and good food and drink, and a
>
> > good time. How unfortunate. To aggrandize the anxiety of these losers, to
>
> > make them ideological spokesmen of the Palestinian plight, the
>
> > Post-Colonial rebound, the effect of Orientalists and Oil, is silly.
> These
>
> > boys are losers. Masturbation may have prevented this, and a good night
> out
>
> > and some sex would have surely.
>
> >
>
> > On Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 6:21 AM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
>
> > wrote:
>
> >
>
> >> Come now, you who say,
>
> >> <https://biblia.com/bible/esv/Jas4.13-15#footnote1>“Today
>
> >> or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there
>
> >> and
>
> >> trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.
>
> >> What is your life? For
>
> >> <https://biblia.com/bible/esv/Jas4.13-15#footnote2>you
>
> >> are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you
>
> >> ought to say, <https://biblia.com/bible/esv/Jas4.13-15#footnote3>“If
> the
>
> >> Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
>
> >>
>
> >> 2015-11-16 11:12 GMT+01:00 Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>:
>
> >>
>
> >>> Hm.
>
> >>>
>
> >>> On Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 5:02 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <
>
> >>> lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>
> >>>
>
> >>>>
>
> >>>>    In the taxi on the way home, there's loud traffic in Arabic on the
>
> >>>> radio, which Maxine figures at first for a call-in show till the
> cabbie
>
> >>>> picks up a handset and joins in. She glances at the ID up on the
>
> >>>> Plexiglas.
>
> >>>> The face in the photo is too indistinct to make out, but the name is
>
> >>>> Islamic, Mohammed somebody.
>
> >>>>    It's like hearing a party from another room, though Maxine notices
>
> >>>> there's no music, no laughing. High emotion all right, but closer to
>
> >>>> tears
>
> >>>> or anger. Men talking over each other, shouting, interrupting. A
> couple
>
> >>>> of
>
> >>>> the voices might be women's, though later it will seem they could have
>
> >>>> belonged to high-pitched men. The only word Maxine recognizes, and she
>
> >>>> hears it more than once, is *Inshallah*. "Arabic for 'whatever,'"
> Horst
>
> >>>> nods.
>
> >>>>    They're waiting at a light. "If it is God's will," the driver
>
> >>>> corrects him, half turning in his seat so that Maxine happens to be
>
> >>>> looking
>
> >>>> him in the face. What she sees there will keep her from getting to
>
> >>>> sleep
>
> >>>> right away. Or that's how she'll remember it.
>
> >>>>
>
> >>>>
>
> >>>
>
> >>
>
> >
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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