It's Katherine Russell, the widow Tamerlan Tsarnaev. "She was just this All-American girl who was brainwashed by her super-religious husband. Nobody understands what happened to her." She was the daughter of a Rhode Island doctor and nurse. She "dreamed of going to college and joining the Peace Corps."
Brainwashed. Are you buying that or do you think that Peace Corps aspirationalists are just the kind of American kids who feel drawn to the idea of becoming the other?
I tend to think people are responsible for their own choices.
Posts
279 comments:
1 – 200 of 279 Newer› Newest»Agree with you. She made her choice.
Here's a part of the story the hacktastic Michael Moore pro-democrat media will not be covering.
I think most of our unprofessional joke media are stuck on the obsession of skin color, and how we must not rush to judgment.
It's called the "Stockholm Syndrome." Apparently it is seductive and highly contagious to half the population here.
I tend to think people are responsible for their own choices.
And you, a liberal!
Are you buying that or do you think that Peace Corps aspirationalists are just the kind of American kids who feel drawn to the idea of becoming the other?
This!
I have met many Peace Corps volunteers (women usually) that become the 'other' on thier tour. I don't know if it was the original plan, but they seem to go full native. They often then look down on the others that don't 'get' the local culture the same way they do. There seems to be a strong pull to be something other than American when you get overseas and I personally don't understand it. My time abroad made me more American in the way a saw things.
YMMV
She appears not to be Jewish so at least that's something.
Does spousal privilege survive the death of the spouse?
ah, but the costume possibilities..and who knows if you put on a few lbs...
Margaret Meade syndrome.
Of course people are responsible for their own choices. Be careful with that - you'll be drummed out of the Democrat Party.
Anyway, it is interesting to contemplate how she made that choice.
It could be as simple and mundane as falling in love, to as complex as being raised without any significant appreciation for her self or her country and it's values.
Or being raised in a secular home, and finding the answers to life's deeper questions offered by secularism wholly unsatisfying.
I've always been a little fascinated by those on the left and their proclivity to embrace the other simply because it's the other. When you step back and look at it, it forms the irrational basis of a great deal of their thinking.
I know Peace Corps volunteers, current and former, and they're all a little odd and they all tended toward becoming "other".
Doesn't mean they can't make their own choices, does it?
"It's Katherine Russell, the widow Tamerlan Tsarnaev. "She was just this All-American girl who was brainwashed by her super-religious husband.
Brainwashed. Are you buying that or do you think that Peace Corps aspirationalists are just the kind of American kids who feel drawn to the idea of becoming the other?
I tend to think people are responsible for their own choices.
I agree. "Brainwashing" tends to imply some sort of coerced change of mindset. The far more likely explanation is that she accepted the changes to her life consciously. After all, when was the last time anyone was truly "brainwashed"?
That said, I caution against reading too much into a throwaway statement by someone who's only connection was knowing her in the past. While it's true that the statement sounds like it's concluding she was changed to a new life against her will, it's also possible that the person simply meant she was seduced or swayed yet still chose consciously. The word often gets used in that context too.
I tend to think people are responsible for their own choices.
I would like to think so too, but am under the impression that view is not as widely held as it may have been at one time.
Leftism teaches alienation from the country. Is it a wonder why people then feel alienated from the country? Whether society is greedy or decadent, leftism wants to undermine it, drop out from it or destroy it.
She could easily have fallen into any one of those categories,
There's another possibility. She fell in love with Tamberlin and would do anything to please him including converting to a kooky religion to please her man. Katie Holmes became a scientologist to please her man. At seems to be a common trait in submissive women (and men).
Did she know the extent of his jihadism? I'm not sure. He might have been the kind of guy that kept things from his woman becaus he views women as subordinate to men and not to be involved in serious matters, and she accepted her role.
Also, he fooled everyone else. Maybe he fooled her too as to his terroris proclivities. Just because she was a Muslim doesn't. Mean she was a terrorist.
What's the upside of judging her before we have more information?
The Peace Corps is a recruiting group for useful idiots . . .
Brainwashing does not typically occur in an environment of free choice. It is far more likely to happen in a context of coercion and isolation.
Some parents have an incredibly difficult time accepting the poor choices of their children.
Trey
Freeman Hunt said...
"Are you buying that or do you think that Peace Corps aspirationalists are just the kind of American kids who feel drawn to the idea of becoming the other?"
This!"
Certainly a possibility.
People crave meaning in their lives.
If one's family, culture or faith (or lack thereof) doesn't provide any sense of that meaning, one will look for it elsewhere.
The few people I know who joined the Peace Corps (or is it Corpse?) were similar in that each was transparently alienated from America, its culture and its values.
They are, of course, uniformly liberal too, but anyone could have reasonably guessed that.
"What's the upside of judging her before we have more information?"
-- There is none; it seems people are talking about the use of the term 'brainwash[ed/ing].' So, they're discussing based on existing information. It isn't rampant speculation, but it might be jumping the gun a bit.
He was arrested for hitting her. He was a serious boxer. That's not brainwashing, that's being beaten into submission.
Are you buying that or do you think that Peace Corps aspirationalists are just the kind of American kids who feel drawn to the idea of becoming the other?
Maybe the left's incessant and overwrought denigration of America has consequences. Who could have predicted that?
She was the daughter of a Rhode Island doctor and nurse. She "dreamed of going to college and joining the Peace Corps."
Well, that's the problem right there. I guess good parenting in this country means letting someone do stupid things. If my daughter came home with a boyfriend who wanted her to wear a Hijab (or a burka), there would be a big, big problem.
But "diversity" and multiculturalism are so ingrained in some people, that they can't help themselves, I guess.
Also, isn't it cute that modern feminism has evolved to the point where hiding your face and seeing your husband only on weekends is a symbol of empowerment?
Women are masters of aggressive masochism.
And there is an angle I didn't know (since I'm not reading the links.) Physical force like that isn't what I'd call brainwashing, but for people unaware of the forced coercion, it may appear that way.
"What's the upside of judging her before we have more information?"
Not sure, but what's the downside?
I think that yearning for the other is pretty much where Obama came from.
Thanks again boomers!
"It's called the "Stockholm Syndrome." Apparently it is seductive and highly contagious to half the population here."
No, it is not called Stockholm Syndrome. Stockholm Syndrome is something that happens to someone who is not free, who deals with captivity by identifying with her oppressors, like what happened to Patty Hearst.
Katherine Russell does not belong in the same category.
Scott M said...
I've always been a little fascinated by those on the left and their proclivity to embrace the other simply because it's the other
Yes. They only latched onto this Toomey/Manchin thing because the NRA was opposed. They have no idea what it was or was supposed to do.
The thought is reflected here
What's the upside of judging her before we have more information?.
For one thing, it tends to generate your participation wondering why someone might do it.
"And there is an angle I didn't know (since I'm not reading the links.) Physical force like that isn't what I'd call brainwashing, but for people unaware of the forced coercion, it may appear that way."
I don't think it's news that some women hang with bad men no matter how bad they are to them. The only thing unique about this is who the guy was.
Maybe it's just me but doesn't this woman remind you of Obama's moma?
I remember when Chris Griffin joined the Peace Corps. He was only there a couple of days before he was wearing a grass skirt and getting ready to marry the local chief's daughter.
Then he sang Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go and all was good.
"It isn't rampant speculation, but it might be jumping the gun a bit."
"Rampant speculation" seems a significantly better exercise than "judgment," no?
"Katherine Russell does not belong in the same category."
-- Doesn't that matter on the extent/level of abuse in the relationship? If she honestly felt trapped and physically afraid of leaving, it is essentially the same thing. But, again, I'm just going based on what people say here.
wyo sis nails it.
"The Little Drummer Girl"?
""Rampant speculation" seems a significantly better exercise than "judgment," no?"
-- There's usually no harm in it either way, provided it is clear which is which.
Who could have guessed that the story was written by a woman.
cubanbob said...
"Maybe it's just me but doesn't this woman remind you of Obama's moma?"
No, not really, but I get the point.
Obama's mother took stronger, more forceful, riskier steps than did Russell; in that way, she appears to have been more committed than Russell.
How did garage mahal become a Communist in the Heartland?
She was part of the Left's sphere of influence that teaches hate for America and what it stands for--nothing more, The Left made a deal with Islam long ago, to provide good Press in exchange for the money the Left always needs. The Left sees them as the cannonfodder they need.
She was the daughter of a Rhode Island doctor ...
What was the late Mr. T. Tsarnev's source of income?
Was Katherine Russell's father subsidizing or supporting his daughter and her beloved husband?
Her daughter can now collect social security survivor benefits for the next 15 years til she reaches 18 years old.
And Chrissy Mathews was in the Peace Corps.
"He was arrested for hitting her. He was a serious boxer. That's not brainwashing, that's being beaten into submission."
She was not free to leave? Even if you suspect there is some sort of "battered wife syndrome" in effect here, it does not explain entering a relationship with such a person in the first place.
Another static young American rooted in nothing, grasping whatever floats by so it will carry her somewhere.
Her father looks a bit rounder than I would expect a doctor to be.
****
Some people are very good at manipulating others. Had she seen any of these friends since high school? Did she cut off ties with them earlier or only after she met him?
"-- There's usually no harm in it either way, provided it is clear which is which."
Except, one should withhold judgment until one has enough information to do so fairly, thus, speculation, rampant or otherwise.
By the way, we're also going to see the surviving brother presented as someone whose will and personality were overcome by the domineering older brother.
Asking us to respond this way to the woman is softening us up for that. You know it's coming.
jr565 is in the target area also..
Mary Beth said...
"Her father looks a bit rounder than I would expect a doctor to be."
Yeah, dad's got a serious boiler going on there.
And that older brother will take on mythic proportion. What a powerfully charismatic fallen hero!
"Asking us to respond this way to the woman is softening us up for that. You know it's coming."
Of course it's coming.
In the end, it will be our fault, not his, his brother, or any anti-American Islamic jihadi group with which they may have been associated.
Most of all, it won't be the fault of any "Muslims," notwithstanding the obvious.
"With his high cheekbones, narrow eyes and long brown robe, Mr Bin Laden looks every inch the mountain warrior of mujahedin legend. Chadored children danced in front of him, preachers acknowledged his wisdom. 'We have been waiting for this road through all the revolutions in Sudan,' a sheikh said. 'We waited until we had given up on everybody - and then Osama Bin Laden came along.'"
I know people will think the Obama connection crude, but it's also why we will see the multicultural and diversity secular faith reaffirmed.
They're focusing on how we will become better in our multicultural faith (education, inclusion, empathy, psychology, what makes good people go bad).
As for Russell, at least she had her family to fall back on when it got abusive, but....still.
By the way, we're also going to see the surviving brother presented as someone whose will and personality were overcome by the domineering older brother.
That is what his lawyers will work on, I agree. And then he killed him by running him over, setting himself free. That'll be the narrative. I don't buy it (and I'm the youngest sibling). When you are legal age, and your brother is married with a kid, you do lose the devotion, unless you are cray-cray.
the funny thing to me is how many people who comment on this blog are drawn to the idea of being part of a group that is distinctly not the other, but more like an endless sea of slack-jawed yokels toting guns to the grocery store after a church sermon where they hear about peace and love and then ignore the fuck out of it.
identity psychology works both ways. everybody is weird.
"You know it's coming"
Does the sun rise in the East? Does a Bear do it in the woods? Is a Dog's dick red?
She probably didn't feel free. When girls of an elitist background fall to depravity, their naivete tends to make them fall hard:
By then her relationship with Tsaraev was intense. Not even his arrest for violently assaulting her in 2009 could change that.
I have been to some of the tony New York suburbs. It always strikes me how many young females there look like they'd like to be wild only they are too scared because they correctly realize they don't have sufficient common street smarts to be at all discriminating about it.
Part of it is that when girls in those social circles do fall into scum, the so-called "proper" rich girls, believing in the importance of associating just with proper society, especially tend to not want anything to do with the sullied ones, even by way of encouraging their rescue.
She was the daughter of a Rhode Island doctor and nurse.
Bill Ayers' father was CEO of ConEd. Came in handy when it was time to pay defense lawyers.
Lure of the exotic, no particular religious identity of her own, child by the guy, knew a side of Tamerlan we didn't...how many of us know a woman who has sublimated herself totally to Mr. Wrong?
Oh, and If my daughter came home with a boyfriend..., dude that is just CATNIP to an impressionable young woman.
Ann Althouse said...
By the way, we're also going to see the surviving brother presented as someone whose will and personality were overcome by the domineering older brother.
Asking us to respond this way to the woman is softening us up for that. You know it's coming.
Coming? I've already read it. I figure since the younger brother ran over his handcuffed big brother in his rush to escape...the little brother is no prize.
Typical liberal white girl. Easily led astray.
And like many Muslim wives her late husband gave a sound beating.
"If she is not repentant beat her"
Memri
"With his high cheekbones, narrow eyes and long brown robe, Mr Bin Laden looks every inch the mountain warrior of mujahedin legend. Chadored children danced in front of him, preachers acknowledged his wisdom. 'We have been waiting for this road through all the revolutions in Sudan,' a sheikh said. 'We waited until we had given up on everybody - and then Osama Bin Laden came along.'"
Fisk = Duranty.
Not mentioned yet is the adoration of the hip-hop "bad-boy" "rough-neck" style "Alpha Males" by huge numbers of suburban teenage white middle & upper-class female "hipsters" --a trend that is currently running rampant thru society. The "Alpha-Male" description and its attraction to impressionable young females seems particularly apt here. The fact that this guy was "ethnic" was just icing on the Margret Meade Syndrome cake..
And that older brother will take on mythic proportion. What a powerfully charismatic fallen hero!
Like the older brother's namesake, a Muslim Turkic warlord whose greatest victory came in April 15, 1395 in a river valley in northern Chechnya.
The next step is to take the Jokar and make him half a victim. This is because the multicultural faith (driven by Leftism) must be reaffirmed.
We almost had him through our culture (not the bad culture of McDonald's and corporations and patriarchy) but the good culture of seeing him as a victim, united under justice and social justice, inclusion and diversity.
The conclusion will be: We weren't inclusive and diverse enough. So how can 'we' be more diverse and inclusive
Who cares if he was Muslim?
Just like Europe, or maybe more like Australia. That multicultural model is precisely the one which produces more ghettoes of Muslims, angry Islamist imams and fewer jobs for everybody.
***I think of people who listen to NPR like Katherine Russell. Sure they made the choice, but many don't realize where it leads.
im with you. every girl needs to watch "not without my daughter" and this needs to be started early so when they meet these guys, they remember, bottom line, you don't matter to him.
Tamerlan's body lies a mouldering in the grave.
To better understand him a study of the life of John Brown provides a parallel story.
John Brown became the bright light of violence losing the sword of war against the southern Slavocracy. Everybody was talking a big abolishionist game in 1860, but stupid John Brown actually attacked with military weapons in a sure losing move...but by it he became the Star in the sky to many.
But of course everyone in the conspiracy will turn in the dead guy as the one who did it all.
She was part of the Left's sphere of influence that teaches hate for America and what it stands for--nothing more, The Left made a deal with Islam long ago, to provide good Press in exchange for the money the Left always needs. The Left sees them as the cannonfodder they need.
Dang. I'm exposed! Are you in our secret meetings?
He was arrested for hitting her. He was a serious boxer. That's not brainwashing, that's being beaten into submission.
....
By then her relationship with Tsaraev was intense. Not even his arrest for violently assaulting her in 2009 could change that.
The woman Tsarnaev was arrested for "slapping" was not Katherine Russell.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/04/20/Bombing-Suspect-1-Confessed-to-2009-Assault-I-Slapped-Her-Judge-Dismissed-Case
Althouse. "You know it's coming."
Already arrived. Lots more nonsense to come, all meant to say that you do not see what you see.
"Dang. I'm exposed! Are you in our secret meetings?"
Those are only for your leaders. Foot-soldiers don't get to attend.
It's called the "bad boy" syndrome!
"I don't want a boring accountant type, I want a "bad boy" who will abuse me and make me love him!"
PS: Before I'm charged with making both an over-broad and inappropriate parallel here let me say that, of course this guy was an otherwise upwardly mobile "aspirational" "clean-cut" college kid viz a blue-collar black thug gang-banger from the hood, but the misogynistic Alpha-Male "other" (i.e., not a WASP Brooks-Brothers type) mantle fits perfectly.
She fell for the guy. He was fricking hot, had a bod to die for, was foreign and exotic and dangerous.
Hello? What's not to love?
I see "you" where I think "your" should be all the time.
It's Jamaican me crazy man.
She was not free to leave?
I don't know, was her hijab a mere fashion statement?
the religion of peace corp...
The demand from the god who dictated Mohammed's Koran to him in a cave through an angel gave the world a demand to wipe out not only the pagan animist worshipers but especially the Jew and the Jew Messiah's followers...either convert them or kill them all!
The center of this cult is Mecca in Saudi Arabia, and the terrorists are all from there and funded from there.
The mosques built all over the world and in the USA with Saudi money since the 1980s are advance outposts for military conquest.
And that is fact. There is no Islamophobia in doing enemy recognition.
The Muslims are in Americanophobia...they are afraid we will wake up and see what the are planning to do.
Not women. We CONTROL you!!!
BWahhahaahahaha...
What's the upside of judging her before we have more information?
Ask Michael Moore or Chris Matthews.
Robin Morgan, the seventies feminist, wrote a good book in 1989 on this titled, "The Demon Lover: On the Sexuality of Terrorism."
Morgan was a good friend and confidant of Jane Alpert, one of the radical left bombers who came out of Ivy League schools back then. Morgan aided Alpert while Alpert was a fugitive underground.
Alpert came to explain her terrorism as the result of her infatuation with Sam Melville, whose raw sexual magnetism combined with radical politics she found irresistible. She and Melville were charged with eight bombings in 1969. She jumped bail and hid for 4 1/2 years before surrendering. She served less than three years. Melville died in the Attica State Prison riots.
While a fugitive she renounced leftist terrorism and what she considered the male-dominated left, and dedicated herself to feminism.
Her later story seems to have been scrubbed from the web. As I recall, by the 2000s she found her way to a high-powered position in a pension fund.
I don't think these brothers were attractive. I don't get it. But then, I like my men to have that wholesome, Captain America look about them. I don't want my first thought to be, "I bet he smells like garlic."
Tamerlan, Che, and Dzhokhar t-shirts! The Left loves their "three shirts." I'll make a fortune! Don't worry, I won't buy $900 shoes. And if I did, I'd do it at Amazon through AA's magic portal.
Stockholm Syndrome...
...Margaret Meade syndrome
How about Stanley Ann Dunham syndrome?
Chadorable!
Now, Uncle Ruslan is kind of hot. Pretty is as pretty does.
Even if you suspect there is some sort of "battered wife syndrome" in effect here, it does not explain entering a relationship with such a person in the first place.
Generally people who end up in abusive relationships don't pick up the abuse until they are already in it. Guy starts out nice and then the bits of anger start coming out. It's not like thye go on a first date and get a punch to the face and demand that they convert.
I don't know what's going on with this person, but I can see someone like the frog who gets in the water cold and slowly it starts to heat up.
She hasn't totally rejected the modern world. A couple of nice bags she's carrying.
Ann Althouse said...
I tend to think people are responsible for their own choices.
This coming from an intelligent, well-educated, independent woman with a healthy ego and strong self-esteem.
Not everybody is so well-favored.
No, it is not called Stockholm Syndrome. Stockholm Syndrome is something that happens to someone who is not free, who deals with captivity by identifying with her oppressors, like what happened to Patty Hearst.
Katherine Russell does not belong in the same category.
Not necessarily. A weak-willed woman is often so dominated by her husband (or boyfriend), she feels it's her failing if she leaves.
You're jumping the gun here.
She was not free to leave? Even if you suspect there is some sort of "battered wife syndrome" in effect here, it does not explain entering a relationship with such a person in the first place.
The toughest thing for many battered women to do is leave. The Blonde has done a good bit of volunteer work in this area and most such women have such low self-esteem they think they deserve the beating.
One of the reason Herself was able to get out is that she is a very strong person and once he came at her with the axe, she got as far away as she could.
(hey, it's why we met)
Certain people are susceptible to cults. She is one of them. So were her husband and brother-in-law. Usually it's intelligent people.
im with you. every girl needs to watch "not without my daughter"
That movie was scary as hell.
She is not accused of being an accomplice, so what precisely was she brainwashed to do? Become a Muslim? Is the Left really willing to say out loud that no one (no woman?) would willingly convert to Islam?
Basil's link at 9:34 AM shows that Tamerlan apparently assauled a lot of women close to him--date or wife. The girls apparently eat that shit up. I get dumped for holding the door, so I don't know.
The compliant young teenager was an easy mark for the controller who offered her a PowerFull group to join: a committed family that kills its enemies.
Bin Laden was famous for the principle that always gave him his control: Anyone given a choice between a strong horse and a weak horse will pick the strong one.
Which is a corollary to the principle of Obama: weaken the USA and tell our allies they are alone...then unexpectedly react to a strange new world.
Our children are immersed in a poisonous stew of self hatred. In public schools they are taught that American and Western Civilization is evil and we are bad bad people. They are not taught history from a neutral perspective. In fact much of our history has been scrubbed from the public schools. Lincoln has been reduced to a paragraph. History is taught as a tool to continue to self flagellate our selves. Public schools indoctrinate.....they do NOT teach.
Children who are raised by "Liberals" who have also bought into the self hatred as well as the Gaia, global warming myth and foolishly and smugly drive their Prius, shop for organic and never realize that they are being dupes, also reinforce the "we are bad" mantra.
Is it any wonder that our young people search for something else and find the "other" more attractive. Is it any wonder that it is easy to radicalize young people. They are already more than halfway there thanks to our radicalized school system.
Their brains were already washed clean of ideas and common senses by the school system.
The poor little rich girl knows how over privilege her white skin and her father's social status made her. Her white privilege self loathing and empty-headedness made her the perfect dumpster to receive radical anti-western trash.
It's not brain washing, it is trash dumping.
Obama the boyfriend can be manipulative as well.
Your daughter talks about how dreamy he is, and how articulate,they come home wearing the hope n change T shirt. He understands women's issues and he's so passionate and romantic. He's not like people say at all. He just wants to make the country better and help kids and single moms.
Yes, we can!
But at some point, she's sitting in your living room, jobless, dejected. He's out droning again. He said he'd close Gitmo. What happened to those insurance exchanges? He keeps blaming everything on everyone else. He has a dark side. She just needs some time to think, and you both sit watching him on TV, pandering.
The relationship became "intense". Translation: he was fucking her hard and long and she loved it. Totally hot.
...her infatuation with Sam Melville, whose raw sexual magnetism combined with radical politics she found irresistible...
...um, in a Woody Allen sort of way...I guess?
"She urged her friends to 'lighten up and enjoy the small things,' in life."
She's lucky he didn't take that personally and slit her throat.
"So what precisely was she brainwashed to do?"
-- Stay with an allegedly crazy, abusive man. Religion, oddly enough, is unrelated to being crazy and abusive.
The older brother sounds like Uday Hussein.
Titus said...
She fell for the guy. He was fricking hot, had a bod to die for, was foreign and exotic and dangerous.
Hello? What's not to love?
His mind for starters. Something you tend to overlook.
Who is to blame?
Liberals
Obama the boyfriend
Public schools
The media
Multiculturalism
Communists
Feminists
As usual, great takes.
Still noone's been reprimanded or fired for releasing her husband's picture dead on the slab.
That fits with my idea that someone higher up allowed it or intended it to be released.
"Let it go. We want the guys thinking about something like this to see what they have waiting for them."
The older brother sounds like Uday Hussein.
Ended up looking like Uday too.
Women are so easy to brainwash. I have several in the pit in my basement that think I'm the cat's meow.
It'd be interesting to see how she was raised and the values and critical thinking skills her parents imparted in her. Maybe she's an Obama mama who just had to be rebellious and different in a "I hate America" way.
That fits with my idea that someone higher up allowed it or intended it to be released.
Perhaps someone will tweet approval.
NIT-WIT
Absolutely - people are responsible for the decisions they make.
You're welcome, garage.
I actually heard Tamerlan was a part of pipefitters local 204.
Absolutely - people are responsible for the decisions they make.
Dust Bunny Queen said...
"Our children are immersed in a poisonous stew of self hatred. In public schools they are taught that American and Western Civilization is evil and we are bad bad people. They are not taught history from a neutral perspective. In fact much of our history has been scrubbed from the public schools. Lincoln has been reduced to a paragraph. History is taught as a tool to continue to self flagellate our selves. Public schools indoctrinate.....they do NOT teach."
Yes.
The public school curricula in California is unbelievably awful.
Which is why my daughters went to parochial school.
I paid twice for their education: taxes for the public schools to which we would not submit them to, and the parochial schools in which we had complete confidence.
Were life "Groundhog Day," I would make that decision over and over and over again.
Next to marrying my wife, it may have been the best decision I (we, actually) ever made.
I've always thought that America had the most seductive culture on earth. Not the highest or most moral or most nourishing but simply the most seductiive. Given a choice between goat milk and Coca Cola, people will choose Coke. Verdi vs Neil Diamond--bet on Diamond.....I'm hoping that this is the exception that proves the rule. You read about a lot of Muslim fathers here who abuse their daughters because they went western. I think that's a far more common scenario than this young lady. Titus was probably right. She wasn't buying the product so much as the salesman.
The American Government is HIDING THE SAUDI CONNECTION! Obama, Kerry, Napolitano are HIDING THE SAUDI CONNECTION. We're being lied to case it interests any of you.
"My time abroad made me more American in the way a saw things."
Me, too. And my time abroad was in the Peace Corps.
It does take all kinds to move the world, even in the Peace Corps. It wasn't a homogenous group. I'm in no way a liberal weenie or alienated. I was just trying to be helpful.
Liberals
Obama the boyfriend
Public schools
The media
Multiculturalism
Communists
Feminists
LOPTMCF!
No, that'll never work ... needs another vowel.
"I actually heard Tamerlan was a part of pipefitters local 204."
I wonder if her survivor benefits include the lawyer she's consulting?
"My time abroad made me more American in the way a saw things."
Me, too. And my time abroad was in the Peace Corps.
It does take all kinds to move the world, even in the Peace Corps. It wasn't a homogenous group. I'm in no way a liberal weenie or alienated. I was just trying to be helpful.
I tend to think people are responsible for their own choices. -- AH
Except women.
EMD said...
"Liberals
Obama the boyfriend
Public schools
The media
Multiculturalism
Communists
Feminists
LOPTMCF!"
Liberals
Obama the boyfriend
Public schools
Alienation
The media
Multiculturalism
Islamicists
Communists
Feminists
LOPATMICF!
Pronounced: Lo-Pat-Mikf.
Eh, not hot. Way too much nose. Sorry, Titus.
I'm from MA, so it pains me to say this, but a City that considers Chik-Fil-A a hate group but happily subsidizes the Muslim Brotherhood is no longer a great American city. Neither smart, nor open-minded, though Boston fancies itself both. It could be again, but it's run by a one-Party cabal of cowards and the corrupt, and the voters don't seem to mind.
I was a Peace Corps aspirationalist. I was flown to DC and briefed on a project in Mali, which I turned down. I then accepted a Vista project in KC. Go shit in your hat, Annie, for stereotyping!!
"Not necessarily. A weak-willed woman is often so dominated by her husband (or boyfriend), she feels it's her failing if she leaves."
Prisons are full of weak-willed individuals. Do you think these people do not belong there? I repeat that people are responsible for their choices (except in extraordinary situations).
Are we to punish only the leaders and empathize with the followers? Followers do a lot of damage. They are human beings and should be given that level of respect. There's no "I'm just a weak-willed follower" excuse.
Remember the Manson family. Those manipulable girls are still in prison.
(I'm not saying Russell has committed any crimes, just saying that she's an adult that made choices, for whatever reason.)
If Katherine Russell had been my daughter then Tamerlan would have met his fate long before the Marathon bombing.
"'She was not free to leave? Even if you suspect there is some sort of "battered wife syndrome" in effect here, it does not explain entering a relationship with such a person in the first place.' The toughest thing for many battered women to do is leave. The Blonde has done a good bit of volunteer work in this area and most such women have such low self-esteem they think they deserve the beating."
Why go back to the topic of leaving when I specifically focused on entering?
I bet they didn't meet on J-date.
"She was this All-American girl who was brainwashed by her multi-culti diversity-whoring anti-American schools and government. Nobody understands what happened."
The demand from the god who dictated Mohammed's Koran to him in a cave through an angel gave the world a demand to wipe out not only the pagan animist worshipers but especially the Jew and the Jew Messiah's followers...either convert them or kill them all!
Not sure how well this played out over the ages. Yes, much of the rise of Islam was by the sword. But, the religion also allows for second class citizenship for other People of the Book (i.e. Jews and Christians), and there were active communities of both, at least until very recently, some of which had survived for well over a millennium under Islamic rule. Still, the large majority of those conquered converted in short order. From maybe India west, the Islamic nations were almost exclusively the result of conquest.
What is interesting to me is that I had always assumed that Islam was in retreat at the time of Columbus. After all, you could look at his voyage as part of the return from finally kicking the Muslims out of Spain, after more than a half a millennium of work. But, in eastern Europe, Islam was still on the march, after the recent conquest of Constantinople, finally cresting a bit later at the Gates of Vienna almost a third of a century after Columbus's discovery of the New World.
When you think about it, we should be thankful there aren't more terrorist attacks since we know our public schools are teaching our kids how to blow up marathons.
What is interesting to me is that I had always assumed that Islam was in retreat at the time of Columbus. After all, you could look at his voyage as part of the return from finally kicking the Muslims out of Spain
My brother was just saying the other day that Columbus was trying to find a different route to india because of muslim pirates. I started to google that but I just got a bunch of weird stuff about muslim's discovering america before columbus.
What lincolntf said.
ricpic said...
The American Government is HIDING THE SAUDI CONNECTION! Obama, Kerry, Napolitano are HIDING THE SAUDI CONNECTION. We're being lied to case it interests any of you.
Isn't today the last day Choom can decide whether to deport that Saudi?
Ann Althouse said...
Not necessarily. A weak-willed woman is often so dominated by her husband (or boyfriend), she feels it's her failing if she leaves.
Prisons are full of weak-willed individuals. Do you think these people do not belong there? I repeat that people are responsible for their choices (except in extraordinary situations).
It's not the same thing and I think you know that. If not, you ought to do some volunteer work and get out of the cocoon (hate to sound like spinelli and Troop..., uh, Zemo), but we're talking 2 different personalities here.
Are we to punish only the leaders and empathize with the followers? Followers do a lot of damage. They are human beings and should be given that level of respect. There's no "I'm just a weak-willed follower" excuse.
Joker was a weak-willed follower and I have no sympathy for him. The wife was dominated by the husband, apparently, (and also committed no crime) and abused bu him and so seems to be collateral damage. My sympathy for her is limited.
I can tell the older bro had a nice low hanging chechyan horse hog, probably with a great bend to it.
that's hot.
It's not the same thing and I think you know that. If not, you ought to do some volunteer work and get out of the cocoon (hate to sound like spinelli and Troop..., uh, Zemo), but we're talking 2 different personalities here.
You probably should stop talking so much about The Blonde and what you learn from her. Let her speak for herself. Tell us about your volunteer experiences.
garage - self hatred, not terrorism. It's just that that teaching never ending self-hatred leads to enabling terrorists. Teaching Howard Zinn as the TRUTH of history is part of the problem, not solution.
Titus, you're no longer saying what people are secretly thinking. You're just making shit up for attention. Stop.
Big nose, which I love, means big cock.
Maybe she just loved him, and liked the culture. He was hot, and American culture isn't special in America. We want to be loved and be special.
"She probably didn't feel free. When girls of an elitist background fall to depravity, their naivete tends to make them fall hard"
4/22/13, 9:20 AM
Children of a doctor and a nurse are not necessarily from elitist backgrounds. She may not have fallen into depravity at all, he didn't even take his shirt off in front of females because he felt they would have improper thoughts. Did she marry him before any sexual activity occured? It's likely.
She sounds like so many young women who fall in love hard and jump in feet first, later realizing they made a big mistake, but by then circumstances have changed to make it much more difficult to extricate themselves from the situation, or pride prevents them from admitting their mistake.
I can hardly believe that after he hit her that she wouldn't have seen her mistake, she should've left then and never turned back, but young women have a mind of their own, until they don't.
There is brainwashing and there is BRAINWASHING. The ladder is the one that removes responsibility. Is the BRAINWASHER using sophisticated techniques, e.g., subliminal messages, ligths, sounds, etc? Or is the brainwasher a crazy loon with some big ideas who is persistent? Or is the BRAINwasher a bit of both?
ndspinelli said...
"Go shit in your hat"
Can't. No hats available. Stetson went belly up. Everybody knows why. JFK went hatless.
I want to know how they had money to live?
Neither had a job?
Who was paying for them?
Her next husband will be a pimp.
garage - self hatred, not terrorism. It's just that that teaching never ending self-hatred leads to enabling terrorists.
Ya'll go to some weird schools. I see my kids schoolwork every night, in the heart of commie central, and I've never seen anything like what you describe.
"When you think about it, we should be thankful there aren't more terrorist attacks since we know our public schools are teaching our kids how to blow up marathons."
Just add Islam to the mix, and there you go.
See Minneapolis, and its Muslims becoming increasingly segregated within the public school system.
For example, our local Somali women have raised money to support terrorists in Somalia.
"I see my kids schoolwork every night, in the heart of commie central, and I've never seen anything like what you describe.
To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle."
".....every girl needs to watch "not without my daughter" and this needs to be started early so when they meet these guys, they remember, bottom line, you don't matter to him."
4/22/13, 9:31 AM
THIS!
I tend to think people are responsible for their own choices.
But what choice are we indicting her for? Marrying a muslim or a terrorist? If she doesn't know the extent of his terrorist actiity then it's a choice I can't condemn.
Many people have changed their religion or their culture for the sake of love.
Why do some secular people find religion? Why do some people follow Depack Choprah or think its ok for their kids to not wear diapers?
People make bizarre choices all the time.
I see my kids schoolwork every night, in the heart of commie central, and I've never seen anything like what you describe
When they had their Hate Bush Art Fair, did you just let your kids take your projects, garage? Did any win a prize? What about for their Hate Amerika Art Fair?
I see some commenters above speculated that she came from a secular family, we know this as a fact?
"People make bizarre choices all the time"
@jr565
Yes, people come here and post their comments. Different than finding religion?
Darrell,
You sound like an ignorant asshole trying to make an argument that " leftists" hate America. Do you think everybody who serves in the military are rightists?
Was I talking to you, Inga? Go back to your pineapple under the sink.
inga, there are leftists, and there are Leftists.
Leftists, with a capital L, HATE America. If you are going to college and learning Leftism you are being taught to hate America.
Plain and simple truth.
Susan Stewart Rich wrote:
Yes, people come here and post their comments. Different than finding religion?
Finding religion doesn't necessarily mean "becoming a terrorist". If its finding religion only, then while it certianly wouldn't be my choice I can't condemn someone for it. I know plenty of people who found religion and became "born again" as CHristians.
Inga wrote:
".....every girl needs to watch "not without my daughter" and this needs to be started early so when they meet these guys, they remember, bottom line, you don't matter to him."
4/22/13, 9:31 AM
THIS!
Are you saying this is true for ALL Muslim men?
", there are leftists, and there are Leftists.
Leftists, with a capital L, HATE America. If you are going to college and learning Leftism you are being taught to hate America.
Plain and simple truth."
4/22/13, 11:44 AM
Really Jr.? What about One of my daughters and sons in law, who are college graduates and the huge majority of their friends in a deep red Republican county who are ALL college graduates and CONSERVATIVES?
What a ridiculous assumption.
Inga wrote:
Really Jr.? What about One of my daughters and sons in law, who are college graduates and the huge majority of their friends in a deep red Republican county who are ALL college graduates and CONSERVATIVES?
If they are conservatives, then they aren't learning leftism.
Doesn't mean that they aren't being taught. It just means they aren't stupid enough to fall for it. Good for them.
".....every girl needs to watch "not without my daughter" and this needs to be started early so when they meet these guys, they remember, bottom line, you don't matter to him."
4/22/13, 9:31 AM
THIS!
Are you saying this is true for ALL Muslim men?
4/22/13, 11:46 AM
Nope, but enough to warrent a conscientious mother to bring it to their daughter's attention, when imparting motherly advice to their daughters about men.
Bart:
"I have met many Peace Corps volunteers (women usually) that become the 'other' on thier tour. I don't know if it was the original plan, but they seem to go full native"
I would guess it starts out as a quite reasonable need and attempt to understand the local culture and abide by their customs so that trust and communications occur. The line that gets crossed is to presume that their culture is superior to the U.S.'s.
Jr. My daughter wasn't a conservative during her college years. Three of my 4 children were and still are liberal after their post high school education.
A young adult at some point forms their OWN world view and opinions despite any rightist or leftist teachings, as this young wife of Tamberlane did.
Lots of Lefties have infiltrated all government agencies trying to destroy from the inside as well as from without. Like the guy that approved the Von Crapp family immigration papers that let you in the country.With the Lefty bodycount, why aren't they treated worse than the Klan?
Meade, You wear shit worthy hats..never seen you w/o one.
@jr565
My point is that what may seem normal to us is totally bizarre to another. What seems totally normal to another is bizarre to us. This pretty much sums up the reason for most problems. Misinterpretation/miscommunication.
The bajillion dollar question - how do we accurately interpret what is being communicated, what is communication and what do we do with our interpretation?
Seems like trying to define things these days makes us fundamentalists and refusing to define things makes us socialists/communists. So rather than trying to solve the problems before us, we fight over what/how we should define. It seems like the fight over what/how to define things is what fuels the fire of those who have already firmly decided the question.
Darrell, you dummy. My parents were Republicans from the time they became citizens (6 years after we arrived in 1955) and were finally able to vote.
Such ignorance you display.
"she came from a secular family, we know this as a fact?"
@inga
What is a "secular" family?
And yet, Inga, what did they sow?
To win this point, go ahead and now say that you are a Republican. Making shit up is easy for you and won't hurt your credibility.
Susan, not pertaining or connected to religion. I'm puzzled as to why you ask.
Are you saying this is true for ALL Muslim men?
I don't think that's true, but what was scary about that movie was that the mother had no legal recourse in that country when she was persuaded to visit with their daughter.
I know people that have converted to islam for their husbands and people who have converted to christianity from islam. None of that is very odd, but you would have to be careful who you were marrying.
But then, that is always true, isn't it?
Inga wrote:
Jr. My daughter wasn't a conservative during her college years. Three of my 4 children were and still are liberal after their post high school education.
A young adult at some point forms their OWN world view and opinions despite any rightist or leftist teachings, as this young wife of Tamberlane did.
How your daughters came out and what worldview they ultimately adopted isn't really the point. The point is what schools teach to kids (which is by and large Leftism) and how that is teaching an anti American worldview.
They are basically being taught socialism and anti americanism as an alternative to say capitalism and american exceptionalism.
And if they are leftists after going to college they essentially believe those points to various degrees of extremism.
Jr. My greater point is this:
The bombers were not leftists, capitol L or not.
"Susan, [a secular family is one] not pertaining or connected to religion. I'm puzzled as to why you ask."
@inga
Is it possible for a family to be disconnected from religion?
There are titles and there are realities. Often they don't overlap.
Matthew Sablan wrote:
-- Stay with an allegedly crazy, abusive man. Religion, oddly enough, is unrelated to being crazy and abusive.
Some people like to be dominated. So gravitate towards relationships where they are in fact dominated. He may have been the ying to her yang.
she darted into the white shingle house to collect some belongings and her pet cat..."
All is not lost.
re: to go 'full native', TE Lawrence good example.
The bombers were not leftists, capitol L or not.
Those Che t-shirts and the anti-Capitalist and anti-American rants were just shits and giggles, I guess. Go sell it to your family, Inga. Apparently 3 out of four of them will buy it.
"Religion, oddly enough, is unrelated to being crazy and abusive."
@jr565
I see your general point. But, let's get down to the nitty-gritty. What does it mean to be "related" to something?
Susan, it wasn't I that put that label on the family in question, it was a commenter upstream, perhaps I should've put quotation marks on "secular family".
Inga asserted: The bombers were not leftists, capitol L or not.
How do we know this? We know they were the opposite of the uncle, who believes in American Exceptionism.
The brothers were losers with capital "L". This is a no-brainer.
A generaic question for the Althouse blog is "why are women attracted to losers?"
"Or being raised in a secular home, and finding the answers to life's deeper questions offered by secularism wholly unsatisfying."
4/22/13, 8:49 AM
Correction, the terminology was "secular home", not "secular family". Here is the comment I was referring to.
I'd like know if Islam has a Martin Luther, and if so, when he's busting out his hammer and nail.
phx said...
Still noone's been reprimanded or fired for releasing her husband's picture dead on the slab.
That fits with my idea that someone higher up allowed it or intended it to be released.
"Let it go. We want the guys thinking about something like this to see what they have waiting for them."
Then again maybe some cop thought it would be cool to put it on youtube.
More than likely the case.
Inga wrote:
The bombers were not leftists, capitol L or not.
I didn't say they WERE leftists. I said their views of America are sympatico with Leftists view of America
I'd like know if Islam has a Martin Luther
They kill them before they grow. As per the Que'an.
A better question for the Althouse blog is: "why are some women and Titus attracted to losers?"
Leftists, who have common cause with the Islamists, like to pretend that these same Islamists are not Leftists when awkward things happen, like terrorist attacks. All will soon be forgotten and forgiven, however. Life must go on.
So the brothers were radicalized in the Lefty Cambridge Public School District and by radical Muslims. They didn't have a chance.
"[W]hy are some women and Titus attracted to losers?"
Replace "losers" (your term) with "bad boys" (the woman's perspective) and you have your answer.
...who fall in love hard and jump in feet first, later realizing they made a big mistake...
...or -- oldest reason of all --think they can change him if they just work hard enough.
Are you saying this is true for ALL Muslim men?
In the spirit of not casting too wide a net, limited to men with most or all of their family back in the mother country, i.e., with safe haven for if/when they abduct their daughters and flee the country.
Iknow...people who have converted to christianity from islam.
And good luck to them!.
Although his wife was "East Coast" I wonder, in regards to any susceptibility
to the call of Islam, if she roughly fits what we in the mid-west see so much of, and would describe as "typical rootless (mid-western) Protestantism?"
Most of the key players in the Iranian revolution had attended those special socialist programs designed for Muslims put on by the Sorbonne. As had most of the key players in Egypt before them in Nasser's time. Most put out a slew of socialist writings before they decided that Islam was their ticket.
I'm not saying Timothy McVeigh was a rightist, I'm just saying he and rightists share a common anti-government worldview.
Same with the KKK and neo-nazis. They and rightists both hate our black president!
You mean that KKK that was an official group withing the Democratic Party? And National Socialists, Neo or Old School? Yeah, garage. They believe that at the KosSackO'Shit playhouse.
Replace "losers" (your term) with "bad boys" (the woman's perspective) and you have your answer.
I'm afraid that's non responsive.
Is there some ancient Biblical archetype (besides Eve and the Serpent) or even a more recent literary one, or an evolutionary reason for this phenomenon? Certainly in some eyes (looking at Titus) the sex may be hotter with losers but what is the genetic advantage?
I'm not saying Timothy McVeigh was a rightist, I'm just saying he and rightists share a common anti-government worldview.
...and in a nicer, more sharing world he would have gotten tenured teaching gigs like Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorhn, over even an adjunct professorship at Columbia like convicted murderer Kathy Boudin.
Instead of, you know, the Needle.
What did Stanley Dunham see in Barack Obama, Sr? He was pretty much a loser, wasn't he?
What is at the core of this rotten phenomenon?
Post a Comment