Bravo. Similarly the more amateurish home grown terrorist plot in Canada (Toronto) was unearthed by a cooperating member of that community. That cooperation from, and sense of belonging for, the whole domestic Muslim community is our best collective defense.

global citizen

"Let's be clear here. We, the U.S., do not have a domestic home-grown terror problem."

You're setting yourself up for a fall with comments like that.

[bookmarked for (hopefully not) future use]

Regs, Shaggy

Hmmm... the Freeway Sniper and his copycat, Timothy McVeigh, the Order, the Militia movement, Aryan nations, Various extremist right wing religious paramilitaries and nutcases, the Unabomber, Eric Rudolf, those guys who shoot abortion doctors, the Anthrax terrorists, the guys (unknown) who made a habit of burning down black churches, cuban exile extremists.

Historically of course, we've got the KKK and various related anti-negro conspiracies and groups, we've got lynchings, James Earl Ray, Bull Conner, and the full complement going all the way back to Sam Huston, and those fellers in New England who would fall upon an Indian village and slaughter the bunch of them.

Of course, on the right side of the spectrum, we have the SLA, the Weathermen, and before them the Anarchists if the turn of the century.

But let's be fair, the writer was probably thinking only in terms of Muslim Terrorism, by swarthy non-white young middle eastern men who aren't from America... and have beards... and hygeine issues... and funny accents... and don't dress well.

Ah well, life's such a funny place, ennit?

I was going to say 'unless you are black.'

But then, I realized that is not true. It is possible in the eyes of many Americans for certain black persons born in America to parents and grandparents also born in America, to actually become a sort of pseudo-American.

After all, look at Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, and that guy on the Supreme Court that gives Scalia his pedicures... Clarence Thomas?

All it takes is a handful of white ancestors (after all, we wouldn't want them to be *too* black), a certain amount of money, slavish obedience to whatever powerful white people say, and a cuthroat willingness to screw over black people. So basically, any black person in America can become an American. What a land of opportunity!

I would note that there have been some dramatic misfires on this front, most notably Michael Jackson and Marshal Mathers.

But still, onwards and upwards!

It is a mistake to translate that envy to counter-terrorism policy....Let's be clear here. We, the U.S., do not have a domestic home-grown terror problem. Getting tougher on communities of interest – including pronouncements to start profiling or focusing on minority populations – is exactly what we ought not to learn from Britain

Too late..., those men in Miami, were definitely terrorists masterminds, don't you think? They had no plans, no internet connections, no money ...but they SURrrrrE fit the profile didn't they?

What a great imitator DHS is, just like Britain interceded at the 'optimum moment' before the attack could be pulled off...we here in America caught those Miami 'terrorists' before they could 'activate' their plan as well.

The most serious home-grown attack on U.S. soil was Timothy McVeigh

O America would never let a significant fact like this get in the way, after all, McVeigh does not fit the profile. Wasn't there also another guy out of California that coverted to Taliban..he doesn't fit the profile either, though.  Not in America.

 Tougher surveillance, profiling, or efforts that risk alienation may give us a sense that we are doing something, but the long-term legacy of such efforts may prove self-destructive. Investing in those communities and asking for their assistance in the fight against terrorism -- not distancing them – is a smarter strategy.

Make no mistake Juliette, I like the way you think and I definitely agree that this would be the smarter strategy...but for America to do that would be just plain unAmerican...after all that is why we here in the states have all those Tough on Crime(another GOP meme that elected lots of GOP politicos) laws and now America is going to be just as biased with the profiling for 'national secruity interests' and generate Tough on Surveillance tactics and laws.

We are 'tough on surveillance' because it gets vote for the GOP.

After all, if we weren't 'tough on surveillance' DHS would not have captured those Miami 'terrorists' before they bombed the Sears Tower they did not have diagrams of.

One important reason they haven't is simply because unlike European countries, the US was not formed historically from a people like France (gauls, franks) or even a group of peoples like Britain (celts, saxons, normans).

We WANT immigrants to assimilate to our culture. It's how we render them non-threatening.

I was going to say 'unless you are black.'

hehehehehe...glad you said it.

After all, look at Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, and that guy on the Supreme Court that gives Scalia his pedicures... Clarence Thomas?

hehehe, OJ too.. before he 'took out' Nicole.

All it takes is a handful of white ancestors (after all, we wouldn't want them to be *too* black), a certain amount of money, slavish obedience to whatever powerful white people say, and a cuthroat willingness to screw over black people. So basically, any black person in America can become an American. What a land of opportunity!

tell it!

I would note that there have been some dramatic misfires on this front, most notably Michael Jackson and Marshal Mathers

rofl..you are on a roll and sooooo on target.

But still, onwards and upwards!

yes yes, yes. what a 'nation of immigrants' ...last I checked Miami is full of Haitians, Jamaicans, and Bahamians who were able to immigrate in the same numbers as all those Cubans.

Let's all sing.. Sweet Home Alabama which will be followed by Jamie Fox singing ...America the Beautiful

If terror is considered the spreading of fear in the populace, plus advocating and practicing barbaric acts, then we certainly do have homegrown terrorists

Hmmm. This definition fits the KKK and the Southern Confederacy and more than likely their progeny, as well.

 In the White House

You think?

Well, I'm harsh, but not *too harsh* I think.

>How many societies truly live up to their ideals?

Is this an excuse for not living up to your own? Does that make it okay?

I have a friend who travels frequently in the United States, and one day, we got to talking about America and Americans.

I opined that Americans were just like Canadians, except with this hidden minefield built in, so that every now and then, for no obvious reason, something would set them off and they'd go wacko. It wasn't a criticism, just puzzling more than anything, this deep erratic streak of irrationality that seemed to be a part of the American character.

He said something though that stuck with me. He said "You can always tell who works for who in America, by the colour of their skin."

And as we discussed it, it became very clear that American society still operated on a very strict de facto segregation. A segregation that applied to residence, culture, employment and education opportunities, and so on.

Sure, the barrier is permeable, blacks go to white schools, and are now features at white universities. There are blacks climbing up at executive levels in corporations. There is a black middle class... I think there always was a black middle class, but it is now arguably more integrated in some ways with the white middle class. But it is still there.

Ever since that conversation, I have been struck more and more by the existence of racism as a defining feature of American society.

This is not to say that racism does not exist in Canada. It does, particularly in our treatment of Indians. Racism certainly exists in Europe and Africa, we have Bosnia, Darfur and Rwanda as proof of that.

But I do think that there is something special and unique about American racism. It is a thread which has defined much of your history.

Take out slavery as it evolved from indenture to chattel ownership of blacks. Would you have had the Texas insurrection? The Mexican American War? Bleeding Kansas? Certainly, the civil war was all about slavery.

And beyond that, in the undoing of reconstruction and the relentless imposition of segregation, sharecropping and Jim Crow laws... Would any of these southern states have been the same, politically, if blacks had been allowed the right to vote? And would congress or Presidential elections have been the same? I don't think so.

I suppose you could argue that things would have been worse... though thats a dangerous argument, bordering as it does on racism.

But if you look at American politics, both local and national in the Jim Crow era, I think you will be struck by the vileness that poisoned American politics and policy as a result of racist dixiecrats. I'm not talking about such offensive things as protecting lynching... but I'm talking about actively regressive or unhelpful policies and programs, starving of education, of public works, of hospitals, the resistance to social programs and social justice.

Ultimately, the Jim Crow laws and Jim Crow politicians did their utter best to make the south a benighted, backwards, backwater, a land of illiteracy and incest, rotten teeth and pellagra, poverty and violence.

The south could have risen again, it could have been great. But in the effort to repress its blacks, the south reduced itself to a degenerate swamp. The new deal and liberalism, federal public money did much to lift the south up over the past 60 or so years. But let's never forget what it really was.

Conservatives often criticize Liberals for believing in social engineering as a way to change human conditions.

But one the most dramatic, the most persistent and the most successful example of social engineering in Jim crow and the complex of legal, quasi-legal, and illegal sanctions, restrictions, economic and political disenfranchisement, social barriers and violence that was applied to American blacks for almost a century.

See, the truth that every racist secretly knows, is that black people are just as smart, just as gifted, just as industrious, just as talented as white people. People are people, there's no real difference.

And how can we be sure that racists know this in their secret hearts? Because, if they did not truly believe this... then they wouldn't have needed Jim Crow, they wouldn't have needed segregation or social or economic disenfranchisement or lynching.

Because if blacks really were inferior, then in the open and free and fair marketplace, they would not have been able to compete. Their inferiority would have dragged them down.

You see, American racism, Jim Crow, didn't push blacks down because they were inferior. If they really had been, there would have been no need for any of that.

Instead, Jim Crow and its accessories, was nothing more and less than a colossal collective effort at social engineering to PUT BLACKS DOWN AND TO KEEP THEM THERE. It was nothing more or less than an ongoing effort to fuck over, to damage, to permanently disable and disenfranchise an entire population.

So, in a sense, its kind of funny for Conservatives to criticize Liberals for a handful of timid and halfhearted, limited social engineering projects like affirmative action, when they themselves were the architects of a successful, massive, unbelievably comprehensive and appallingly expensive (this sort of racism was not cheap) social engineering project whose deliberately inflicted damage continues to this day.

And I suppose this takes us to today. De facto segregation, structural racism is alive and well in the United States. Maybe you're not racist, I'm happy to grant that. Maybe most Americans aren't racist...

But there's no denying that Nixon's southern strategy was based on luring southern dixiecrat racists. No denying that at all.

There's no denying that attacks on New Deal social programs are based, on some level, on the fact that these programs were extended to blacks as well as whites. A social program for whites? Well and good. That social program for blacks...

There's no denying that Willy Horton did far more than Dan Quayle to get Bush I elected.

There's no denying that 'driving while black' and racial profiling exists. Wesley Snipes was once wrestled out of his car and had a gun pointed at his head by police officers. How many white people have had guns pointed at their heads by police officers?

Look at the numbers of American blacks caught up in the criminal justice system. Look at the differences in laying charges, in prosecutions, and definitely in sentencing, in terms of equivalent black or white crimes.

Look at the naked racism of 'felon voting laws', and the fact that in Florida, auditing or vetting of 'felon lists' pre-selected for 'black sounding' names.

Some, perhaps many, Americans are racist, though the ugly and overt racism is mostly a thing of the past. It's no longer fun and games to drag a black person in chains behind your pickup truck. Certainly racism on some level plays a major role in right wing politics.

But more than that, America is corrupted by a structural or institutional racism which frustrates good will, and invariably rigs the system to damage black people. All you need for proof of that is to look at the 9th Ward of New Orleans. Is the confluence of social, cultural, economic and political factors which destroyed the 9th Ward and now conspires to keep it destroyed truly colour blind? I don't think so.

The truth is that America is at war. America for over a century and a half has been carrying out a vast guerilla war on many levels with a persistence and dedication that would otherwise be admirable. This war is, apart from the conquest and acquisition west of the 13 colonies, America's most impressive accomplishment. America has and is waging war on its black people.

And you're winning.

Congratulations.

For over 2 hundred years American society  has lived up to their ideals for European immigrants.

Let's not go overboard: Micks, Guineas, Kikes, Polacks, Hunks and Bohunks, Canucks, et cetera, et cetera. 

Well, there's nothing wrong with harshness in my view. Nor was it particularly off point.

American society has always been willing to accept or embrace immigrants based largely on their conceptual whiteness.

If you look at the literature and rantings of the time, neither the Irish nor the Italians were originally considered 'white' or white enough.

I would also suggest that non-white immigrants, particularly those with the wrong colour skin, don't have an easy time getting into the country or blending in. Not that they can't with perserverance. But the welcome matt is... shall we say... tattered?

But what the hell, perhaps I'm wrong. Tell you what, let's go round up a hundred Mexican immigrants and ask them what they think of America as an 'immigrant friendly' melting-pot society, accepting one and all with open arms....

Now, maybe they'd agree with you. Maybe they'd agree with me. Maybe they'd say something else. To tell you the truth, with all this excitement, I plumb forgot. I'm willing to let the discussion end there and live with what they say. How about you?

As Harry Callaghan once said: You feeling lucky?

I'll agree with you Peter, that American ideals are things to be proud of.

Uhm... not to get in the way of all this back patting, but I think that proportionately, countries like Britain, France and Germany have had a lot more islamic immigration than the United States.

I've read someplace that Turkish and Islamic or Indian immigrants form something like two or three per cent of the populations of these countries and that this has occurred largely over one or two generations.

In European countries, Turkish and poor Arab or Pakistani immigrants perform roughly the same role as Mexican immigrants in American society. They're cheap low end immigrant labour.

So really, I suppose the real comparison would not be between Europe's Muslims and America's Muslims. It would be between Europe's Muslims and America's Mexicans.

Ah, but listen to me. It's all just crazy talk! Go ask any Mexican and he'll tell ya.

How did this thread get hijacked by a bunch of blather about racism in America? I am more than happy to discuss the distance between the dream of America and the reality, but this is hardly an appropriate forum for that.

Juliette's point is vital, not just for preventing terrorism here, but worldwide. People who have a stake in their society do not commit terrorist acts, generally speaking. I work closely with the Middle Eastern population in the greater Detroit area. These are productive, hardworking people who generally see America as a land of opportunity. The fact that they have been able to take advantage of that opportunity here makes them pro-American, anti-terrorist stakeholders in their communities, and in the country.

Policies that marginalize this particular group of immigrants will be counterproductive in two ways: first, the seeds of resentment that are already undoubtedly present will grow; and their fellow immigrants, whether through fear or their own resentment, will be less likely to coopoerate in the discovery and prosecution of those whose resentment is leading to terrorist activity.

Finally, in response to the comparisons of our treatment of blacks to our treatment of Middle Easterners: the crimes and ostracization visited upon blacks throughout our history was a mistake. And it led to a form of terrorist activity like the riots in L.A. The fact that it was in response to an insult, real or perceived, is irrelevant: the historical racism led to the violence, as they are two sides of the same coin. Much as grievenace, real and perceived, have been at the root of so much of the violence in the Middle East. Let's not start the whole dysfunctional process over with the Middle Eastern populations in his country.

It is quite a story, but the other side of it isn't much told either - it's more striking when you consider the hardships inflicted on Muslim immigrants. In New York where I live, hundreds of immigrants were rounded up after Sept. 11, and family members had to resort to wandering from prison to prison in hope that someone would tell them whether or not their loved ones were there. Here in Brooklyn, jailhouse beatings were not that uncommon - at least one man was brought into a room with a flag on the wall and slammed into it until his teeth were permanently loosened (I used to work for an organization that has sued over such abuses). Estimates of attrition in the Brooklyn Pakistani community are sad: a quick google search shows that the Borough President's office put the population at 125,000 in 2004 and only 100,000 in 2005.

If there is a bigger problem in Europe than the U.S. (the more I think about it, I'm not sure that you can make geographic assumptions like this about a shifting global problem), it's not for want of reasons to be alienated.

This is a great post. As someone who has both Southern and Canadian roots, the Southern part of my personality sometimes has a thin skin about criticism of the South, and I would be tempted to point out whatever small overgeneralizations you might have made. But you made so many truly excellent points that I just don't feel like going that direction. Racism is a curse, in many different ways that you have elaborated with great insight.

Juliette could have used better phrasing than "not have a home-grown domestic terror problem" but her essential point, and brewmn's, holds: Muslim immigrants in the US are not ghettoized and marginalized the way they are in much of Europe; they're generally well-integrated, regardless of what the "general population" might think of them. The main importance of this is that it means that, unlike many European countries, the US doesn't have significant numbers of poorly-educated and poorly-employed alienated young men in its Muslim communities, and those are the kind of people (Muslim or not) who are going to be attracted to extremist movements. This is a security advantage we have, and we need to use it rather than risk squandering it by doing anything that could alienate or ghettoize the American Muslim community.

True. Wouldn't it be great if we could distinguish more readily between our idea of who we are and who we actually are. Too often we pretend we've achieved something we're only on the road to achieve -- if we pay attention and work hard. Progress doesn't just happen...

South of the border, we worry about your apparently growing support of the right to arm bears.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

I'm very well aware of what you are talking about.

Well, in my day job, I actually work for native bands and organizations, so I'm very familiar with the Canadian decades long experiment in destructive social engineering. In regard to the Metis, I was once a key member of the firm which launched the major lawsuit for social injustice and historical fraud against Canada, so I'm very very familiar with that story.

Arguably, the Canadian effort with respect to Indians was just as devastating as the US social engineering attack on blacks. But there were differences.

The Canadian effort wavered between benign genocide (erase their culture and society so that they could simply become white people like the rest of us but with better tans) avoidance (let's just avoid trouble by keeping them out of the way of everyone and anything) and economy (whatever we do, let's not spend too much money doing it). The point was that in the Canadian view of the time the Indians were a marginal society that was simply in the way of the larger one, we didn't particularly mean them any harm (though we did plenty of harm), we just wanted them out of the way while we got on with our lives.

In contrast, blacks were a large core population, dominant in some regions, significant in many others, and economically crucial. So the particulars of American treatment of blacks, and the hatred therein, were quite different. It was a population that was aggressively tormented, because no matter how much America loathed them, it couldn't live without them.

And living out here in Western Canada, I've become familiar with the stories of 'head taxes' on Chinese immigrants in British Columbia, or the fact that an entire chinese population was literally forced to live underground in Moose Jaw (the underground city has been converted to tourism now, sort of amazing to see).

And I could mention the concentration camps set up for Ukrainians during the war years.

The fact that I'm willing to rake your country over the coals doesn't mean I'm minimizing Canada's own little excursions into racism and quasi-genocide. The fact that both our respective ancestors were bastards doesn't entitle either of us to a free pass.

And so it goes.

One must not underestimate the powers of a nation that went beyond the ordinary legal definition of sodomy, and legislated a definition of gomorrahy.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

I certainly think that Muslims in the US have generally taken the collective decision to keep quiet and not draw attention to themselves. (One reason why I find revolting the right-wing demands for 'moderate Muslims' to issue by-the-minute condemnations of anything and everything.)

There are no Muslims in Congress. There are few Muslim state legislators. Their political voice as Muslims can only be expressed from the margins. In contrast, across Britain there are Muslim MPs, councillors, mayors.

Now, there's a valid argument that defining 'communities' can be counter-productive, because it creates an incentive to regard those communities as separate. But could a Muslim get elected in America today?

I certainly think that Muslims in the US have generally taken the collective decision to keep quiet and not draw attention to themselves. (One reason why I find revolting the right-wing demands for 'moderate Muslims' to issue by-the-minute condemnations of anything and everything.)

Too true. From a counter-terrorism perspective (as opposed to the questions raised about religilous liberty, say), it's maybe part and parcel with the issues raised in this post, a sense that plots can be prevented effectively without knowing anyone, without forging connections with those who oppose terrorism from within the communities where terrorists might operate.

As to the issue of Muslims in higher office, etc., I remember, in my freshman year at a fairly progressive liberal arts school, noticing how the views of the Muslim kid in class, no dumber or more intelligent than the rest of us, inevitably got smacked down without consideration. There were some differences in the angles he took on things, and the way he presented his points (it was a class on Greek philosophy, where the Arabic-speaking world has it's own interpretive tradition, unless perhaps ours is just derivitaive of theirs). But it was like nothing he said could be worth consideration. These weren't, I don't think, especially biased kids, so I left with the sense that it must be profoundly difficult for American Muslims to have a voice in the wider society.

Now, there's a valid argument that defining 'communities' can be counter-productive, because it creates an incentive to regard those communities as separate. But could a Muslim get elected in America today?

There is a Muslim running for Congress in MN and he has been dragged through the mud about parking tickets and late filing fees ...no less. His name is Elison. If elected he would be the first Muslim in the US House of representatives.

Never let facts get in the way of a good theory.
UK Mail has bios of many of the suspects. Here are two

"Neighbours said police raided the Folkestone Road home of British-born Oliver Savant, 25, who changed his name to Ibrahim after becoming a devout Muslim some eight years ago.

'He supports Liverpool and his favourite food is burger and chips'

Retired fireman Paul Kleinman, 66, said: "I've known him since the day he was born. He was a very polite young man. Oliver started putting on Muslim robes and growing his beard long a few years back."

Another man arrested in Walthamstow was Waheed Zaman, a relative said.

The biomedical science student is head of the Islamic Society at London Metropolitan University.

His sister Nagina Zaman said: "My brother is a popular person and is not a terrorist. He is very open about his faith and teaches integration.

"As the head of the university's Islamic Society he has a very good rapport with people like Yvonne Ridley and George Galloway.

"He gets involved with all their Muslim events, but he is just a normal lad.

"He supports Liverpool and his favourite food is burger and chips. He is a British-born boy."

Doesn't sound like a non-integrated set of folks to me.

DON Stewart-Whyte is the new face of terrorism. His father was active in England's Tory Party, his sister is a leading model who was once married to French tennis star Yannick Noah and he is a recent convert to Islam.

Hmmm, so this means that Don Stewart-White is the uncle of Yoachim Noah, the MVP of the NCAA Championship, that Florida won this year?

Hmmm, well, as someone who has British, Irish and Scottish friends across the pond, and who communicate a frustration with the levels of extremism by the neo-left, the weakness of the Labor party in the face of it, and legitimate concern about how the new splinter right parties are paring off support because of this..the Nazi-esque behaviors of those like Galloway. The anti-semitism that pervades the elites of the left.. I had a conversation on a non-political forum, in fact politics only rarely intrudes into the discourse there.. but today it did. The discussion was about a real concern about the rise of fascism there, and they weren't revolving about involvement in the Iraq war either.

I can't say that I've noticed any jealousy on the part of Americans I've met and known, of Britain. I have seen/read examples of Anglophilism, a desire to ape British characteristics.. but nothing even remotely passing for jealousy.

I've run across Britains online who do show that they have a chip on their shoulder towards America. Accents are cute to be sure, but refinements are universal, and to be honest, there are other cultures, take the Irish for example that had a civilized and refined, even an established arts culture long before Britons had stopped painting themselves blue with wode. But it's not quite so refined to point fingers while ignoring ones own historical wrong doings and hypocrisies. The Arab world for example could do with remembering that.

I don't see that as surprising. The late-19th and early-20th century anarchists, later the radical communists, RFA members, those folks were not exactly dispossessed. They often had good education and weren't from poor families. Why shouldn't such trends exist today?

My theory is that the truly oppressed are too busy trying to stay alive and do not have time to hatch plots to blow stuff up and kill people.

For over 2 hundred years American society  has lived up to their ideals for European immigrants. The discrepancy is that the higher ideals were only accessible to  SOME ethnic groups, including Asians, Koreans, and Japanese

Well, until recently, that would be SOME European immigrants, but in the town where I grew up, racial exclusion rules that kept African-Americans out of some neighborhoods also applied to the Irish, 100 years ago.  If you were protestant and from the north, things were a lot easier than if you were Catholic and/or from the south.   And East Asians have had a pretty rough time of it, overall, from massacred Chinese laborers in Oregon to the Japanese internment camps. 

Well, I've always said I'm a radical centrist. In this case, it means adhering to the middle of the woad.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Sorry, I completely disagree. Juliette started from a question, namely: why don't we have a domestic Muslim terrorism problem? You answered by rambling on about various instances of racism throughout American history. Totally off point, but I'm sure you're glad to have a forum in which to vent your inchoate rage at American injustice. I just wish you wouldn't hijack a thread in which something else entirely is being discussed, something I think is of vital importance to our national security.

Just two quick points to indicate why I think your wrong and overly long diatribe misses the mark:

We both agree that the starting point is Juliette's quote: "Getting tougher on communities of interest – INCLUDING pronouncements to start profiling or focusing on minority populations" [my emphasis]

You then go on to focus exclusively on racial profiling, and on America's legacy of slavery. I agree that insufficient attention is paid to our legacy of racism, I just don't feel it's terribly relevant to the present situation. I'd rather warn against repeating the mistakes of the past than beat the country up again for sins already committed.

Second, you criticize me as "someone who does not know the difference between civil disobedience and terrorism" when I refer to rioting as an act of terrorism. Calling it terrorism is over the top, as I really meant violent action in response to a grievance. But neither would I consider rioting, looting, assault, etc. "civil disobedience," as there is nothing "civil" about it.

I applaud Juliette's column because I believe that the targeting, ostracization and punishment of Americans of Middle Eastern descent is a surefire way to radicalize elements of that population. You are arguing that, due to America's racist past, we are already committed to a wholescale domestic profiling approach. I don't see evidence of that, and I would rather argue for preventing that approach than saying we have no choice because it's what we have always done. I think your response to her column is needlessly defeatist.

Finally, I agree with most of your opinions, and they would get a sympathetic hearing from me in a different forum. I just think they are not very responsive to the issues being discussed here.

"Lastly, civil rights, civil disobedience and acts of civil protests/violence...are not defined by civil behavior rather they pertain to the body of civil laws in America. You may wish to explore that distinction."

I did. You don't know what you are talking about. "Civil disobedience" as coined by Thoreau specifically refers to refusal to obey objectionable laws through nonviolent means. It says nothing about the random violence that characterized the riots of the 60's and early 90's, nor does any movement based on Thoreau's essay establishing the principle.