{"id":213742,"date":"2016-01-04T15:17:45","date_gmt":"2016-01-04T15:17:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=213742"},"modified":"2016-01-04T15:17:45","modified_gmt":"2016-01-04T15:17:45","slug":"arent-calling-oregon-occupiers-terrorists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/arent-calling-oregon-occupiers-terrorists\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Aren\u2019t We Calling the Oregon Occupiers ‘Terrorists’?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As of Sunday afternoon, The Washington Post called them “occupiers<\/a>.”\u00a0The New York Times opted for “armed activists<\/a>” and “militia men.” And the Associated Press<\/a> put the situation this way: “A family previously involved in a showdown with the federal government has occupied a building at a national wildlife refuge in Oregon and is asking militia members to join them.”<\/p>\n

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Not one seemed to lean toward terms such as\u00a0“insurrection,” “revolt,” anti-government “insurgents” or,\u00a0as some on social media were calling them, “terrorists.” When a group of unknown size and unknown firepower has taken over any federal building with plans and possibly some equipment to aid a years-long occupation \u2013\u00a0and when its representative tells reporters that they would prefer to avoid violence but are prepared to die \u2013\u00a0the kind of almost-uniform delicacy and the limits on\u00a0the language used to describe the people involved becomes noteworthy itself.<\/p>\n

It is hard to imagine that none of the words mentioned above \u2013\u00a0particularly “insurrection” or “revolt” \u2013\u00a0would be avoided if, for instance, a group of armed black Americans took possession of a federal or state courthouse to protest the police. Black Americans outraged about the death of a 12-year-old boy at the hands of police or concerned about the absence of a conviction in the George Zimmerman case have been frequently and inaccurately lumped in with criminals and looters, described as “thugs,” or marauding wolf packs where drugs are, according to CNN’s Don Lemon, “obviously<\/a>” in use.<\/p>\n

If a group of armed Muslims took possession of a federal building or even its lobby to protest calls\u00a0to surveil the entire group, it’s even more doubtful they could avoid harsher, more-alarming labels.<\/p>\n

In fairness to those assembled in Oregon, it is true that there have been no reports of actual violence, injury or anyone being held inside the Oregon building against their will.<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As of Sunday afternoon, The Washington Post called them “occupiers.”\u00a0The New York Times opted for “armed activists” and “militia men.” And the Associated Press put the situation this way: “A family previously involved in a showdown with the federal government has occupied a building at a national wildlife refuge in Oregon and is asking militia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":213743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-213742","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}