ISIS Propaganda vs misbehaving police videos

It certainly sounds like an odd combination to compare what is more motivational, but there is clear inspiration in both categories. But before coming to conclusions, you need to read on to see how this unlikely combination seems to inspire people. However fair warning, you need to read this with an open mind.

Taken from the perspective of an American Citizen who comes home from work and reads the news and who is not an activist, there are clear things going on in the United States that are motivational. Even if you try to view things from a neutral starting point, the motivation from both groups has a growing push to having negative opinions about life in the United States. Ironically both categories seem to reference the other as a reason or catalyst for their behavior.

As a child in the United States is taught from the very beginning right from wrong, they are also taught about respect and authority. The general concept is that terrorists are bad people who like to harm others for their own reasons, and there is an equal and balanced concept teaching that the Police are good and are there to protect you and protect the community from harm. There is also an effort to insulate children from the reality of the real world, until they are mentally developed enough to understand adult situations.

The perfect example is the movie rating system. Movies that are G rated have nothing to do with the real world. The PG rating has hints of the real world but mostly situational examples. PG13 is even more about the real world, and young people who are 13 have likely already encountered some real world examples like school bullies and limited violence. By the time you get to the R rating that requires you to be 17, you likely have already had a fairly good taste of the world. That is unless you are living in a politically correct bubble that tries to imply the world is G rated.

So if we look at ISIS propaganda or any propaganda, there is a clear push and pull. The push is to point out things that may anger you, and the pull is if you join us we can do something about it, and that is it in the simplest form. Then that is followed by the repeated bombardment of images to move you further into their camp and inspire you to take action and become what is known as a ‘Lone Wolf Martyr’, or simply pack your bags and come join us. Often those motivational images are from events in the United States that tend to push peoples buttons, and they may include police arresting or shooting people for what can easily be defined as bullshit reasons. Most of that comes from mainstream media coverage and not so much from personal YouTube postings.

So coming back to the growing American child, giving them a Smartphone or a camera be it video or still shot for their birthday or Christmas or whatever, is a positive gesture no matter how you look at it. After all what harm could come from any of those gifts. But the bottom line is using them in some ways that are perfectly legal and protected under the Constitution of the United States can cause the police or other government agency to come and question you at the least, to arresting you and attempt to prosecute you or even shoot you at the worst.

So the innocent act of taking photos in public with a birthday or Christmas gift in public places can cause you to be seen as perhaps a terrorist doing some reconnaissance prior to an attack. The police would come to you and use phrases that imply that as a reason, despite that being illegal to do and proceed to violate your rights. It is police behavior like that that ISIS would cite as a motivation to rally to their cause.

So if this looks like a feedback loop to you, you would be correct. That is how the two categories in the title of this article are tied together, and both motivate people to want to do something about overstepping authorities. Movements like ‘Black Lives Matter’ was spawned from this along with a group of activists who create Constitutionally legal situations that bait the authorities to attempt to violate their rights, and then post those encounters on YouTube as both being educational about rights and examples of overstepping authorities.


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