Oh, here we go with the identity politics. I donât know what this guys motives were, but isnât wrong to call something terrorism if itâs not politically motivated, no matter what the race?
âWhite men who resort to mass violence are consistently characterized primarily as isolated âlone wolvesâ â in no way connected to one another,â King wrote. âFor centuries, when an act of violence has been committed by an African-American, racist tropes follow â and eventually, the criminalization and dehumanization of an entire ethnic group.â
Also, we tend to glorify âLone Wolfâ types in America, alt-right types eat that narrative up. Itâs like a sub-genre of military/action movies. Then there are the people who glorify the shooters themselves, thereâs actual sickos on the internet who celebrate âSt. Elliot Dayâ, the shooter who targeted sorority women in 2014.
So yes, calling the shooter a âlone wolfâ not only hides the larger story of social and policy issues, but glorifies the asshole at the same time.
Terrorism can easily be defined as any act of mass destruction intended to cause mass panic.
No one asks the political or religious affiliation of a bullet flying in the general direction of yourself and those around you.
In the absence of any other motivation, be it profit, assassination, a hit or a distraction for a theft lost in the commotion, itâs terrorism.
The Charlottesville NeoNazi march gave this coward the courage to act out his rich white male frustrations against country music fans of all people. They are pussy cats and the salt of the earth. Who plays out their aggression against these good, fun-loving folk? The shooter wasnât a lone wolf. He had brothers marching on the streets who egged him on and one in the White House who called him a good person.
No, he was a bored rich man exerting his dominance over others. Terrorists donât feel they matter or have any options. This guy was traveling all over the world, gambling away fortunes and dominating an Asian woman whom he humiliated regularly. He thought he was King of the World.
Thatâs not terrorism. Itâs hedonism. The Top 1% are coming unglued as they realize that their greed, corruption and bigotry are not going to be tolerated. Their money means nothing any more than their guns right âprinciples.â
Oh â just FYI â wolves really only hunt in packs. A wolf without a pack, i.e., Lone wolves are pretty much toast.
Where this fantasy that a single wolf would just attack someone out of the blue is just part of that sad western mythology we are all saddled with. (is it ok to use the word saddled here)
Lone wolves have difficulty hunting, as wolvesâ favorite prey, large ungulates, are troublesome for a single wolf to bring down alone. Instead, lone wolves will generally hunt smaller animals and scavenge carrion.
What Dylan Roof did was clearly terrorism, as was the car attack in Charlottesville. They both had clear âpoliticalâ goals - to terrorize blacks and anti-Nazis respectively.
But we have no idea what motivated Paddock. Until we have a motive, Iâm not sure this qualifies as terrorism. Terrorism has a (usually stated) goal: to change behavior through fear and terror. I think itâs possible that Paddock had no goal, that he just wanted to kill people to watch them die.
Iâm not overly concerned about the terminology, though. If people want to call Paddock a terrorist, Iâm not going to object vehemently. I just think we should maybe hold back on the terrorism label until we know what his motivation and/or goals were, if there were any.
âthis is how they are.â
Something needs to be done about these solo white guys. Theyâre inherently dangerous!
So a wealthy, white, 60+ year old flips out and inflicts carnage on innocent people, and âit happensâ?
Can you imagine if this was a person of color / non-christofascist religion doing the shooting?
TERRORISM!!!
It doesnât have to be political. Terrorism can be âsocialâ, designed to disrupt. Killing 58 people isnât, after all, PERSONAL.
No, the FBI definition is âthe unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.â Terrorist acts are political. Hate crimes involve crimes due to race, religion, gender, etc. What this asshole did was mass murder, and by all accounts he acted alone for sure, and his motive appears to be to go out with headlines. Nothing has surfaced to say otherwise. His âobjectiveâ was not political.
These crimes are classified that way due to the fact that allocation of resources (money, personnel, policy, etc.) is determined by these stats. Itâs important to be accurate. A couple might be âterrorizedâ by a home invasion, but itâs not âterrorismâ.
Thatâs why this article is off base a bit too. For instance:
Last year, when Micah Xavier Johnson shot at police officers in Dallas, Texas, killing five and injuring nine others, Black Lives Matter was blamed â though he had no known link to the movement.
Investigators found no ties between Johnson and international or domestic terrorist groups, it was not ruled terrorism. As to media, Johnson was at an anti-police protest, and then he shot police at that protest. His on line activity was totally anti police, and he was always on anti police sites, and friends of his had said he hated cops and wanted to kill them. So an initial link to the BLM movement was not a stretch. They did refuse him membership it was ultimately determined, but he was in fact motivated big time by them, constantly âlikingâ their sites and also sites that were very radical. For instance he âlikedâ the Facebook Page of the AADL, whose leader called for the murders of police all over the US, and he was also a member of the NBPP for several months. So to say it was some kind of stereotyping for media to link him to the BLM movement is pure nonsense.
As to this asshole, if he had been posting how he wanted to kill a certain group, had been stating as such to many people, and had been all over websites protesting those same people, heâs no longer ruled a âlone wolfâ. If he was on neo-Nazi sites, etc., that would be a headline, and to say it would not is poor journalism. As of now there is no indication whatsoever that he was working with a political group for any political cause. Should such information be discovered, the color of his skin will not prevent the FBI from calling this terrorism.
Look at the Fort Hood shooter. Although Muslim, it was initially classified as âworkplace violenceâ since he was upset he was being deployed. It was not until it was discovered that he had been communicating with Al-Awlaki that it became classified as âterrorismâ.
Media or local, federal, state govât officials using âlone wolfâ label have already dismissed the multiple murder issue. Any additional information on white male mass executioners will be in the republicanât âso whatâ file.
These âlaw makersâ were voted into office.
To be âterrorismâ there must be a greater political motive â and not one that the perpetrator chose after (s)he decided to carry out the atrocity like the guy in Orlando (see Dave Chappelleâs SNL intro for a good take on the âdeep coverâ involved in that one).
Both of these a-holes were just suicidal sociopaths.
Racism is political. Duh.
One interesting thing about the victims of the Las Vegas shooting is that they came from all over the country even the world⌠It affected people from everywhere, and, in theory, could have the effect of waking up all the USA to the stupidity of our gun fetish, and not just a small town or section of that town. In theory.
âSocialâ doesnât have to be political. âI want people to be scared and sad because I hate them allâ is a motive for terrorism-- disrupting society.
Here in the US, we tend to think of âpoliticsâ as paramount-- who gets elected, who dominates what legislature, what partyâs policies are winning. But âsocialâ is more pervasive in our lives. So even by your definition, someone who wants other people in his society to be terrified is a terrorist. Mass shootings (not the personal family ones) are generally designed to disrupt a society or community.
Just because your motivation isnât primarily political doesnât mean that you arenât trying to dominate society by inspiring terror. Thatâs exactly what these mass shooters are trying to do.
No, per the FBI it is not. Hating everyone is not terrorism. You need to distinguish those nuts from actual terrorists because you need different types of resources to address them. âDisrupting societyâ?? So if people all over the country block roads in protest of a war, they are terrorists? Umm, no.
Leave the classification to the professionals, not what you feel you think it should be. Sure, Iâd love to see this guy called a terrorist, but itâs just not the right way to classify it unless a link to outside organizations is found.