Police in Lafayette, Louisiana are evidently struggling to understand why the outspokenly misogynistic, racist and anti-Semitic John Russell “Rusty” Houser murdered two women and wounded 9 other moviegoers at a showing of “Trainwreck,” a film written by and starring Amy Schumer, a feminist comedian with a Jewish father, known for joking frankly about sex.
[For more, see my latest post on Houser: “Did right-wing attacks on “Trainwreck” inspire John Russell Houser’s shooting rampage?”]
Col. Michael D. Edmonson, superintendent of the Louisiana State Police, wondered aloud about Houser’s motives at a press conference:
Why did he come here? Why did he do that? … We may not find a motive.
It seems to me that Houser’s likely motive is staring them in the face.
Because it turns out that Houser was pretty well-known, at least to regular viewers of one local TV talk show in Columbus, GA, as an angry right-wing fanatic who hated women. As one former host of the show recalled,
He was anti-abortion. … Rusty had an issue with feminine rights. He was opposed to women having a say in anything.
Houser evidently appeared on the live show dozens of times as a “gadfly” whose appearances “would generate calls.”
When Houser’s career as a loudmouthed crank on local TV apparently came to an end years ago, he moved to another medium, leaving a long trail of hateful comments on assorted websites, many of them openly praising Hitler and talking ominously about the future of what he saw as a deeply “immoral” culture.”
In the comments on a news article about an 60-year-old man who’d been murdered, Houser wrote
I am sincerely sorry for the loss of this fellow in the deer processing business. Most people over 50 in certain businesses are just as their parents were,rock solid morally.
I am also sorry for what is to come for the other very few moral souls left in the entire US.
I am not sorry for the 90% immoral population which will be meeting the same fate.
Filth is rampant.That none have stood against it causes me to take rest in the worse than MAD MAX near future which approaches.
In Trainwreck, Amy Schumer plays a New York journalist “riding the cock carousel” — as the odious men I regularly write about on this website like to put it — who eventually falls in love.
It seems highly unlikely that Houser was someone “who just happened to be in this theater,” as the police superintendent put it.
It seems highly likely that a woman-hating neo-Nazi ended up in a theater showing Trainwreck on purpose.
When a religious fanatic blows themselves up at a cafe frequented by members of a rival religious sect, we have no trouble calling this terrorism.
When an outspoken white racist murders nine black churchgoers in Charleston, SC, well, some people (including virtually all of the Republican presidential hopefuls) have trouble calling it terrorism. But most people can see it for what it is.
When misogynists murder women, almost no one calls it terrorism.
Elliot Rodger, who left behind an assortment of misogynistic videos and a book-length diatribe, was a terrorist.
“Rusty” Houser — who left behind no manifesto but who was well-known for his odiously anti-woman and neo-Nazi views — was almost certainly a terrorist as well.
NOTE: According to court filings, Houser had “a history of mental health issues, i.e., manic depression and/or bi-polar disorder.” (Which are actually the same thing.) While this could certainly have had an effect on his state of mind, it says nothing about his motives. Bipolar disorder does not cause people to become misogynistic neo-Nazis who murder women.
EDIT: Added the note above, made tweaks to wording.
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Please read the newly revised COMMENTS POLICY before commenting.
Two women, Ali Viator Martin and Jena Legnon Meaux saved lives during the Lafayette shooting.
Not sure if this is anything you might want to add to the OP, Dave.
But if we call it what it is, we’d have to DO something about it.
Yes, but what?
Spewing hate doesn’t make anything better. It just ramps up some people and makes everything worse.
Nobody can understand why someone commits murder, or even double murders. I suppose if your a psychologist, then maybe, otherwise only the homicidal killer knows why?
Manic depression is the same thing as bipolar disorder, and people who have it typically don’t murder anyone.
White people can’t be terrorists. It’s the rules. Unless they’re white Muslims.
Clearly the guy is a terrorist, and there are thousands like him. I support terrorist watch lists for these kinds of fanatics.
You know, in 1989 Montreal had a problem with a man who hated woman and who shot up a whole bunch of them. Calling it by its real name let the country as a whole do something about it.
Funny thing, that.
There’s no fixed definition of terrorism. One of my friends had the lucky task of trying to collate all the various definitions in domestic and international law for the UK Government. She identified 212 versions.
There was a reason for this though. Defining an act as one of terrorism has certain legal consequences. It’s not only in relation to the potential charges but also the procedural and jurisdiction aspects. Over here for instance the Secret Intelligence Service, Security Service Government Communications Headquarters have certain powers that kick in when terrorism is involved that they don’t have in relation to their serious crime remit.
One of the key elements of terrorism (as defined by the Government) is that there must be a coercive motivation. The act must be calculated to put pressure on the Government to change policy.
To give an example close to my own heart:
If an organisation sinks whaling ships and indicates it will do so until Japan bans whaling, that’s terrorism.
If however the organisation makes clear that it knows the Japanese will continue to carry out whaling regardless and the sinking is merely to make it harder to carry out whaling then that’s not terrorism.
Similarly the Charlie Hebdo attacks were defined as terrorism because the motive was identified as being influenced by the secular Government’s policy of allowing drawings of Mohammed; whereas the subsequent murder of the people in the Jewish supermarket was defined as a hate crime because the attackers weren’t trying to get the law changed so Jews couldn’t live in France; they just didn’t like Jews.
There are similar rules in the US about jurisdiction and powers so there are reasons why some acts are considered hate crimes rather than terrorism. In this case much will depend on the what the attacker thought he might achieve and his reasons for the attack
Thanks for that, Tony.
I am so sick of people using mental illness a catch-all to excuse terrible (White) people (mostly men) of doing terrible things. I work with the mentally ill and none of them have gone off and shot up a theater full of people because they hate women. Every time a White man murders a bunch of people, he’s mentally ill. If it’s a person of color however–look out! It’s a terrorist attack. These idiots can’t see past their own hypocrisy.
“Manic depression is the same thing as bipolar disorder”
Yeah, I meant to add a remark about that; I went ahead and did that.
Tony, I may write about that in a different post; MRAs/PUAs often go on about how “no women ever risk their lives for anyone else.” I’m sort of expecting one of these guys to write about this and say that this is the exception that proves the rule, or something.
Misogyny is so pervasive in our culture that a lot of people don’t even recognize it as a destructive force.
Manic depression is actually the extreme form of bipolar disorder. Many people have subclinical “moodiness” that does not impair either their legal or their actual competence. Full-blown manic depression, on the other hand, can do so. At Jackson Memorial, we had a patient who had gone off his lithium; owing to my last name, he decided I was Mohammed Ali. The chain of associations was so rapid and so strong that he did not notice I was a woman, 5’3″, white, or (at the time) 110 lbs soaking wet. He would have been quite incapable of planning something like this even if he’d wanted to, which he didn’t. Like most people in an extreme upswing, he was quite jovial.
No. Houser planned this well in advance, with premeditation and malice aforethought. He had switched his license plates; he had disguises prepared; he had cased the theater and waited for people to settle into the movie. I don’t doubt for one minute he had primed his own hatred at MRA sites (sensu lato). Whether this is a genuine case of stochastic terrorism or whether he would have acted out in this way without any prompting from hate websites is hard to say. But he didn’t need them. In a time of declining opportunity for those who once were privileged, misogyny, like racism and xenophobia, permeates the atmosphere like pea soup fog.
Another mystery massacre we can’t possibly solve.
In b4 future posts by David uncovering he had MRA shit all over his computer.
…adding… although his activities are already pretty clear.
I feel like I’m reading an Onion article. This is just pathetic.
Now everyone knows exactly what sort of site this is and exactly what you are. This is a band of hatemongers that specialize in hating men. Pathetic.
The sad fact is that I’m not even an MRA, and I still think of y’all as a bunch of sick puppies. Will be expecting this comment to be deleted (will think more of y’all if it stands).
“(will think more of y’all if it stands)”
I take that back. There is nothing redeeming about the subhumans running this site.
Reblogged this on Subspace Radio Signals.
@gstally
So, it seems that condemning a (misogynist) mass murderer is now hating men. That’s some goooood troll-logics.
Investigating home grown terrorism was unfortunately set back in 2012:
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/meet-former-dhs-official-daryl-johnson
Calling out misogyny = hatemongers? What? gstally, you need to hone your reading comprehension skills.
So reporting that a man went on a shooting spree and that he has a misogynistic motive based on well documented bigotry makes us “hatemongers”?
Lol, why should we care what you think?