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.
So far it looks like most, if not all, his victims were women. One female victim took a shot guarding her female friend, one laid on the ground and pretended to be dead, one female victim pulled a fire alarm. he was violent to his wife and daughter, advocated violence against abortion providers, believed women had no say in anything. And at the showing of Trainwreck? Yeah….it’s hard for the media to put 2 and 2 together while they chase all his other hatreds.
Yup. And that’s why the whole “he was mentally ill” bit has got to be retired. Aside from, of course, the fact that mentally ill people are usually no danger to anyone except, sometimes, themselves. Hand-waving away a carefully plotted mass murder (with bigoted motives, no less) as just “oh, another sicko, no biggie” not only renders the victims’ deaths meaningless and pointless, it also means that society once more gets to abdicate responsibility for preventing more such deaths in future. Because mental illness is just the rotten luck of the draw (and something that can be treated up to a point, but is hard to prevent), while methodical planning points to a behavioral pattern that CAN be unravelled, and social measures that CAN be taken.
I see a great deal of political will lacking in the US where societal change is concerned. Hell, just look at how it’s always “too soon” to consider gun control (or even just DEBATING it) every time yet another mass shooter runs amuck. What are the odds that they’ll ever get around to tackling social ills like racism and misogyny if they can’t even agree that too many people getting too many guns too easily is a real fucking problem?
Canada’s track record on this isn’t perfect, but at least we agreed, in the wake of 1989, that gun control, registration, etc., was a damn good idea. And lately, we’ve seen too much of that rolled back when Stephen Fucking Harper kowtowed to the far right and rammed through a repeal of the long-gun registry, over the objections of police chiefs and others who had welcomed the substantial drop in gun crime. I’m just dreading the day when a “deranged” (read: bigoted extremist) shooter stages a replay of the Polytechnique, and then hearing this “we don’t know what caused it” excuse trotted out again. When, in fact, we know full well and have known all along, but our so-called leaders were just pandering jackasses out for votes. And their getting votes depends heavily on keeping the ignorami ignorant.
Bina:
The people with the power in the US have no desire to see things change. That would upset their power. It’s horrifying. Worse, for most people in the US, we lack the resources and power to effect change. And I’m sure *that’s* accidental (not).
From Slacktivist, a handy guide to American mass shootings:
http://wp.production.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/files/2015/07/AllDudes.jpg
so long as they can claim he was just insane then the NRA can claim we need to do more about the mentally ill and not guns…MRAs can claim he “had a point” but he was crazy so it isn’t their responsibility, Fox can say “It wasn’t one of ours…he was sick and here…see…looky”
Can we all give a shout out (or at) Calvin Floyd…the kitchen table conservative talk show host who deliberately fed this guy’s delusions for “entertainment” by constantly giving his hatred a platform? He seems almost proud of himself as he discusses his former “guest”.
They’ll eventually get around to figuring out the mystery of his motive, once they finally manage to put a stop to the Identity Killer’s string of violence.
What a piece of shit. A petition to get him off the air would be the best response, for starters…
Yeah, the guy who is bragging about having him on his show really needs a swift kick in the pants (metaphorically speaking of course) in the form of getting him off the air. There’s a lot of things to be proud about in life, giving a hateful bigot airtime to validate his own twisted world view is NOT one of them.
I had the rather cynical thought that people like Mr Jindal actually welcome the arrival of another such shooter on the horizon. On the one hand, it does bring up the whole question of “well, maybe making guns less accessible to the general public will bring the number of these incidents down?”[1]. On the other hand, it does allow the re-setting of the “too soon” clock each time. I mean, the Charleston church shooting has taken place, the victims have been buried, the killer has been sentenced, and that means most of the immediate debris has been cleared, so it’s time to start talking about “okay, how do we prevent the next such occurrence” – which, you’ll note, President Obama had just started doing.
Now this guy comes along, and all the gun-control conservatives can say “oh no, no, no, it’s too soon to talk about that – we’re still cleaning up the mess from this last guy”. And they’ll keep saying that until the next guy comes along – which he’s likely to do within about the next two or three months anyway.
(Yes, I do realise there’s the fellow who shot up the armed forces recruiting office in the middle there – but he was brown-skinned and had an Arabic name, and was thus clearly a terrorist).
You folks in the USA do realise you have a gun problem there, right?
[1] Answer, from all the evidence in every other civilised country on the planet: yes.
Charged. I meant charged. *facepalm*. Sorry. I blame the weekend.
Why? Why? Why is it so hard to admit that society has a problem with misogyny that runs deeper than in the occasional “lone woman-hating wolf”?
Is the same willful ignorance the reason why MRAs insist that “misandry” is a thing? Because they honestly refuse to see that while individual women might have a problem with men in general, there’s an actual cultural indoctrination at play in regard to misogyny that couuuuld maayyybe play a part in those individual women having a problem with men in general? All they see are individual men hating women (“not all men!”), because those men couldn’t possibly have grown up holding the same view of women as the rest of us, right?
And once again, if people honestly thought the actual reason for such mass shootings was mental illness, we’d see a surge of funding to national mental health care, hmm? But we don’t. Since society doesn’t actually care about the mentally ill, and “mentally ill” is just a convenient buzzword to write off all social ills that are rooted in white male privilege. A culture that doesn’t want to examine itself will be doomed to have such tragedies repeated.
If I were a praying man, I’d pray for the victims and their families. Since I’m not, all I can do is offer my condolences.
Continuing to read the puzzled statements from the LE officials is unreal. “We don’t know what his motives could have been, we may never know, etc.”
Of course not, since almost all discussions focus on his extreme right views without a mention of his rabid misogyny. Can’t quite make the connection between his love of Hitler and choosing “Trainwreck” as the scene of his killings, because yeah, there probably isn’t any discernible one. However, the most obvious connection eludes them for some reason.
That reason, sadly, is that misogyny is so widespread, normalized and acceptable that it does not merit a mention even in the case of a mass killer who obviously targeted women.
“Yeah, the guy who is bragging about having him on his show really needs a swift kick in the pants (metaphorically speaking of course) in the form of getting him off the air. ”
As much as this guy sounds like a total dumbass, trying to get him off the air, if not successfully pulling him off, is basically giving this piece of shit what he wants, and the rest of the MRA community for that matter. And if he is pulled off the air, he’ll just go around the various parts of the internet screaming “The feminazis came and took muh freedoms!”
OK I think you guys are missing something with why the media is covering it the way it is. I don’t think it’s because hating women is seen as so normal but because it’s something that people have a hard time grasping. If you make people think about an idea they find too scary they will turn the channel, while if you just say yah he is basically a nazi then they can go ohhh how evil and wait for all the juicy details. It’s not that they don’t see the issue but that they are pandering to views for ratings.
Same with the whole he was mentally ill because he was white. If the viewers are 70 percent white then the views that they are seen as criminals (because things are painted in broad strokes for ease of access) will upset them. It doesn’t even have to be ease of access. There is so much racism built around the idea of theorists in the us that people can’t seem to make the connection. Some people literally think you have to be Muslim to be one.
Also the police statement could of been taken either before it was know he hated women or before it was legally verified (remember different burden of proof for police) and they couldn’t say anything more concrete without harming the investigation.
So try to keep that in mind before jumping on the police. Sometimes they aren’t allowed to say the obvious.
Women get murdered and someone calls the murderer a terrorist.
Brave MRAs like Gstally immediately identify the real issue: SOMEONE CALLED A MAN A TERRORIST!!!!!! This cannot stand!
Just saw an article on “Young Conservatives” that claimed that because Houser claimed to have supported President Obama for reelection he was a liberal. The reason he supported Obama is because he believed he would destroy America. Doesn’t sound liberal to me. Sounds insane to me, and I don’t throw that word around lightly. http://www.youngcons.com/evidence-shows-louisiana-shooter-supported-obama-in-2012/
Please, dude, don’t provoke another “ZOMG DA ABLEISM” outburst. Just don’t call people insane and dont posit psychiatric diagnoses. Reading about someone isn’t sufficient to give a diagnosis of anything. It’s not reasonable behaviour and it sets off a whole bunch more unwantedness. Don’t do it here.
Reblogged this on Poli.V.
@Robjec:
Umm… no. Just no. It really seems to me that your argument boils down to “but reporting on the things that actually happened will upset people!” Idk if that’s what you’re trying to say, but that’s how it comes across.
That… is the entire point. Misogyny is so deeply ingrained in our society that we’re not equipped to start looking there even when it’s staring us right in our faces. THAT IS EXACTLY WHY IT NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED, GODDAMMIT!
People (mostly men) are uncomfortable with the fact that our society has always had a way of treating women as second-class citizens. We are uncomfortable with the idea that many things we men see as our “right” pertaining to women are based on subjugation, not a difference in interest. We are uncomfortable with realizing that we are part of the problem.
However, our discomfort is nothing compared to the problems women face because we don’t like to feel uncomfortable, and our discomfort is no fucking excuse to remain ignorant. When misogyny is pointed out everywhere it happens (by feminists), it slowly causes society to become more self-aware, and to start paying attention to its problems. That is how social change happens. That is also why the MRAs are a thing. They see feminists addressing problems with misogyny in our culture, hate the fact that their “rights” (actually privileges) are compromised, and push back. MRAs are men who don’t like feeling uncomfortable, so they pretend feminists are all lying liars who lie. That’s what willful ignorance does to people: It makes them ignorant assholes.
To me, you seem to be confusing “seen as normal” with “normalized”. It’s the same sort of misconception that makes MRAs doubt the existence of rape culture: They think that in order for it to exist, all men must rape all women all the time, when it’s actually much more subtle than that. It’s not that all men are actively misogynistic with the sort of cackling glee that you’d expect from cartoon villains, it’s that all men unknowingly hold at least some views that perpetuate the subjugated position of women. The patriarchy is not an active conspiracy, it’s a collection of harmful beliefs and opinions that gives rise to more insidious decisions on behalf of those holding those beliefs (which pretty much all of us share to some degree).
I’m sure you’re aware of all this, I just felt like it needed to be said.
and
And you still don’t see what the actual problem here is? Not the people pointing out how fucked up that is, but that IT IS FUCKED UP, FFS!
A person in a position of authority who panders to the sensibilities of the privileged is not absolved of the responsibility to tell the truth because it might “upset the viewers.” Upsetting the privileged and shaking the status quo is the only way these kinds of probems can ever be addressed. The police are a respected group. They could make a difference. Yes, they have largely absorbed the same toxic views on gender, race and sexuality as the rest of us, but their position of power in society should also bring with it the responsibility to report truhtfully, taking into account social patterns of violence they should be protecting the people from, not to tell the privileged what the privileged want to believe. Otherwise, they’re nothing but a bunch of bullies defending privilege by way of authority and force.
Capitalism is largely built on upholding the status quo with its transparent “ratings decide” and “the market knows” bullshit, so thanks for strengthening my view that capitalism is, at its core, pure frickin’ evil.
They knew for a fact that 1) the place of the crime was a movie theater showing a feminist comedy film, and 2) his victims were all women. That, right there, gives them more information than you’d think, especially given that this wasn’t an isolated incident. There is a pattern, if you bother to look.
I’m willing to give your speculation the benefit of the doubt if the police follow up with a statement that acknowledges the part the man’s intense hatred for women’s rights had to do with the shooting, but somehow, I doubt this will happen. Because, as you said, society is uncomfortable with addressing misogyny, and it’s so much easier to pretend that it’s all just lone killers doing lone killer stuff.
“Allowed”, as in “they actually really, truly want to tell the truth, but are silenced”, or as in “they are largely part of the privileged and it is in their best self-interest to bend the truth a little in order to not upset the status quo that upholds their privileged position?”
The cops aren’t always the good guys, you know. You’d think the latest year or so would have taught one that.
Wait a good gosh darn minute, nobody told me that this place is being run by FERRETS! I feel so misled! It’s getting to where someone can no longer trust a website claiming to be run by cats! I was on-board as long as the cats were in charge, but FERRETS?! I may even start a petition, to make sure this site is clearly labeled so as to not mislead anybody in such a manner in the future!
(stomps off in righteous indignation, muttering to herself about cats and g-d-damn FERRETS, muses about which government agency would be the appropriate one to present a petition on WHTM having to clearly label the species running the place, grumbles some more, and throws a stapler across the room for no good reason!)
Alright, now that I’ve gotten the dramatics over and done with…Many people imagine that the U.S., a nation of many freedoms, has already achieved equal rights for women, minorities, religions, and is working towards doing the same for those in the LGBT communities. Currently I’ve noticed that are more people expressing their anger over what’s going on with Social Security, railing at the ‘lazy poor people’ who are stealing what tax-paying hard working Americans have paid into, and pointing fingers at political parties failing to do anything other than take even more from working Americans they were elected to represent…and worrying about foreign threats regarding terrorism, because oddly enough it’s less scary than confronting what’s going on here within the nation’s own citizens. We’ve seen a number of incidents where a gunman – with and without a manifesto – goes and takes the lives of others and the response has been; *wow never would expect it from this person, *they must be insane because only an insane person would do this, *why didn’t the system prevent this individual from getting a firearm, *news media outlets go over and over what happened with experts and government officials weighing in with the usual talk about taking action(s) so that something like this will never happen again – but here we are again.
The mental health care system was supposed to transition to community based when government-run hospitals were being closed to save money – of course patients would receive better care in community rather than institutional settings, the problem was that they closed the institutions and didn’t follow through with the rest of the plan The ‘not as bad’ areas are still facing incredibly high case loads for nowhere near enough qualified mental health care professionals, and much of those who are ill are put in jail/prison for lack of an alternative on a revolving door basis. From what I’ve read about this man’s mental health and so forth, history of noncompliance with medication regimes and criminal record – this is clearly a case that should point out the glaringly obvious issues of a mental health care system that is BROKEN. We can enact more laws aimed at gun control all we want, but that isn’t going to produce the expected outcome – people need to understand that without major efforts and improvement to our mental health care services and access to them is expanded, we’ll continue to see a huge correctional facility inmate population that is mentally ill and not adequately treated as they cycle through the revolving doors, and a few will reach a point where they commit a horrible crime. If we had adequate services to begin with, perhaps these few would not get to that level of violence – something that has the potential of decreasing the mistaken belief that all people who are diagnosed with a mental illness are violent, dangerous individuals who should be ‘locked away’ to protect the public at large. I very much doubt that anyone would choose to be mentally ill – not like they actually get the choice – but they are still people, they deserve better than months of waiting to see a doctor, if they get an appointment at all, jail instead of proper treatment, and slipping through the cracks until police get involved again…and they certainly deserve better than the institutions which were closed down – those places were horrific large-scale warehouses for the neglected and forgotten patients.
Sounds insane to me, and I don’t throw that word around lightly.
Evidence suggests that you do throw it around lightly.
Please read the site rules, thank you, they were just rewritten and we take them seriously.
Great. Yet another isolated incident in a long series of isolated incidents just happen to be remarkably similar. /s
I’m sure we’ll never know the motives of the guy who murdered those marines the other week either. /s /s
@ Robjec
The standard insult dudes use against each other is insinuations of femininity or homosexuality. We scoff at, mock and deride anything and everything considered feminine. So, first things first, kindly insert your “I don’t think hating women is seen as normal” into the orifice of your choosing.
Secondly, “they’re not calling it what it is because people don’t want to hear about that” is not a justification and it’s not a reason for me to cut anyone any slack.