Earlier today, British politician Jo Cox — a Labour party member of Parliament — was brutally murdered during a meeting with constituents.
While many have been quick to dismiss the horrific attack as the work of a deranged loner, it’s hard not to suspect a political motive: Cox fought against bigotry and was a staunch opponent of Britain leaving the European Union; the man arrested for the crime had connections to a far-right group that defended South Africa’s apartheid government and that has campaigned hard in favor of what’s known as Brexit.
While we still don’t know for sure what the killer’s motives are, that hasn’t stopped some of the most fervent supporters of Brexit are celebrating Cox’s death.
While many of the internet’s most terrible people have been leaning hard on the utterly unsubstantiated notion that the murder was a “false flag” by leftists opposed to #Brexit, others haven’t even bother to pretend that they felt bad about Jo Cox’s violent death.
Naturally, this response hs been most pronounced amongst those on the far right. In the US, that means some of the same people who have been trying their best to whip up anti-Muslim anger in the wake of the Orlando massacre.
It will be no shock to readers of this blog to discover that some of these repugnant alleged humans are also big fans of one Donald J. Trump. Tommy Grooves, a self-described “constitutionalist, Patriot, Libertarian, AltRight, Defender of LIBERTY” actually appended a #Trump2016 hashtag to this horrendous tweet:
https://t.co/YE5R8c2TbX The fate of all the political Traitor all over the world in every country.There day of reckoning ! #Trump2016
— Tommy Grooves (@Tommygrooves) June 16, 2016
In the tweet immediately preceding that one, for what it’s worth, he suggested that a writer for Vox needed to be taken on a “TRUMP HELICOPTER RIDE,” presumably a reference to Chilean dictator’s Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s practice of murdering people by throwing them from helicopters into the ocean. (See CORRECTION note below.)
#WhiteResistance, a frequent sharer of Trump’s tweets, as well as those of right-wing internet celebrities like Lauren Southern and Vox Day, had a similar reaction:
(These tweets were removed while I was writing this post, hence the screenshots.)
And there were many others — not all of them Trump fans, but most of them from the far right.
https://twitter.com/NANorthEast_/status/743473897828409344
https://twitter.com/NANorthEast_/status/743497714353246209
https://twitter.com/Fckislam10/status/743528636771270657
https://twitter.com/Fckislam10/status/743531853265543168
https://twitter.com/Steve_Crawford1/status/743543766020042753
https://twitter.com/KerrierKernow/status/743457087917854720
https://twitter.com/BodoKnerz/status/743515167732940800
https://twitter.com/Brassidi/status/743505912401432576
https://twitter.com/franz_soapbar/status/743497007881400320
Over on the rabidly pro-Trump internet Nazi tabloid The Daily Stormer, editor Andrew Anglin and most of his followers seem to be leaning towards the “false flag” theory. Other commenters had a rather different take:
While some celebrated today’s murder, one fellow predicted future murders — some of them possibly carried out by him.
Yet more reminders of how ugly politics have gotten in this misbegotten Year of Trump.
EDIT: Added link to Daily Stormer discussion (archived) and additional comment from there.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post suggested that the reference to “Trump helicopter rides” was an allusion to a famous scene in Scarface in which a man is murdered by throwing him from a helicopter; it’s far more likely that it was a reference to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s practice of murdering people by throwing them from helicopters into the ocean.
Unrelated: So, I was reading through old threads and noticed that Esmay’s changed his Twitter handle to “Dean Esmay ن”… Which confused the hell out of me, because why would an Islamophobe name himself after an Arabic letter?
Well, according to Google, it used to be a sign of solidarity with Iraqi Christians who’d been attacked by ISIS, but then the idiots got ahold of it, and now the closest thing is has to a meaning is “ARGLE BARGLE WHITE GENOCIDE BAN SHARIA LAW BOMB THE SAND [nopes]!!!”
I should’ve guessed after all those ASCII vaginas turned out to mean “DA JOOOZ.”
Still… it’s kind of helpful if it immediately lets you know what kind of person you’re dealing with.
Re: Brexit, I agree with Alan that we’ll probably get to stay in the EEA, if that’s what we ask for. But this is a poor case for Leave:
1. If this is the deal we get, we won’t get most of the supposed ‘advantages’ of Brexit. Tough immigration controls on EU citizens? Not compatible with EEA membership. Independent trade policy? Good luck with that. Meanwhile one of the losses of Brexit, loss of influence over EU policy, is very real even in the most conservative scenario. If you hear about some bad policy that Brussels ‘forced on us’, chances are, our politicians could have vetoed it and chose not to, or even in some cases it was their idea (the UK government was an outspoken advocate for eastern enlargement, for instance, and was exceptionally welcoming of immigrants from new EU countries in 2004). The power of MEPs is fairly limited, but it’s still more democratic than purely intergovernmental influence, which is all we would have left as a non-EU member. I suppose you can make a ‘greater transparency’ case for Brexit in that our press will maybe get slightly better at keeping an eye on our own politicians’ misdemeanours when ministers can no longer shout Brussels! as a smokescreen, but given the recent history of TTIP and so on, I don’t have high hopes for transparency in the UK-EU exit negotiations.
2. We’re *likely* to get an EEA-style deal, but it isn’t certain. Firstly the EU is under no obligation to give us such a deal, even if it’s in their best interests (other EU governments sometimes have irrational fits of spite too, we shouldn’t assume the UK is the only country that misbehaves). (This is even more of a risk when it comes to rejoining EFTA – do its current members really want a country to join that is bigger than all of them put together, and is likely to throw its weight around in any future negotiations?) Secondly, our own government is under no obligation to negotiate to stay in the EEA, and could well argue they have a popular mandate to negotiate something more radical (that would e.g. allow us to block EU immigrants). If the UK tries to negotiate ‘EEA, except…’ with a long list of special exemptions, we could squander what remaining goodwill we have amongst other EU members and talk ourselves out of the single market entirely. In his own efforts to ‘renegotiate Britain’s position in Europe’, Cameron has already explored the limits of how many asterisks the rest of the EU is prepared to give us.
3. If we fail to stay in the EEA, then we really are in uncharted waters with regards to trade and immigration policy, and there’s no reason to expect that will be a good thing on average. That’s true even if you think Johnson, Gove et al are wise leaders, but even more so if you think they are full of their own bad ideas.
Nick Gotts. Well aside from the fact that I wrote that BEFORE Mairs far right links / nazi material had come out and at the point that I wrote it, some witnesses were also sayng that he did not shout anything, the point of the piece was to say that even if he did not have Links eg to Britian First or any other far right group, as a society there is a problem in terms of the number of people that are applauding the murder, applauding the events of Orlando, portraying Orlando as a conspiracy to bring about gun control etc and also making the point that whilst Muslims are criticised for not condemning attacks by Isis, I do not see mainstream Christians for example, condemning those who applaud such events as these. That is a wider point. At no point did I say that it was not a right wing extremist action, merely that at that point that was not established and that as a society many people appear to have moved dangerously along that line anyway.
No, you didn’t: the far-right connections were already known on 16th, you posted your comment on 18th. And your first paragraph included:
– a “plausible” accusation of “using her death for political gain” aimed at those who, it turns out, were a lot better informed than you had bothered to make yourself.
Furthermore, the finding of Nazi mateirals at Mair’s home was reported on 17th.
In the piece, I gave BOTH versions of what WAS BEING REPORTED. Not my views on it. Something was shouted, nothing was shouted. Some are saying that she intervened in a scuffle that was already going on outside, some are saying that a man wrestled Mair to stop him attacking her. I repeat, I was not saying he was not a far right activist, just reflecting the conflicting information coming out, which the police were investigating and which of the two versions it was, was NOT the point of my piece. A point that you are missing. As a side issue. I am not sure how you can pre-empt the investigation of the police and in the end, the full picture will emerge in court. Someone may be an extreme Right Wing Activist, that does not actually prove guilt or innocence in a particular case. In the UK you remain Innocent Until Proven Guilty – no matter how guilty you may or may not be. It is an important principle. There is a saying – Assumption is the death of investigation and an unbiased investigation is required to find the facts or in the end, there could be a miscarriage of justice, or alternatively, equally as problematic, the case could be dismissed for irregularities / bias in the investigation. The Birmingham Six spent many years in prison for being Irish Terrorists when they had in fact been stitched up by the police. You have to put aside emotions and INVESTIGATE the FACTS of the particular events. The guy saying Death to Traitors etc, in court however would seem to be a fairly strong indicator of the position. The POINT of my piece I REPEAT was to say that REGARDLESS of the ins and outs of this case, the reaction of people to the news of this attack, as the ORLANDO matter, which David Futrelle and others were reporting, indicates that we have a problem interms of people cheering such events and further, particularly in the case of Fundamentalist Christians and Orlando, NOT CONDEMNING the potential links between such actions and what they regularly spout, ie that Gay people should be condemned to hell for sin, the possible links of such actions to rising Christian Fundamentalism. ie whether IN THE TRIAL it is proven to be either A or B, society as a whole is becoming more and more intolerant and Right wing. These points, a comment on the kinds of things that David Futrelle and others are highlighting, stand regardless of the outcome of this case.
@reggie, the neighbour’s cat
@kupo
et al
Interestingly, the ‘Angry Jack’ videos linked in another thread help me understand this misplaced anger wrt diet choices a bit more clearly.
Somehow the mere existence anyone who strays from the perceived ‘norm’ can be perceived as a criticism or an attack. Even though the fact that gluten-free foods are available & identified for those who want or need them does nothing close to taking away the choices gluten lovers choose.
It’s ironic that something as innocent as exercising a choice about what one eats is so confused in the minds of bystanders with some kind of moral condemnation that the non-vegan, or the non-gluten-free, or non-teetotaler that they feel a compulsion to demonise everyone who is different in some discernible way.
Please don’t be. The writers are of the Stormfront & neo nazi Persuasion, and they believe that anyone who opposes their views should die. It’s not an ideology, but pathological, abusive egocentricism that drives their every waking thought.
At times like these, people need to remember that abusers lurk in every corner of society ( yes even now, and even in cosmopolitan, affluent areas of the West ) and they will ALWAYS embrace anyone who validates their thuggish self entitlement, be it Britain First or Trump. That’s why hate speech is generally illegal. I am a citizen of the UK but really fail to understand why Trump hasn’t been prosecuted for some of his more aggressive statements, since they can and will always be seen as enticement to assault / murder *someone*. Though, I suppose you could ask the same question of us…!
Fran,
Probably because laws banning hate speech would be a clear cut violation of our constitution’s first amendment. I’m also of the opinion that laws banning hate speech are counter productive and tend to just drive bigotry underground.