By David Futrelle
On Gab — the “free speech” social media site that has become something of a haven for the internet’s worst people — some of the regulars have come up with a rather inventive explanation for the Parkland, Florida school shooting yesterday that left 17 dead. It’s all the fault of the Jews.
Never mind that an explicitly fascist group claims the accused shooter, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, as a member, and says he participated in their paramilitary training exercises. As some of the best minds on Gab see it, Cruz is actually the puppet of a vast Jewish conspiracy — and probably a Jew himself.
Their evidence? The fact that Cruz is such a well-known Jewish surname.
Wait, what?
While Cruz isn’t probably the first surname one thinks of when one thinks about Jewish surnames, there were some Spanish Jews who adopted the name to hide their Jewishness from the authorities … during the Spanish Inquisition. 500 years ago.
That of course isn’t proof that Cruz himself was Jewish.
Also, he was adopted.
But more than a few on Gab have something of a vested interest in trying to blame yesterday’s horrific carnage on a Jew or the Jews. See if you can figure out what the hidden agenda is as you scroll through these lightly censored comments from a fellow who calls himself DrGasChamber.
A Gabber called stevec, meanwhile, isn’t completely sure there even was a shooting yesterday. But whatever happened, he’s pretty sure Jews are to blame.
One commenter, the not-so-accurately named @NameTheJew, even made a little meme.
And no, there is no evidence that Elliot Rodger — that’s him on the left — was Jewish either.
Needless to say, not everyone on Gab blames the Jews for whatever they think happened in Parkland Florida yesterday. A fellow called Pho Chan, for example, had a rather different take on the Jewish Question.
Lovely.
For more on Nikolas Cruz, a possible incel who has been hailed by incels online as an Elliot Rodger style hero, see my post yesterday.
The info that Gab was kicked off the App Store, thus furthering limiting their chances of meaningful growth is comforting.
Honestly, is this even worth reporting? The people on Gab probably blame the Jews when they burn their toast in the morning.
If a Jewish conspiracy anywhere near as power as they believe in existed it wouldn’t have to bother with gimmicks like fake school shootings. But conspiracy theorists generally have poor understanding of logistics.(Along with all sort of other stuff of course.)
Hmmmm, “white shame”? The only people making me ashamed of being white are these assholes.
Also, if white people don’t commit mass murders, does that mean that white people only have the guts to sit behind a computer and idolize “jewish mullato creations” for actually acting on violent fantasies? ? Surely the superior race could never be a bunch of spineless loser keyboard warriors??
I wonder what these boils on the ass of humanity must think of the Reich Minister of Propaganda being named Joseph, another Jewish name? Was Joseph Goebbels also a secret Jew?
Here’s your hero now, 4chan dudes. It’s interesting how, from the comfort of your chair, you laud others who commit antisocial acts. Cruz will likely spend a long, long time in prison — while you get to keep attacking others with your keyboard.
Flashes of Rage. Family Loss. Nikolas Cruz’s Lifetime of Trouble.
By RICHARD FAUSSET and SERGE F. KOVALESKIFEB. 15, 2018
Link to my preceding (slightly off-topic) comment:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/15/us/nikolas-cruz-florida-shooting.html
I am SO GODDAMNED TIRED of this.
This here pretty much sums up what I want to say.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1773679265996889&id=908009612563863&refsrc=https%3A%2F%2Fm.facebook.com%2FNowThisPolitics%2Fvideos%2F1773679265996889%2F&_rdr
I am so unbelievably angry. Yesterday, on a Twitter thread where someone shared the classroom video of the bodies on the floor and the person taking the video was finally able to be evacuated and more bodies were shown in the hallway as they ran outdoors, somebody posted “take this down, have some respect.”
I said, “Look at this. LOOK AT THIS! Every one of the people who are complicit in fighting against *any* sort of gun control need to FUCKING LOOK AT THIS!
This CARNAGE and fear are what the NRA thrives on. Everyone who wants more guns in classrooms need to LOOK AT THIS!”
Because, yeah. Those fuckers in DC, those lobbyist fuckers, those Congressfolks who fucking take NRA blood money to keep ensuring out citizens keep dying, LaFuckingPierre, asshole Trump…every single one of them should be made to watch every fucking video of school massacres on a loop, and how frightened these kids are, so they DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Every mass shooting should be shown to them over and over and over until they understand that their fucking useless platitudes and thoughts and prayers do NOTHING to assage the grief of the parents of their murdered children or the ptsd of godamned school shooter drills that fucking become reality. DRILLS SHOULD HAVE NEVER BECOME A PART OF A TYPICAL SCHOOL DAY!! WHAT THE FUCK!!
So yeah. And EVERY ONE of these motherfuckers who bloviate about shit like this, including the assholes on GAB profiled above, need to come to the realization that THIS SHIT ISN’T NORMAL AND SHOULD NEVER *BE* NORMALIZED.
I weep with the realization that my granddaughter, and indeed, my younger daughter, will have grown up thinking that mass shootings in schools are a fucking normal occurence. And that these fucking assholes think that these victims are a fucking goddamned acceptable collateral damage so they can keep fucking fellating their goddamned guns.
Well-regulated militia. START FUCKING REGULATING, ASSHOLES!
Tl;dr version: yesterday broke something inside me.
Sorry for the typos and the rant.
I’m pretty sure LaPierre IS doing something, namely jacking himself off to the point of dehydration.
This isn’t a news site. It’s a misogyny mocking site that has morphed into a mocking assorted terrible reactionaries site. So I don’t know what you mean by reporting?
And given that in the other thread David just discussed dealing with a triple whammy of depression, migraines and insomnia, it’s kind of rude to act like you’re displeased he didn’t post a groundbreaking piece of investigative journalism.
I’m glad to see you back Dave. I dont know you personally, and only through this website and its related FB page, but if you need any help, just ask
<3 WWTH, you write what I feel.
abars, David's always posted this sort of stuff. That's the point of the site. Mocking them. They hate that. What did you think it was about?
Scild,
Glad to see you back!
Sigh.
Same as it ever was.
Same as it ever was.
Same as it ever was.
Kat,
I don’t like that article. it is too much about if he is mentally ill and not enough about that he bought his gun legally <<this is main problem.
there are mentally ill people in every country, (and they are not sure if this guy even has any mental illness), but there are not so many shootings in those countries. problem is guns, which caused so many deaths
@weirwoodtreehugger: chief manatee, @Scildfreja Unnýðnes
I wasn’t criticizing David. I’m both aware that he’s recovering from depression, and aware of the focus of this website. I was just flatly, ironically stating that people on Gab probably blame everything on Jews. (i.e. “People on Gab blame everything on Jews; and in other news, the sky is blue.”) It’s intended as a jab at them, not David.
I expect that this will garner yet further criticism, but sometimes, it seems like the commenters here read malice into other comments a little too easily.
I’d normally overlook it, but you have a history of making “why are you posting about this?” type of posts.
I don’t even think it’s malice. It’s just coming off poorly and not the first time that’s been pointed out.
@Kat:
17 counts of first-degree murder. Aggravating factors. If there’s any semblance of a functioning justice system left, they’ll throw away the key.
@weirwoodtreehugger: chief manatee
Unless I was a clear contrarian troll, why would I peruse this site for years with the intent to criticize and/or offend? I’ve never posted, and never would post, anything which I seriously believed could genuinely upset someone. I can’t help it if my choice of words isn’t 100% perfect in every instance.
But perhaps we should abandon this topic now, before it inevitably devolves into a pointless back-and-forth flame war.
Valentine,
Yeah, the mental illness thing in the media, while expected has been really annoying.
Cruz went out of his way to blend in with escaping students and calmly went to a fast food place for a drink. Someone in the midst of a mental breakdown could not manage that. But CNN commenters were using that as proof he must be crazy. Sigh.
So we’ve got a guy who’s known for partner violence and for being a white supremacist. His social media postings show that he’s been premeditating this for months. Defaulting to mental illness just doesn’t even make any sense.
I fear that rather than gun control and actually punishing violence against partners or against animals with more than just a slap on the wrist, the US solution to mass shootings is going to be to remove rights from mentally ill people. Which will of course result in even more people not being treated because everyone will be too afraid to seek help for mental health issues for fear of being branded a potential homicidal maniac. It’s such fucking bullshit.
It has been well researched and well known for ages that mentally ill people are more likely to be the victims of violent crimes than the perps. Yet the majority of the population and most of the media seems to not grasp it.
Sorry. I know I’m not saying anything that everyone else here doesn’t already know and hasn’t already probably said themselves. Just needed a bit of a rant.
I didn’t call you a troll. I didn’t say you intended to offend.
You’ve been asked many times before to knock it off with
this kind of thing.
It’s not about being 100% perfect it’s about not being consistently rude and snotty.
This is just one of those things where if you’re stepping on someone’s foot, you just apologize and get off. Not get mad at the person objecting because you didn’t mean to.
I’m really not trying to start a fight, but I’m not going to be afraid to speak up when someone is behaving rudely either because bottling these things up has led to much bigger blowups here in the past.
Is it really that hard to take a little care with your words? I’ll even be nice enough to fix your post for you
There. Easy peasy.
@weirwoodtreehugger: chief manatee
That was not intended as an actual criticism of David’s choice of topic to report on, but, again, was simply to emphasize the sheer roteness and obviousness of people on Gab blaming things on Jews. It doesn’t matter to me what this website chooses to report on. But alright. I am sorry if, somehow, this came off as rude, and from now on, I won’t write anything that could imply a criticism of the choice of topic at hand.
Having been hospitalized for my depression and being placed on a closed ward for crisis intervention I’ve actually spent time with so called “Crazy” people.
Someone in the middle of a psychotic episode isn’t capable of the level of planning necessary to carry out an atrocity like this.
Someone in a manic phase is a danger mostly to their bank account.
Someone in a depressive phase isn’t capable of doing much of anything, depending how bad things are.
Borderliners are a danger to themselves and relationships.
Statistically speaking mentally ill people are underrepresented as perpetrators of all crimes.
And overrepresented as VICTIMS of all crimes.
I know that if someone had mugged me last year when I was really bad off and threatened to kill me I would have probably told them to get on with it already and put me out of my misery…
Real sincere.
Did you even read what you wrote?
That doesn’t square with your stated intent at all. My interpretation was pretty sensible. Don’t act like I’m imagining things or being excessively uncharitable.
Can you just read what you originally wrote and see how it came off?
Do I really need to go back and search for some of your previous posts in which you’ve acted just like this and been asked to knock it off? I’m not sure I have the energy to do it tonight. I need to get to bed. But if you’re really this determined to attempt to gaslight me into accepting that I’m just somehow taking you as rude, I’ll dig the receipts up.
Or you could just, you know, finally knock this shit off.
I am tired of hearing about “mental illness” to explain mass killings as well. Especially when it’s from ableist, ignorant fucks like Trump. I am afraid persecuting disabled people is going to be far more appealing to Americans than blaming guns. The stigma is already hard to overcome without people tweeting out false information.