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.
America, where are you now, don’t you care about your sons and daughters
Our flag again stands low, half-way up the pole
an angry white man killed again today
the reason’s plain to see, hatred, bigotry
but that’s not what our leaders say
guns can’t be discussed, nor can fascist blood lust
a day of mourning the president declares
the grief of those who’ve lost and the ever-mounting cost
swept aside by the sincerest thoughts and prayers
with fear and with alarm we watch the bigots take up arms
and massacre at churches, malls and schools
we plead with washington, but they say nothing can be done
as the blood of dead and dying victims pools
the outrage will fade away with the coming of the day
unless tomorrow someone kills again
our delinquent leadership has us all in the grip
of the firearms lobby’s terroristic reign
the right-wing politician runs on right to carry guns
‘cuz that’s more important than the price we pay
concern and sorrow feigned as they finance their campaign
with bloody money from the N.R.A.
you can’t say this. you don’t know this is true or not. investigation is not yet concluded, even investigators don’t know what is a diagnosis for this person. so it is not fair that you should say this. plenty of evidence suggests already he is not mentally ill – but in both scenarios, we have no conclusion. and for me, it is much better we say he is NOT mentally ill, until confirmed because every time there is a shooting of this kind people say that shooter is mentally ill and like everyone already said, this is very very bad for mentally ill people and also it is simply for distraction from real problem – which is guns.
finally, history of violence and bad behaviour doesn’t mean that someone is mentally ill. I have history of bad behaviour – I am not mentally ill. I am sure if I done some crime people will also use this history to attack mentally ill people, so it is very important we make this clear. it is so common mentally ill people shown that they violent and dangerous – but simply this is not true. in real life it is opposite – generally mentally ill people are victims of crime, not criminals.
so, please, don’t say things like this when we don’t have evidence.
@Valentin
Your point is fair, but…
“so, please, don’t say things like this when we don’t have evidence.”
Unless it turns out to be fake news, I read that he’d been in treatment facilities before. I don’t know if he was involuntarily committed (Baker Acted in Florida-Florida has some of the loosest laws on involuntary commitment), but if he was, he shouldn’t have legally had a gun either.
Cruz had lost both his mother AND his father over the past year. By everything I’ve read he was NOT doing well. And all of which means poop. MENTAL DISORDER =/= CHARACTER DISORDER.
“I have history of bad behaviour – I am not mentally ill.”
Right. You’re character is what you make it. In general, you can’t “make” mental health, or mental illness.
I was very tired so maybe I wasn’t clear last night. It wasn’t the disagreement that I found gaslighty, it was the attitude that I was looking for malice and the “if I somehow came off as rude” thing. Since I had clearly stated it was a pattern of behavior going back for well over a year now, it seemed a little disingenuous to act like I was over reacting because I don’t know, I’m just mean or sensitive or whatever.
And yeah, that “I thought you were dead” thing rubbed me the wrong way too. Especially since there was another commenter who kept dropping to ask if he was dead and it eventually got them banned.
But whatever. I’ll drop it now.
Mrex,
Cruz’s father died in 2004.
His mother died just last November.
My senior year in high school (1972-73) I was not doing well. In september my brother went to the navy, in november my mother died, in april my father died and in may my only close friend went to the air force. I went to college on my parents’ g.i. bill benefits and proceeded to drink and drug myself into a psychiatric ward. I had huge anger problems, and an enabler in the form of a college professor who got me sprung from the hospital (bad move in hindsight, I needed help in the worst way). I had no friends, no social skills, and no one to mentor me. I had ample access to guns at my grandparents’ house, including a functioning ww2-era .45 caliber submachine gun (“Chicago Piano” for the curious). I knew how to shoot and had been shooting periodically since I was 8 years old. What I did not have was a stomach full of entitlement and a head full of bigotry.
Different time, place, person, circumstance, yes. My point being, without the entitlement, hatred and bigotry, my chances of going on a shooting spree had to be greatly diminished. All the other pieces were in place… ALL the other pieces were in place!
E.T.A. I also, of course, did not have a social media to nurture any hatred and bigotry I might have had
I know I’ve cited Chapo a few times the last couple of days… just found that they had some of the best language in describing the alt-right and I found this excellent article describing the concept of the “failson”… and I have to say, it hit me kinda close to home:
https://www.sanspoint.com/archives/2016/12/01/watch-failson-internet-radicalizing-alt-right/
The article goes on to describe how this kind of person is drawn to alt-right characters like Milo or Mike Cernovich, but it was the second-to-last paragraph that described me almost to a T:
I just happened to graduate 1 year earlier and had steady employment in 2008 until the bottom fell out of the mining industry in concert with the financial crash and I was let go. I spent months as that failson until I began to volunteer my time with the tech department of a local crisis prevention network and got my self-esteem back.
Kind of a “there but for the grace of God go I” thing… especially when engineers like me are the most prone to radicalization. It’s kinda scary to think about, but I have the feeling that the “failson” description is going to be applied to more and more perpetrators of terrible tragedies going forward…..
Christ alive, I’ll never comment again if I’m upsetting people this much with what I thought were completely innocuous single sentences. I’m only inevitably going to end up doing it again, aren’t I.
mrex:
Being in a mental health facility != being mentally ill
Substance abuse can get you there. Being an angry young person can get you there. Young people who have for some reason not learned essential social skills can get therapy for that. Learning disabilities often require the services of mental health providers.
Therapy is used to process traumatic stuff and process grief.
He received mental health treatment. That does not necessarily mean that he has a mental health condition.
Oh for fuck’s sake.
Why does someone saying “hey this comment is problematic for such and such a reason, please knock it off” so often end in pissiness and a flounce?
Also, I don’t know how relevant this is to the discussion, but as I understand it the courts define mental illness way, *way* more narrowly than the medical profession, at least when it comes to concepts like the “insanity plea.”
@ wwth
It almost seems like a universal human tendency to resist learning whenever possible. To the point of getting tantrum level defensive if someone is trying to teach you without having the status to intimidate you into listening to them.
I know I tended to work this way before I deliberately unlearned the habit. I still really, really hate having to listen to talk about things I’m not sufficiently familiar with and specifically interested in, or having to learn to use a new OS for example. I can feel my spoons being drained and my instinct is to escape the situation if possible.
Seeing stuff now that, no, the shitstain wasn’t a member of yon white supremacy group. The guy running the group was supposedly trolling the press.
Which is just as fucking bad, if true.
Well, if that MAGA hat picture is real, than I would say that he is. Even if he wasn’t trained or whatever.
It also really illustrates just how real white privilege is. It’s hard to imagine a higher up in idk, the Black Panthers or Nation of Islam (hard to find an equivalent to a white nationalist group for obvious reasons so this as close as I can, sorry it’s not fully adequate) deciding to troll the press by falsely taking partial credit for a mass murder. Because doing so would result in immediate terrorism charges and a trip to federal prison or worse. Clearly the guy who made this claim is aware at least on some level that he has that privilege. This is why I don’t bother to treat claims that white people/men/straight people/cis people/Christians are oppressed these days as something I should take seriously as sincerely believed by the claimant and try to patiently reason with them. They all know they aren’t oppressed.
@wwth
Not going to quote the whole lot 😛
Perfectly said.
yes I agree with knitting cat lady, to be in facility does not mean someone is mentally ill. and also I still believe it is very good idea we don’t talk at all about mentally illness. it is guns and entitlement which cause this.
On the white supremacist thing, it’s still not clear to me what the deal is with that group. I do know that the shooter used racist lingo popular amongst “alt-right” types in his comments online — he called Arabs “sand dindus” at one point. So he was racist and at least hung out in the vicinity of Nazi types. Was going to mention this in the post but I lost the link to the page where I saw this.
Or, more likely, the goosestepping fuckspud realised that all publicity is not good publicity and is desperately trying to stuff the cat back in the bag.
@David – respectable lawyer had a tweet about it, I think, though I saw it somewheres else. Know you follow them.
@SFHC – that were my first thought, damage control.
Really don’t know though, and honestly don’t much care if the Nazis lied then or are lying now. End result of either is “they’re evil fucks.”
@PV
“Cruz’s father died in 2004.”
*looks up*. You’re right. The point still stands that Cruz lost both parents before 19.
@knitting cat lady
“Being in a mental health facility != being mentally ill”
How are you defining “mental illness”?
@Valentin
“and also I still believe it is very good idea we don’t talk at all about mentally illness. it is guns and entitlement which cause this.”
Yah, I agreed that it’s guns and entitlement that caused this. But you can be mentally ill, AND be an entitled asshole. And we can’t just ignore the mental illness card, since the ass on chief is playing it. It needs to be addressed.
Fun fact about the US justice system; 64 percent of local jail inmates, 56 percent of state prisoners and 45 percent of federal prisoners have symptoms of serious mental illnesses. Generally that is due to drug use (yes substance abuse disorders are mental illnesses), or because we refuse to treat out mentally ill and perfer to lock them up for homelessness or stealing to eat or whatever.
@abars
“Christ alive, I’ll never comment again if I’m upsetting people this much with what I thought were completely innocuous single sentences.”
I don’t think anyone’s that upset with you. I know this place can be kinda dicks over twisting words, but I think it is because communication over text based places honestly sucks. You never know how your words will sound to someone in a different headspace.
I know I’ve had the same problem that you’re having know, and yeah, it’s VERY frustrating.
@wwth
Got it.
@abars01
At the risk of provoking yet another response, as a bystander, it’s clear to me that your initial comment wasn’t what caused the response; it was your inability to own the mistake and move on.
WWTH has explained clearly that the first clause of your post needed deleting. That it was superfluous to your meaning. Instead of “my bad, I can see how it could be misconstrued”, your response was practically the definition of “flouncing” – except that implies an exit, and you’ve repeated it a number of times.
The written word can be tricky. One of the things I love about this blog is that most commenters, when called out, say “oops sorry will try not to do again”, and it’s all over. You didn’t do that. No need to reply with yet another “so I’d better go to the garden and eat worms” response. No need to respond at all. Just… have a think. Or not. Up to you.
ETA Slightly ninja’d by WWTH and mrex. I’ll be shutting up now (on this topic). Maybe others might like to join me.
@Weird (thumper of trumpanzees) Eddie
Ok, I just got a chance to carefully read your entire post. I’m really, really sorry that all happened to you. So much at once, and so young. 🙁
We agree that the reason why you didn’t go on a shooting spree was because you are an awesome person, while Cruz is an gigantic entitled asshole.
Or see, my entire long rant about how mental illness has nothing to do with a person’s character. Good or bad.
Re: the MAGA photo:
Another video has surgaced online of him wearing that hat.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2018/02/16/nikolas-cruz-target-practice-video-ebof.cnn
Not blaming that hat, per se, but.
Re: gentle corrections:
My opinion, which absolutely nobody asked for, is take the correction, don’t reframe the point of contention…just move on.
it only “needs to be adressed” only to say mental illness is not cause of mass shootings. of course trump will say this, because this is what happens. after shootings, people again ask for gun control, and then people who are pro-gun make same arguement, “shooter is mentally ill”. he says what every pro-gun person says, to change subject away from what is real problem.
there is nothing to “adressed” mentally ill people are not dangerous and generally, in all the world, statistics are same for mental illness, even if you live in florida or france or Phillipeans. so we must address what is different, and what is different is guns and secondly, development of nation. USA relatively rich and well developed, so good environment for entitlement to grow.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2014/04/anger_causes_violence_treat_it_rather_than_mental_illness_to_stop_mass_murder.html
They want for you to talk about mental illness because it is distraction from real problem – guns. it is not what we ‘ must address”, only they want you to believe this.