By David Futrelle
Another apparent act of far-right terrorism: A gunman apparently armed with a semi-automatic weapon entered a synagogue in Poway, California during a celebration of the final day of Passover and opened fire, killing one and wounding three others. The alleged shooter, a 19-year-old identified as John Earnest, fled the scene but was taken into custody shortly afterwards.
There are as-yet unconfirmed reports that Earnest left behind an anti-Semitic manifesto in which he also confessed to “scorch[ing] a mosque in Escondido with gasoline a week after [New Zealand Mosque shooter] Brenton Tarrant’s sacrifice and they never found shit on me.” [EDIT: See below for updates.]
Several days ago, in an unrelated incident, an Iraq war veteran on his way to a Bible study group drove into a crowd of pedestrians in Sunnyvale, California — apparently because he believed some in the crowd were Muslims. According to eyewitnesses, the driver showed no remorse, getting out of his car and praising Jesus several times before he was arrested. He’s been charged with eight counts of attempted murder.
Here’s an open thread to discuss these cases and the rise of hate and hate crimes in the US and around the world.
EDITED TO ADD: Looks like the manifesto is indeed his.
EDITED TO ADD 2: Heavy.com has a profile of the shooter with extensive excerpts from the manifesto that make clear he was radicalized online, specifically mentioning 8chan and 4chan’s /pol/ board. He says he was inspired by the Tree of Life shooter and spurred to action by the Christchurch mosque shooter. I’m reading the manifesto and may write more about it.
EDITED TO ADD 3:
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Fuck these people.
With very painful objects.
Repeatedly.
And maybe with votes.
I thought I was tired when I woke up this morning, but now I’m exhausted beyond words.
The goyim need to clean up their shit.
Fuck. Again? I’ve been blissfully away from news and social media all day, so this is the first I’m hearing about it.
Personally, as a constituent of Ilhan Omar, I’d love to go to a speech or event of hers one of these days, but I have to consider the possibility of being shot or blown up first, thanks to Trump and his stochastic terrorism.
I’m so sick of this shit.
ETA: I’m reading Death of Democracy: Hitler’s Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic by Benjamin Carter Hett right now and the parallels to today in the US and many other jeopardized Democracies is terrifying.
I’ve been talking about this over on my blog as well.
I was in a gun store buying a gun for our RV, we like to stay overnight in pull outs and rest areas occasionally. I jokingly said that “even liberals are buying guns now.” The salesman seriously replied “they better buy a lot of them” This was an epiphany for me, as liberals, we need to consider this.
This is so awful and heart breaking. I’m sickened by the scope and increasing frequency of these violent and fatal terrorist attacks against Jewish people and Muslims.
This is very scary. Contrary to conventional wisdom among most liberals, that racism and bigotry will soon die out when all the old people die, it’s obvious that young men have been radicalised in frightening numbers. I have been aware of this, as a reader of this blog since 2013, but I fear that still too many people think that the younger generations will save us., and ignore this problem to our collective peril.
I mean, this guy, minassian, bissonette, rodgers, the Christchurch terrorist… all very young men. They’re only the tip of the iceberg.
So god damn tired of this shit as a Californian.
@ Crip Dyke:
I’m not even Jewish, and that image almost made me clap my hand over my mouth in shock and grief.
@Moon Custafer:
Yeah, that was pretty much what happened when I first saw the pictures as well.
Vote. Vota against them. March. If we let them scare us they have won.
It’s the last day of Pesach and the 6 month anniversary of the Tree of Life shooting. And this will vanish out of the news cycle in a day or two, because who cares about some dead Jews and a rabbi missing fingers and a community forever changed? Nobody. The same way nobody cares about students terrorised in their own schools and Muslims terrorised in their own mosques. It all just passes into the wind like so much dust.
I’m heartsick. Again. Always, it feels like.
@Christopher Crosby
I understand the sentiment, I really do, but I’m not sure that’s a solution. That’s what they want. They want a civil war.
More guns won’t keep us safer. I wouldn’t criticize an individual for getting one for self-defense (or farm defense, wilderness safety, etc etc). But most of us, en masse?
A lot of right-wingers want liberals and lefties to have guns so that we pose a legitimate threat to their lives. A lot of right-wingers’ fears are all in their heads. But a bunch of libs with guns? Well then, that means Insecure Republican Dude might actually get to live out his fantasy of being A Good Guy With a Gun™, and he’ll jump at the chance.
@ Mels
Something I think people who make this argument really, really need to understand is that it doesn’t matter one bit whether we’re armed to the teeth, or we stand around naked and guileless singing songs of peace- the people who do what this shooter did will claim we’re an existential threat no matter what we do, and do their damnedest to exterminate us. What these right-wingers want is for the “other” to die, and they’ll make up whatever excuses they need to make that happen.
Let me put it another way- the argument I just quoted essentially boils down to “well, they must have done something to provoke them.” Please don’t make that argument.
I don’t necessarily counsel anyone to arm themselves, but I will say this: Do not ask yourself what you can do to make it so that these Nazi fucks don’t consider you a threat. The only answer is “lie down and die.”
I just finished up a paper for my research methods class a few days ago about why we need to do more research on domestic terrorism, especially the far-right variety. I’m starting to think I should just mail copies of it to Congress and the FBI myself.
Two issues.
About extremism:
Anti-semitism isn’t due to right-wing extremism. It is due to *extremism*, period. On the far extremes you get “death to the Jews” neo-nazis – and Farrakhan supporters.
On the slightly less extreme side you get “anti-zionists” (wink, nod) like, say, Pat Buchanan – and Ilhan Omar. (It’s not the jews who control the world, it’s the zionists who control the USA! Antisemitic? Moi?!) Funny how extremists on both sides disagree about everything EXCEPT that it is all the fault of the Jews.
About guns:
As an Israeli the whole American fascination with guns puzzles me. Israelis, even by American standards, are armed to the teeth, due to the draft – it is extremely common to go on a bus and have, say, five soldiers with fully automatic weapons, and occassionally heavier ones.
Yet shootings like this are, so far at least, rare – as is civilian gun ownership. If a civilian owns a gun in Israel, which requires a permit, regular training, etc., it is almost certain he goes through the hassles because has a real reason – a truck or taxi driver working nights, say.
Americans seem to *love* guns. Israelis do not, they see them as a sad necessity. I just don’t get it.
P. S.
The whole AK-15 issue is a puzzle to us, too – it’s just a stripped-down M-16, without the full-auto function – a toy gun by Israeli standards. Besides, every soldier knows you virtually NEVER use automatic fire if you want to hit something, even in actual battle, so the whole “fully automatic” bruhaha is a moot point, raised by those who get their idea of automatic weapons from movies or video games.
So I’m sorry if I keep bringing this up again, but it’s been eating away in my head pretty badly the last few days and I don’t know where else to turn, and I’ve just felt real bad lately. I’ve already been ranting about the insane misogyny and antisemitism I saw in the new Das Boot TV series here and here, and I know people here suggested that I’d leave a review on IMDb.
Well, I did, but it got declined, the only reason given was for “violating community guidelines” (but all user reviews railing against SJWs and making homophobic comments got put up) so I tried writing a new review that was less specific in things that could be spoilers and tried removing any too harsh words, but that review is still pending even days after I posted it.
But even more disturbingly, all my attempts to add the fact that the show contained brutal rape scenes in the parents guide have either been declined or stuck on hold. The parents guide was empty when I signed up on IMDB, so I wanted to fill it in to give others a chance for a heads up that I didn’t get, but the insane thing is that everything else I added there got let through, just not the comments about rape. So I was able to add an entry saying that “there are several sex scenes” and almost immediately have it added for all to see, but I couldn’t add an entry saying “there are several brutal rape scenes” and I’ve no idea why.
I feel like I’m being gaslighted or losing my mind, like I was the only one seeing that the series depicted rape on screen, showed a guy raping a sex slave and the writers glossing it over, and everyone else just saw a perfectly normal TV-drama with no rape or misogyni at all. I just feel enfeebled and abandoned, and I don’t know what to do or what’s going on anymore.
I’m sorry that I keep ranting about this, I just don’t know what else to do.
@Christopher Crosby : and that will allow what exactly ? Don’t buy weapons until you have a goal for them, who isn’t a vague “being armed”.
Remember that being armed don’t help against shooters. It don’t help either if the governement turn against you without a mass scale revolt. So the only real reason is either the aforementioned mass scale revolt, or tipping the opinion, and as far as I can tell, you might help them by shooting at them currently.
Your money and energy probably can be better spent elsewhere.
As for that tragedy, I am past the point where the shooting itself horrify me. At least, the political recuperation do sicken me, but mass shooting in the USA now is among “winter flu” and “road accident” among the useless wastes of life that just happen.
@Christopher Crosby
I live in the UK. We have also a far right problem, but it is not a far right with guns problem because nobody bar the government has guns.
The problem is the current US leadership is encouraging, rather than taking action against, these a-holes. The US government has unmanned attack drones, jet aircraft, tanks and nukes. Recapture the government and your little pistol won’t be needed; if it keeps going the way it is your little pistol is going to be of absolutely no help whatsoever.
In the meantime you have taken an extremely dangerous object into your home, have placed a weapon in the hands of your future self (or family) who may not in the future be as stable, sensible or responsible as you are now, and, more subtilty, are moving your focus away from the essential task of draining the swamp of prejudice and paranoia that lets these things fester and grow and towards an entirely illusionary sense of security from perceived personal self defence.
(That at least is my take on it.)
@WWTH – I’m currently listening to Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich, which isn’t quite as focused on democratic institutions as I’m guessing what you’re reading is, but yeah…
Rather worrying.
@rugbyyogi, WWTH:
I read Rise and Fall awhile ago, and yeah… this is effing terrifying.
What’s scariest in Death of Democracy is how similar the establishment attitude towards the Nazis/Hitler was. The centrists hung back and depended on institutions and the constitution to protect the rule of Democratic law while the traditional right wing politicians decided to try and use Hitler and the rise of extreme nationalism to consolidate their own power, again counting on institutions to keep him in check. The establishment didn’t stop the Nazis while they still could because they didn’t think they needed to.
Sound familiar?
Scanisarus,
Is it really necessary to try and turn every thread into a discussion of Das Boot? Can we please move on now? It’s been multiple threads.
@WWTH: have you read “World of Yesterday” by Stefan Zweig? The establishment response to Hitler is a major focus of the book, from what I remember.
I’ll definitely check out Death of Democracy when I can afford it. It sounds really interesting.
Personally I think books like Rise and Fall should be required reading in high school.
Seconded. We’ve heard about it at length and this is not an amen corner.
@weirwoodtreehugger: chief manatee
I understand, and I’m sorry if you feel I’ve been pestering you by ranting about the same thing over and over again. I wish I could move on myself, but after all the trouble I went trough to make an IMDb account to post a review, I’m not allowed to put it up, and even worse, for some inexplicable reason I’m not allowed to add an entry in the parents guide about the fact that there is rape scenes in the show (but any other topic I added to the guide got put up). I just wanted one good thing to have come of watching that misogynistic crap, even if it’d just be a small content warning on IMDb so maybe someone somewhere could get the heads up I didn’t get and hopefully benefit from knowing that.
Now that I’ve suffered a lot from anxiety and depression, I used to think it was great to be able to look up that kind of stuff ahead on the parents guide, but now I don’t know if I can rely on that seeing what happened to my attempt to add that topic, and all that, paired knowing all the user reviews railing against SJWs got let trough, it’s all just amplified all my stress and anxiety because I only wanted to do one small thing trying to improve something, but now I feel like I’m not even allowed to do that there, and I have no idea why I’m not allowed to, and so it keeps reminding me of the unfair double standard in next to all social media, where guys making rape jokes and disparaging women and minorities get a pass, while I feel like I’m being silenced or driven out by them wherever I go, and sometimes it feels like everything is just designed to make me feel powerless and remind me that none of my feelings matter and nothing I say should ever be allowed to matter, and the voices of angry people hating on “political correctness” will always matter more than mine and anything that upsets me and others like me is something I should just get over and accept and CW for rape and sexual abuse is just some pointless frivolity that shouldn’t need to be prioritized.
I know it’s just small potatoes to everything else going on in the world and it’s stupid of me to keep bringing that thing upsetting me, but I don’t know where else to turn or who to talk to about it. But if you think I’m unfairly derailing things for the rest of you all, let me know and I won’t bring that series up more here.