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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Yeah, my comment earlier was because it irritates me when one person tries to turn every thread into their pet topic or issue. Not about going off topic, which is a regular occurrence here and a good thing. But I don’t want to be the thread police either, if everyone else thinks I’m being unreasonable, that’s fine. I was just stating my own opinion.
@Cyborgette
I never said you said that, did I? That’s right, I didn’t. I said it as a general point, and I stand by it. If you really want to know, it was more said with Anonymous in mind. I did enjoy your measured response, though, two thumbs up.
@Rabid Rabbit
Thanks for the clarification! 🙂
@Crip Dyke
I always did think that cake quote might have been misinterpreted by the victors of that particular historical argument. Thanks also! 🙂 I believe the discussion was to be between Alan G and another community member that was not you (a defense lawyer, are you defense?), but admittedly I only really remembered it was UK vs US lawyer opinions on prison violence in their respective countries.
@Crip Dyke
Yeah, he gets lumped into ‘the left’ by nazie and such ilk on account of being a black activist, basically.
@Lurker LXVII
Ah sorry, my bad.
And yeah, this is not a great day for me being measured, TBH. Between the thread topic, community drama, and male “allies” doing gross stuff and getting away with it, I have been feeling pretty moody, not to say paranoid.
Cyborgette
Heyyyyyy, that was a great reply and you’re all good by me.
I tend to get knee-jerky about these things, as I spend an unhealthy amount of time on YouTube threads arguing with… well… the same idiots who try to troll here.
@Dalillama
Please see my post re that on the last page.
This is the last time I’m going try and prove my leftist credentials here.
Sorry in advance if you’re not aiming that at me personally. It is extremely difficult for me right now to tell what is personal vagueposting, and what is actually intended as general comments, because see above.
@Christopher Green
Thanks. I’m glad.
Now I’m going to take a break from this thread for a while, because I was already exhausted before this awful argument started.
@Cyborgette
Just a clarification for CD, no worries.
@Cyborgette
No worries then. 🙂 I’m sorry that you’re having a bad time, hope it gets less frustrating/awful.
I never know what to say in threads like these. Everything feels very hollow. I just want to express my support and my deepest condolences for the Jewish community and every community being targeted by terrorism.
@Lurker 67:
I went to law school, but I’m a law academic. I don’t take actual clients and don’t argue in court. This is because of disability stuff. It’s always possible that if I feel my health is good enough for me to predict my availability 6 months out I might decide the time is right to get licensed and start practicing, but I haven’t yet.
That’s also something to remember for future context: although I know a lot of law, there are practical aspects to the day-to-day practice that anyone whose argued a couple cases would know better than I. Fortunately for my vanity, around here we mostly talk about abstract, “what does the law say about X generally?” questions and not anything like, “What would be the best legal strategy for this specific real-life person engaged in this specific real-life case with these specific facts when opposing this specific motion?”
Courtroom strategy – and even things like contract drafting, which is often done with an eye toward what you would want your courtroom strategy to be if something went wrong – requires a different knowledge set in which I’m not really competent. Helping someone draft a contract I could probably do. It’s just abstract enough and much closer to where I feel most at home (statutory drafting and constitutional analysis). But I wouldn’t (and couldn’t) take money for it and wouldn’t be “expert” at all. Even doing something like that would require me to hit the books in a way that a competent contract lawyer would not, and thus it would take me more hours than would be fair to bill (even if it were ethical for me to bill any hours at all). Once you get to something like a barrister’s courtroom strategy, practical knowledge is incredibly important. You don’t get to have a recess every time you want to consult a book to decide whether or not you want to object to some witness’s testimony. That’s stuff you just have to know, and even abstract knowledge – like knowing the Daubert standard for expert testimony in Canada or the Brady disclosure requirements imposed on prosecutors in the US – doesn’t tell you whether this particular judge is irritable or not, or predisposed to permit expert testimony more often but also strike it retroactively more often, etc., etc., etc.
Short answer: no. I’m not a defense lawyer and I wouldn’t be competent to plan a defense. On the other hand, I’m perfectly competent to parse statutory language, which is more than good enough for most purposes here.
President Donald Trump extends his condolences
3:49 AM – 29 Apr 2019
I agree with Viscaria – always hard to know what to say, but important to say it.
My condolences, solidarity and love to the Jewish community, the community of that synagogue, the neighbourhood, and all the communities and individuals everywhere affected by this appalling terrifying crap.
Let us remember the courage of all those whose first thought was to protect others.
The shooter, in an online manifesto, calls Trump a “traitorous zionist”. This is also the view of the cartoonist who published an anti-Semitic cartoon a day before in the NYT, and of Rep. Ilhan Omar.
“Anti-zionist” “activism”, from the left or the right, is for all intents and purposes anti-Semitism. Whatever their many differences, they all agree the “zionists” (read: Jews) are evil.
@Anonymous
Again, since this already came up: if you cannot distinguish between “opposing the Israeli occupation and oppressive policies towards Palestinians” vs. “actually promoting hatred of Jews”, your take on this is worthless and harmful. This shit is actually nuanced, and requires actually thinking.
– Yes, antisemitism exists on the left and is a problem. That doesn’t make leftist thought inherently antisemitic in the same way as white supremacy.
– Antizionism does not have to be antisemitic (even if too much of it is in practice). Like seriously, there is nothing needfully antisemitic about opposing a nation-state’s brutally racist and expansionist policies (and if you think there is, there is something very wrong with your concept of Jewishness).
– “Zionism” in a modern leftist context is not invariably a euphemism for Jews, Stalin notwithstanding (and Stalinism is not popular on the left these days, look up the term “tankie” some time).
– Israel is not a stand-in for all Jews everywhere. I for one identify strongly as a Diaspora Jew, and despise the Israeli government just as I despise nation-states in general. My Jewishness is not tied to the soil of one country, and in fact I consider nationalism antithetical to it.
– Lastly, if you support Trump while bashing Ilhan Omar for her supposed antisemitism, I don’t even know what to tell you. Trump, who called a Jewish guy he didn’t like “sleepy eyes” and thinks that actual neo-Nazis are “fine people”. Trump, who tells Jewish citizens that Israel, not the US, is their country. Trump, who employed actual neo-Nazi Sebastian Gorka in his cabinet. Trump, who ran for President on an open platform of ethnic cleansing, and is even now separating toddlers from their parents in the name of “national security”.
You are a disgrace, as a human being and as a Jew, and you should be ashamed of yourself.
I’m waiting for Anonymous to condemn Steve King, Mo Brooks and all those Republican ads demonizing George Soros the way he condemns Omar. Something tells me we’ll be waiting a while.
>>>>>>>Again, since this already came up: if you cannot distinguish between “opposing the Israeli occupation and oppressive policies towards Palestinians” vs. “actually promoting hatred of Jews”
Oh, I most definitely can.
I suggest to you that showing Trump as a blind, skullcap-wearing Jew led by a Jewish dog (isn’t he supposed to be a Nazi? But never mind); claiming AIPAC controls the USA; or to claim Trump is a “traitorous zionist”, are all NOT “opposing Israeli policies”.
They are merely the old “the Jews control the world” trope, morphed into “the zionists / Israelies control the USA”. Their disingenuous claim that they are just “anti-zionists” is about as convincing as creationists claiming they just are prompting “intelligent design”. Or, probably a better analogy, as convincing as Holocaust deniers claiming they are just “revisionists”.
@anonymous
Just admit you like trump because hes a fucking bully and racist and YOU FUCKING LIKE IT. I guess as long as you think Trump isn’t anti-semitic (which he is) then everything that Trump does is infallible. And because some asshole publication posted some anti-semitic shit that makes Trump ok? Where the fuck is the logic in that?
You don’t respond to anybodys actual arguments that trump is not a good president, all your responses are “one time, a racist newspaper posted some anti-jewish stuff so everything trump does is a-ok!”
Right now, he is riling up the masses to have reproductive rights for half the population stripped. AND YOU ARE OK WITH THAT because somebody called him a some names.
I get it, those things don’t concern you. You don’t care about anybody except yourself – women, LGBT, POC, and especially those “non-sequitor” children being raped at the border be damned.
GO FUCK YOURSELF
my grammar and editing skills are horrible today – sorry everybody
Also, I noticed this stupid little nugget in a previous thread
Super passive-aggressive. I guess you’re doing all YOU can do to prevent Fascism? Right? What are you doing besides posting about what meanies people are saying about Trump? Where’s your fucking antifa cred mother fucker?
Poway is pretty much my back yard and the fact that this horrible thing happened there is not too surprising to me; it’s in* a very white and evangelical area. The response of the mayor is a hopeful bright spot, though.
But it’s still sickening to have it happen so close.
*It’s adjacent to the much more affluent town of Rancho Bernardo which is known to locals as a bastion of white supremacy.
@WWTH
You know, I wonder how much of that is true. The more the right wing descends into violence, the more they try to equate progressives to them, as if there was an actual terrorist Left wing movement in the US.
Liberals seem to suffer from a “fanatical centrism” that isolates them from any critical thinking whatsoever. Personally, I find that they are segmented and all about abolishing hierarchies, but only the ones that are personally disadvantageous to them. The rest of them? They are all too happy to preserve. What’s amusing is that these hierarchies are inter-sectional and even they cannot identify what should constitute centrism.
Maybe it’s not that they don’t think they need to stop Nazi because they think the Nazis will not come for them, once they are done the more vulnerable groups.
@Lurker LXVII, and everyone else responding to them
I’m sorry if the topics I’ve ranted about regarding their depiction in the DB show have been triggering to anyone here, I promise to use a content warning whenever I bring up that kind of stuff in the future. I’ve been too focused on venting my own anxiety and I didn’t realize it was causing anyone distress and I wish I’d known sooner. It’s been a problem irl for me too, people getting angry at me for bringing up the same things too many times and I never realize until they tell me.
I wish I could let it go myself, but I can stop bringing it up in this or new threads.
Lastly though, Rabid Rabbit mentioned two kinds of Open Threads but I’m still unsure on how to tell the difference between the two, any advice on this?
@Diego Duarte
It’s an apt summary of the famous poem by Martin Niemöller.
At Scanisaurus:
Here’s the announcement of THIS open thread:
I added the bolding, but see how it’s an open thread … for a purpose?
This is different from how some other threads are announced, like:
See how there’s no qualifiers?
There are also times when David will do something like:
All you really have to do is read the open thread announcement. If there’s no other info, it’s a fully open thread. If there’s extra info about having a specific purpose, then the topics aren’t limited but you should make sure that the topic serves the purpose named. If there’s extra info about certain topics being banned, just don’t talk about those topics, whatever your purpose.
But yeah, it’s just the announcement. And if you have any confusion, you can always ask for others’ help in interpreting what David said.
We all want you to get what you need. But as a community we have to think about everyone at once, which sometimes mean compromising.