UPDATE: Now there has been a second mass shooting in less than 24 hours, In Dayton Ohio, leaving nine dead. Shooter was wearing body armor.
Another mass shooter, this time in and around a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. Reliable information is hard to come by at this early stage but we know that the shooting suspect is in custody and that there have been 20 fatalities.
The shooter left behind a manifesto, posted shortly before the shooting on 8chan. He said he was inspired by the Christchurch shooter, and declared that his attack was “a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”
Post your thoughts and any reliable information you have in the thread below. No trolls.
UPDATE: Updated with # of fatalities and a few changes in wording about the manifesto allegedly written by the shooter.
UPDATE 2: Updated with news of the Dayton shooting and to make clear that the el paso manifesto has been definitively tied to the alleged shooter.
@Naglfar: People who know Pence have stated that he has been trying to go for the Presidency from day one – his disastrous term as Governor of Indiana was supposed to be a stepping stone towards that (the three most common paths to the presidency are VP, Senator, or Governor). Of course “God” wants him to be VP – because that means a shot at the real prize.
@Aleph
Fascism only works short term generally, and for all neo-Nazis’ talk of stability, it is inherently unstable. As a result, it might be possible to stop the fascists before they take full control.
We also have evidence that Trump’s policies have actually increased undocumented border crossings, the number of migrants crossing is at a record high.
In general, I follow what I call the Law of Means: most things aren’t quite as bad as the worst case scenario or as good as the best case scenario. I am getting very worried though, as I can see at least 5 worse and worse case scenarios, and the best case scenario is highly unlikely.
@Naglfar of course, I forget that fascism is essentially an utopian ideology and when you seek utopia you’re always doomed to fail, not without leaving a huge body count as history has shown though.
@Aleph
I get where you’re coming from, I really do. But every person who says this and means it is showing their privileged ass and following their self-interest. Again, I get it. But it would be just the latest iteration of White Flight. (And I know not everyone saying this is white, but then it’s class privilege or some other type.)
Only a very small subset of the people who will be (are being) harmed actually have the opportunity to vote with their feet like this. The most vulnerable and marginalized generally have no choice but to stay and take it/resist. I’d rather stay and do my best to shield others.
It is the white liberal’s devil’s bargain–save ourselves/put on our own oxygen masks, or voluntarily share the oppression of others in the hope of changing things but the real possibility of not actually helping make it better.
@solecism I know where you’re coming from, that was my exact reaction when celebrities said they’d leave after Trump came in as they’d be leaving the people they claim to stand up for to their fate. Thing is, me being of Mexican origin and the fact my (adoptive) hometown got attacked makes it a bit scarier, and if we’re to listen to what others have said here then it seems a fascist takeover is inevitable and no amount of voting will prevent that. Again if that’s the case why don’t we all run for our lives while we still can?
Otherwise, that was more of a sarcastic remark because I have no intention of doing so, I still believe in the power of voting and thank you for reminding me why, so my apologies if I sounded like a privileged ass.
@soleicism also, I know that was not your intention but the president and his supporters can tell me to go back precisely to help people affacted by violence (just like he did to the senators) and make “things better”, and it was the violence that many of us were trying to flee from in the first place.
@Aleph,
Thank you for replying kindly to my comment. Yeah, it’s easy for me in the comfort of my relatively unaffected city to point to the problem when people say stuff about fleeing to safety, and I’m sorry for singling you out when really I am reacting to too many people in my immediate orbit expressing such sentiments. I apologize for targeting you unfairly with accusations of comfortable privilege.
I am sorry that your options are to flee from white supremacy violence in El Paso by returning to violence in Mexico, or stay for white supremacy violence where you would be more of a target than I would. Neither situation is okay. And I am sorry that this is an immediate, visceral fear because of personal experience and not the more generalized existential dread so many of us have been feeling for so long.
I think my goal in staying is to be available for some form of a new underground railroad and other resistance efforts. I need some way to constructively channel this anger that is eating at me.
Amid all the arguments about mass shootings being related to mental illness, I saw someone sarcastically point out that women have slightly higher rates of mental illness than men, which is why we have so many female mass shooters.
Daytonian Mammother here. I wasn’t anywhere near the Oregon District Saturday night. The district is a huge success story and pulls in many from the surrounding suburbs. Most suburbanites frightened of the city (I lived in the city from 1990 – 1998- it was great) at least feel comfortable in the Oregon District. It was a lovely summer night and open air patios were the place to be. Not quite Bourbon Street, but our version anyway.
Because we are such a huge USAF and defense industry town, our population is more diverse racially and culturally than one might expect of Ohio. (Two big universities as well)
I don’t know how the culture will change- I do know that there are first hand accounts from AF members that will carry some weight with some of the folk thinking things are just fine in this country.
Sorry for the ramble- we are reeling here and processing. And making plans to head to the Oregon Distrct to support the neighborhood.
Thanks for the info, Laserqueen, and I hope you are recovering from your reeling and learning from your processing.
Thanks for checking in, Laserqueen. Best wishes to you and everyone else in Dayton recovering from this terrorism.
CW: A morbid meditation on terrible events of the past.
*sigh* When I heard about this on Sunday morning, as I was doing my usual gaming grind, I found that in my need to wrap my brain around this mindset, I was bringing up some PBS docs that I recalled watching many years ago. One was a Frontline doc about Kip Kinkel that aired around 2001, another was made by American Experience about the Oklahoma City bombing that was made a couple of years ago. I also watched a slightly-more sensational British doc on Columbine, which delved more into the history of Klebold and Harris.
I did this to try to put myself back in those days and try to glean any kind of insight that I could bring forward to today. I didn’t come away with as much as I’d like, but I definitely found echoes of Oklahoma City insofar as the “invasion” mentality that came with The Turner Diaries and Camp of the Saints. My memories of Oklahoma City were particularly vivid as my babysitter had the TV set to the 12 o’clock news at lunchtime and 1995 was all OJ all the time until April 19th when suddenly it was all Oklahoma City and Timothy McVeigh for a few weeks. People were shocked that it wasn’t some Middle Eastern terrorist like the Blind Sheikh that had bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, but a crew-cutted white guy who was “one of them.”
It’s kinda scary to think about it, but the Oklahoma City doc profiled how McVeigh traveled the US to find those that shared the militant anti-government mindset, particularly those in northern Idaho. He was actually passing out anti-government bumper stickers at Waco during the siege. Fast forward a quarter-century and not only do you have crowds that dwarf those that gathered at Waco showing up at places like Charlottesville, but the President is directly using the language of the white supremacist militias of the 90s, which was (and still is) all about invasion. McVeigh had to get in a car and drive thousands of miles across the United States to find that community and validation in 1993. 25 years later, it’s a mouse-click away and on the President’s very tongue.
*sigh* At least I got Taste of the Danforth to look forward to next weekend.
@Katamount,
Yeah, I remember. I was in Peace Corps at the time, and at first I didn’t understand what had happened. I caught part of a news headline in Spanish, or someone mentioned it to me, and I was dubious because nothing happens in Oklahoma City that would ever make international news. But then I was able to catch the evening news, plus the obligatory Newsweek subscription covered it pretty extensively. I remember being totally not shocked that it was a white guy who did it and that everyone first leapt to Muslims being the suspects.
But then, I am smiling at every reminder that we are in effect experiencing a Reconquista here in the USA, and I am appreciating it as a form of justice. It’s a hella lot more peaceful and nonviolent than the Reconquista that happened in Spain in terms of our Latinx “invaders” (spoiler: not really invaders) who just want to coexist and find a place to thrive. Even though I am not smiling at the violence and desperation back home that is driving this mass movement northward, and the role of our government and business interests in creating those conditions in people’s home countries.
Wake up.
Check twitter.
The fuck?
Wonder why the hell everyone is talking about 30-50 feral hogs.
Check twitter some more.
What is this emotion I’m feeling? Is it… joy?
It’s certainly been a… thing, seeing the glee with with the Internet has pounced on the hogs. Almost as if everyone was in dire need of some levity.
@Moggie
I noticed the thing about hogs. Can someone fill me in on what that was all about?
https://twitter.com/_Anunnery/status/1158576865453334528?s=19
Can someone please explain the feral hog business? How did it get started, and what’s happening?
@Naglfar
https://www.gq.com/story/hogblog
I quite enjoyed David’s tweet about the hogs.
https://twitter.com/DavidFutrelle/status/1158523214110310401?s=19
I would like this hog thing a lot more if it wasn’t a white nationalist dogwhistle. The hog thing is funny if you ignore that part, but rather irresponsible.
What? Are you telling me I’ve been milkshake hogged?
The NRA and some on the right will blame “violent video games” or pornography for shootings. I find this disgusting, as someone whose media of choice is games. I don’t prefer the extremely violent ones though, at most just Grand Theft Auto for its mechanics. And tell me, is Minecraft gonna get banned because you can kill people with weapons or fists in that game, even though the whole point of the game is to build and survive?
Also, those who will rattle on about abortion taking more lives than shootings need to shut up. Preventing abortions can’t guarantee someone can survive a shooting, for one. Any fucker can use a gun to kill people or injure them severely, while abortions can only be successfully performed by licensed medical professionals wherever it’s widely available, with it causing little to no pain at least for the mother I believe.
It’s not just the vidyagames which cause mass shootings. Republican Ohio state representative Candice Keller has a list:
Drag, kneeling and snowflakes also caused the fall of Rome probably.
@Moggie
It always infuriates me when Republicans try to pretend that the Democratic Party is the antisemitic one, when a large number of Republicans are openly antisemitic in a way no Democrats are, and Republicans openly embrace neo-Nazis. There’s a reason about 85% of American Jews voted Democratic in the midterms.
@Moggie
I always found the vidya games one particularly comical given just how primitive so much of the video games that teeth were gnashed about really were. In the Columbine doc I watched, it included a couple clips of DOOM levels that Eric Harris had programmed and posted online. DOOM was certainly more violent than, say, Myst, which was the other “killer app” for the CD-ROM, but it was still hilariously low-resolution blood.
The Star Trek reviewer SFDebris pointed out that in Star Trek: TNG‘s third episode (the racist one, sadly), Tasha Yar brings a guest onto the holodeck, has it create a martial arts sparring partner and proceeds to wail on the guy. The exchange goes something like this:
So even Star Trek in 1987 was totally cool with violent gaming. And yet conservatives were willing to blame a low-res computer game and Marilyn Manson for something that clearly had several far more relevant contributing factors (chief among them being easy access to firearms).