Sure, they have some kind of point they think they're making, some political aim or some horrific trolling; maybe both.
But they don't have a "side" in the sense that you, me, Elizabeth Warren or Mitch McConnell have a side; their rantings never add up and they're not a real part of actual politics. The instant they chose to pick up a gun (or any other means) and start killing unsuspecting innocents, -- and on this scale, even a prison exercise yard full of violent felons are innocents -- they're nothing but killers.
It's not even terrorism. Terrorism has some organizational structure working towards some kind of at least theoretical victory condition -- the UK out of Northern Ireland, everyone on the planet under Sharia law, the violent overthrow of a government, cowing a supposed underclass -- that, when achieved, will end the terror (yeah, rarely gets there and when it does, the violence often just changes focus; nevertheless). The kind of mass shootings we've seen in the last few days, months and years doesn't have any kind of genuine end state; it's just striking out.
So when people immediately head off to Facebook and Twitter and whatever information experts pull from the killer's computer or scrawled notebooks with an eye towards finding out what the killer's political leanings were, what his party affiliation might have been-- It's futile. It's pointless. Normal politics in this country, no matter how wingnutty or moonbatty, doesn't involve shooting a bunch of fellow-citizens who are just going about their lives. (It also doesn't involve dressing up in all black, covering your face and breaking windows, either; but that's for another time.)
This isn't normal. Stop trying to jam it into normal partisan molds. That's not where it goes.
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
4 comments:
I've often wondered if this is a resurrection of the anarchist movement of a century ago.
" Stop trying to jam it into normal partisan molds. That's not where it goes."
Once again, "Exactly!" in way fewer words than I would have used.
Jamming these scum into political molds can end up being worse than futile.
Using recent examples from their screeds, suppose we "declare war on white supremacists" and put all our efforts into identifying and countering the threat of individuals that fit that mold. People being people (even/especially in bureaucracies) that means people that don't fit that mold (say, a Anti-Fa socialist type) gets ignored because he "doesn't fit the profile". (Ideologies are interchangeable as examples and irrelevant to the main point).
All kind of examples of that biting folks on the behind going back to forever. (the oldest in my personal memory was the PLO subcontracting an attack on the Tel Aviv airport to the Japanese Red Army in the 70's.)
Just another part of people trying to frame complex issues into simplified terms that allow simple/easy answers to make it all go away.
The instant official pronouncement of "domestic terrorism" applied to a lone nutjob prompts me to yell at the car radio. Doesn't seem to help.
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