Friday Read: “Weaponizing” Angry White Men

Good Day!

I was waiting to write this until we got more information on the Charleston church shooting and shooter.

I feel like I spend a lot of time writing blog posts on angry–mostly young–white males with easy access to weapons who go on shooting sprees.  I very much related to the President yesterday when he stated that he had spent far too much time dealing with the aftermath of mass shootings which are extremely rare in all other developed countries.  We have a small group of powerful and wealthy men who forge their profits and might in the fire of white male anger and resentment. Far too often, they set the laws and agenda that encourage, enable, and let loose the hounds of hell.

I personally believe that when you have one political party and an entire “news”network fueling anger and resentment for the purposes of turning out the votes of angry, resentful white people that they should be held responsible for “weaponizing” these young men.  Much like shouting “fire” in a theater, right wing media continually feeds the demons in people like Dylann Roof. This should give us pause and compel us to action.  Reality TV shows also make celebrities of some very sick minds.  The Duck Patriarch comes to my mind.

Giving platforms to antisocial, violent, racist, misogynist, and homobigot lies and anger gives these folks the idea that they are some kind of warped heroes.  The Roof kid actually said he “had to do it” being fully convinced he was doing the country a favor.  But, it’s very easy for him to find TV News anchors, radio jocks, reality TV personalities, and social media sites that feed his illness and give him easy access to weapons of destruction.  These same folks worship guns and ensure that any whacko in the country has easy access. The combination is just sick and deadly in so many ways that I’m sure some one could write a book on it if one or a dozen hasn’t been written already.

The most disgusting thing is that the same groups of politicians and media personalities are trying hard to twist the latest shooting spree as an attack on churches and the latest right wing screed of “religious liberty”.  It was clearly an attack on black America and our American commitment to a diverse plurality.  Rick Santorum denounced the shooting as an attack on religious liberty.  Is he really that obtuse?

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Thursday called the tragic church shooting in Charleston, S.C. — which left nine people dead — a “crime of hate” and connected the event to a broader “assault on our religious liberty.”

“You just can’t think that things like this can happen in America. It’s obviously a crime of hate. Again, we don’t know the rationale, but what other rationale could there be? You’re sort of lost that somebody could walk into a Bible study in a church and indiscriminately kill people,” Santorum told radio host Joe Piscopo Thursday on AM 970, a New York radio station. “It’s something that, again, you think we’re beyond that in America and it’s sad to see.”

The former Pennsylvania senator pointed to what he described as anti-religious sentiment.

Lindsey Graham says that “the shooter may have been looking for christians to kill.”

But despite the fact that the Justice Department has labeled the attack a “hate crime,” Graham was not willing to go that far. “There are real people who are organized out there to kill people in religion and based on race, this guy’s just whacked out,” he said. “But it’s 2015. There are people out there looking for Christians to kill them.”

Jeb Bush is confused too.

As more becomes clear about the motives of the man believed to be behind the Charleston church shooting, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was hesitant to connect Dylann Storm Roof’s alleged actions to any racial prejudice.

When asked about whether he thought the attack was racially motivated, Bush told a Huffington Post reporter, “It was a horrific act and I don’t know what the background of it is, but it was an act of hatred.”

When pressed again about whether race motivated the attacks, Bush said, “I don’t know. Looks like to me it was, but we’ll find out all the information. It’s clear it was an act of raw hatred, for sure. Nine people lost their lives, and they were African-American. You can judge what it is.”

The question came after a speech Bush made at a Faith and Freedom Coalition summit in Washington.

“I don’t know what was on the mind or the heart of the man who committed these atrocious crimes,” Bush said in his remarks. “But I do know what was in the heart of the victims.”

How many of you actually believe Jeb can empathize with the victims?

Rich, privileged, white Republican men!  Not every fucking thing is about you and your delusion that you’re under attack! You’re part of the problem!  Your speech weaponizes these little white boys with dick issues who don’t have the where withal to access your level of privilege!  They get to believing that every one else must be taking it away from them! Then they go on “missions”.

This morning  we have learned more about mass murderer Dylann Roof and his racist inclinations.  Dylann was on a mission and was looking for ways to display a manifesto supportive of segregation and racial discord. We’ll undoubtedly hear more about how he choose his victims. Rev. Clementa Pinckney’s name undoubtedly came from the South Carolina Plantation owner and former Governor that signed the US Constitution–along with his cousin–for South Carolina.  He introduced the Fugitive Slave Act and was a well known foe of the clause that bans “religious tests”.  He was definitely one of the first angry, young white men in our country. (I’m also one of his descendants and not a very proud one tbh.) Clementa’s ironic last name and his strong showing of civil rights leadership undoubtedly were a red flag to this very disturbed young man with hate in his heart and a father that put a gun in his hands as a right of passage. The church’s historical mission was much more important to Roof than the religion practiced there.

So, we are learning more about Dylann Roof.  Early this morning, Roof confessed to the murders.

Dylann Roof, the man accused of gunning down nine parishioners at a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina, has been charged with nine counts of murder and illegal weapons possession, police said.

Roof confessed to the horrific killings at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston on Wednesday night, two sources confirmed to NBC News.

Roof, 21, has told police that he “almost didn’t go through with it because everyone was so nice to him,” sources told NBC News.

And yet he decided he had to “go through with his mission.”

Yes.  Roof characterized it as a “mission”.  We have only heard from an uncle who insists that Dylann was not raised to be a hero for Storm Front.  He’s even offering to press the button should Roof be given the Death Penalty.

The uncle of a 21-year-old man accused of opening fire inside a Charleston church — killing nine people — says he will “push the button myself” if his nephew receives the death penalty, which is legal in South Carolina.

Carson Cowles said he can’t forgive Dylann Roof, who was arrested Thursday after he allegedly opened fire on a Bible study group at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. He was taken into custody by authorities in Shelby, North Carolina, about 250 miles away, but has since been extradited to South Carolina.

“I’ll be the one to push the button. If he’s found guilty, I’ll be the one to push the button myself,” Cowles said. “If what I am hearing is true, he needs to pay for it.

I’m waiting to hear about the father who gave a gun to a son with a growing criminal record related to drug issues.

However, I’m not willing to put this little boy into the category of lone wolf and sick individual which is where most little white boys that become spree shooters wind up.  He can only be seen in context.  That context is the white anger and resentment sowed by right wing media and politicians at all levels.  I just pulled this out of the NYT from last February.  There are far too many of these racist fueled crimes to not wonder in what ways our society encourages and condones them.

Judge Carlton Reeves of United States District Court sentenced Deryl Paul Dedmon, 22, to 50 years; John Aaron Rice, 21, to 18 and a half years; and Dylan Wade Butler, 23, to seven years on the most serious count against them, commission of a hate crime. All three men are from Brandon. They were charged in the death of James Craig Anderson. Prosecutors said the men had harassed or assaulted black people who they thought were homeless or intoxicated. Victims were chosen because the men thought they would not tell the police, the authorities said. The harassment began in April 2011, culminating in the death of Mr. Anderson. Seven others are awaiting sentencing.

When young angry white men go off, they take black people, women, children, any combination of GLBT people, and bystanders with them.  I hate to completely project, but it always seems like it’s pathetic losers who think they’re entitled to the life and times of Donald Trump and they blame every one around them for their lackluster social and economic status. They frequently hook up with hate groups that eventually wind them up and turn them loose.  Extreme christian, right wing men are at the heart of many of the worst mass killings we’ve seen.

When white males of the far right carry out violent attacks, neocons and Republicans typically describe them as lone-wolf extremists rather than people who are part of terrorist networks or well-organized terrorist movements. Yet many of the terrorist attacks in the United States have been carried out by people who had long histories of networking with other terrorists. In fact, most of the terrorist activity occurring in the United States in recent years has not come from Muslims, but from a combination of radical Christianists, white supremacists and far-right militia groups.

I’m not the only one that thinks that Republican politicians and right wing media outlets weaponize these cretins. Yesterday, I pointed to Donald Trump’s horrible remarks about Mexicans as an example. Today, Hillary Clinton has done the same.

Hillary Clinton didn’t call The Donald out by name, but she suggested in an interview Thursday that comments like ones the real estate tycoon-turned-Republican presidential candidate made during his recent announcement speech could “trigger” events like this week’s church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina.

“We have to have a candid national conversation about race, and about discrimination, hatred, prejudice,” Clinton said of the Charleston shooting in an interview with Jon Ralston on his show “Ralston Live.”

“Public discourse is sometimes hotter and more negative than it should be, which can, in my opinion, trigger someone who is less than stable.”
Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate, did not say Trump’s name, but went on to explicitly mention remarks he made during his announcement speech on Tuesday, the day before a white gunman opened fire in a historically African-American church, killing nine people.

“I think we have to speak out against it,” Clinton explained. “Like, for example, a recent entry into the Republican presidential campaign said some very inflammatory things about Mexicans. Everybody should stand up and say that’s not acceptable.”

Trump did not respond to a request for comment by ABC News.

During his announcement speech Tuesday, Trump said “the U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems” and said people who immigrate here from other countries, like Mexico, are not the “right people.”

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us,” Trump said. “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

In actuality, we’ve had net negative immigration from Mexico for quite a few years. It’s truthfully less than zero.

I’ve written about this before. The last time was when the Sikh Temple massacre occurred or was it the man that went after Jewish children and people in Kansas City?  I have a really hard time remembering each time in 7 years of blogging that I’ve written about this.  Here’s one from 2012.  And a real big one from 2011.  Here’s one from BB from 2014.

We have a growing threat from Home Grown, White male, right wing terrorists.  The FBI has said this many times but always runs afoul of white male, right wing congressmen.

…right-wing extremists averaged 337 attacks per year in the decade after 9/11, causing a total of 254 fatalities, according to a study by Arie Perliger, a professor at the United States Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center. The toll has increased since the study was released in 2012.

Other data sets, using different definitions of political violence, tell comparable stories. The Global Terrorism Database maintained by the Start Center at the University of Maryland includes 65 attacks in the United States associated with right-wing ideologies and 24 by Muslim extremists since 9/11. The International Security Program at the New America Foundation identifies 39 fatalities from “non-jihadist” homegrown extremists and 26 fatalities from “jihadist” extremists.

I’m sure we’re going to be treated to many white male media figures explaining why this little boy had drug issues and was the poster child for (insert mental health issue here). It’s a hell of a lot easier when a hell realm being doesn’t look like you, isn’t it?

There will be no context that includes how many of the countries right wing political outlets found a way to press his many buttons or those of a long list of his predecessors.  Pay no attention to the confederate flag of treason flying over the state capitol of South Carolina.  Pay no attention to Donald Trump’s fatwa on Mexicans. Pay no attention to the number of Republican politicians that race bait and confuse “religious freedom” with gay bashing that become actual assault and battery in many, many places.  Pay no attention to all those messages that tell men that they own women and children so they can do with them whatever they will.

Meanwhile, we can just follow Huckabee’s suggestion that we all carry concealed weapons while waiting around for one of his followers to go after us.  Never mind the cognitive dissonance that should occur when a preacher suggests we should all carry concealed weapons to “prayer” meetings.

Yes, you’re at fault if you die by a shooter because you didn’t pack heat and take him out first. Or, if you dare suggest that not every one in American should have a gun or easy access to a gun.

NRA board member Charles Cotton blamed Clementa Pinckney, a victim of the shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, for his own death. He also blamed Pinckney, the pastor of Emanuel AME and a state senator, for the deaths of the other eight people killed.

As a state senator, Pinckney supported tougher gun regulations and opposed a bill that would have allowed people to carry concealed guns in churches. On TexasCHLForum.com, a message board, Cotton wrote that “Eight of his church members who might be alive if he had expressly allowed members to carry handguns in church are dead. Innocent people died because of his position on a political issue.”

So, I sit and think.   Several hundred years ago my ancestors and Clementa Pinckney’s ancestors lived a shared existence on very different terms. Our country was built on both promise and deeply shameful actions. Rev. Pinckney’s political legacy is in our hands now.  South Carolina Governor Charles Pinckney may have signed the Constitution, but it is South Carolina Senator Clementa Pinckney who has shown us its promise through his work.  I hope we can both honor and carry that promise into the future.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

P.S.  South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley:  Take that damned flag of treason and slavery down!!!