Pittsburgh Massacre
A Conservative Jewish synagogue is attacked because of some tortured connection with the migrant “invaders” (who are 1000 miles away from our border and are tired and dwindling). Lump screams about the invaders and his minions attack. Words have consequences.
This man was not a Trump supporter. He did not vote for Trump, and he lamented on social media that Trump is surrounded by Jews. However, I agree that Trump’s (and Pence’s) insinuations that terrorists are among the Central American migrants heading for the US border probably influenced this man’s muddled mind. He connected this fear with the fact that a Jewish group HIAS is helping refugees, and he invented some sort of imperative in his mind to kill Jews.
Basically, crazy people do crazy things. John Kennedy was assassinated, even though he had high approval ratings and was a positive speaker. A definitive motive has never been found for LH Oswald’s deed, though he overall held antagonism against the US. Ronald Reagan was shot by a man who thought this would impress Jodie Foster.
This said, I do feel that our country desperately needs a leader who can tamp down the flames at this point, rather than continually fanning them.
Support for Trump is not about what a candidate has actually done. It’s about how loudly and recklessly he’s willing to break things. Support for Trump is a protest vote, but not a rationally considered protest vote in favor of a specific cause. It’s an expression of general, unfocused rage. Trump supporters just want someone who’s willing to turn over the tables and call people names and burn the place down. And that’s why the more unpleasant Trump is—the more he insults lady reporters and boasts about how rich he is, the more he thumps his chest about how sexy he is and calls everybody else a loser—the more they love him.
The result is a disturbing kind of cult of personality.
http://thefederalist.com/2015/08/11/donald-trumps-paradoxical-cult-of-personality/
It’s all about Trump’s ability to manipulate people with anger and fear.
Mainly fear.
I was wrong to call him a Lump minion. But Lump has made the haggard poor trekking northward an invading force, like the Mogol horde. So anyone who helps them becomes the enemy. We should destroy the Statue of Liberty if this is our position.
The optics are going to be terrible when the migrants reach the border. One of my relatives posted on Facebook that he supports Trump sending in the military to “intercept the caravan and close the southern border.” Sad!
The optics are going to be terrible when the migrants reach the border. One of my relatives posted on Facebook that he supports Trump sending in the military to “intercept the caravan and close the southern border.” Sad!
Right now it’s a few thousand poor Hondurans. Some are turning back. They could start their own city in West Texas and nobody would even notice them. Almost no white person wants the jobs they would be able to do - like shoveling asphalt or cleaning toilets. And this has become such an issue that somebody shoots up a synogogue. In Pittsburgh? WTF!!!!????
Technology has brought everything in the world into our personal spaces. Images are played out right before their eyes, right in their hands. This creates lots of anxiety for people who focus on the negative feed. Some who have compromised ability to handle their emotions are at risk to go overboard.
I think back on all the inappropriate things Trump has said to stir his base. Remember Warren, Michigan (Feb 2016), “Get him out,” he said of a protester. “Try not to hurt him. If you do, I’ll defend you in court. Don’t worry about it.” And more recently in Montana, “Any guy that can do a body slam, he is my type!” Trump said (Oct 2018) to cheers.
This kind of talked definitely is a factor in the violent climate today. Trump is reprehensible.
I just learned a phrase which is an apt description for Trump’s words: plausible deniability. He speaks to rile his supporters, while maintaining he doesn’t mean what we know his words mean.
Yes, words have consequences. And leaders have a particular power and responsibility that should not be minimized. They can bring out the best, or they can empower the worst.
In addition to the issue of guns in the hands of dangerous people, a common denominator in many of these fanatical acts of violence is the use of social media, where hate is voiced and spread.
Questions, with no easy answers, that come to my mind include:
— One can’t stand on a street corner, shout racist slurs and threaten violence without consequences. Why should this be permitted on the internet?
— Freedom of speech means that one is not arrested for making (non-threatening) racial slurs, but does that mean that they should be provided a platform? If not actually illegal, can the public put pressure on these sites or drown them out in some way? Love and reason fighting hate and madness?
— If one hears a neighbour state that they intend to commit a violent act, there is an obligation to inform police. Should not a social media site carry the same responsibility?
— Could law enforcement better monitor social media sites to thwart acts of violence? For example, if someone threatens violence, could their weapons be confiscated?
social media,
Our political discourse is now occurring on a platform designed for mass data-mining and advertising.
where hate is voiced and spread.
Because the social media platforms monetize traffic and don’t much care about content.
It’s the underlying culture that drives the social constructs within the media platforms - and that is all us culture: puritanism, gun-loving, neighbor-hating, ‘othering’ fishbowls of seething prejudice. Pick a flavour, and you can find a group of people percolating in their own self reinforcing anger.
— Freedom of speech
There’s a big difference between the First Amendment and the Free Speech absolutism that demands speech without consequence (or abjures responsibility while excising free speech) while also demanding a soap-box anywhere there’s a crowd. One protects the speaker from governmental over-reach, the other demands that the worst of the worst have equal air-time with the best-of-the-best, and that false equivalency should not live up to careful scrutiny. Not every position is equal, and not every speaker should stand shoulder to shoulder in the public eye.
***However it’s up to a discerning public to recognize that and make the choice not to listen to the shitty groups - and that expectation itself is a stretch in some circles.
social media,
Our political discourse is now occurring on a platform designed for mass data-mining and advertising.
where hate is voiced and spread.
Because the social media platforms monetize traffic and don’t much care about content.
It’s the underlying culture that drives the social constructs within the media platforms - and that is all us culture: puritanism, gun-loving, neighbor-hating, ‘othering’ fishbowls of seething prejudice. Pick a flavour, and you can find a group of people percolating in their own self reinforcing anger.— Freedom of speech
There’s a big difference between the First Amendment and the Free Speech absolutism that demands speech without consequence (or abjures responsibility while excising free speech) while also demanding a soap-box anywhere there’s a crowd. One protects the speaker from governmental over-reach, the other demands that the worst of the worst have equal air-time with the best-of-the-best, and that false equivalency should not live up to careful scrutiny. Not every position is equal, and not every speaker should stand shoulder to shoulder in the public eye.
***However it’s up to a discerning public to recognize that and make the choice not to listen to the shitty groups - and that expectation itself is a stretch in some circles.
Yes, this is the situation and the problems we face. We can be discerning and make choices not to listen, but that does not make us safe from the lunatic who feeds his/her hate and incites others. I don’t know what the answer is and have only questions, but it seems that there must be something that can be done rather than for us all to just accept that this is how things are now.
There is something that can be done, and it’s time is coming up very quickly — it’s the midterm elections.
If the Democrats don’t get back the congress, then this swing toward right-wing, semi-fascism will continue unabated. Trump will be even more emboldened to continue with his hateful rhetoric and authoritarian stance. He will see it as vindication and justification for his ham-fisted ways. His violent, murderous, unhinged followers, like the ones we’ve seen this week, will crawl out of the woodwork.
It’s make or break time here in America, and it’s frightening.
There is something that can be done, and it’s time is coming up very quickly — it’s the midterm elections.
If the Democrats don’t get back the congress, then this swing toward right-wing, semi-fascism will continue unabated. Trump will be even more emboldened to continue with his hateful rhetoric and authoritarian stance. He will see it as vindication and justification for his ham-fisted ways. His violent, murderous, unhinged followers, like the ones we’ve seen this week, will crawl out of the woodwork.
It’s make or break time here in America, and it’s frightening.
We should encourage everyone to vote.
And vote intelligently and strategically.
There is something that can be done, and it’s time is coming up very quickly — it’s the midterm elections.
If the Democrats don’t get back the congress, then this swing toward right-wing, semi-fascism will continue unabated. Trump will be even more emboldened to continue with his hateful rhetoric and authoritarian stance. He will see it as vindication and justification for his ham-fisted ways. His violent, murderous, unhinged followers, like the ones we’ve seen this week, will crawl out of the woodwork.
It’s make or break time here in America, and it’s frightening.
We should encourage everyone to vote.
And vote intelligently and strategically.
Amen.
There is something that can be done, and it’s time is coming up very quickly — it’s the midterm elections.
If the Democrats don’t get back the congress, then this swing toward right-wing, semi-fascism will continue unabated. Trump will be even more emboldened to continue with his hateful rhetoric and authoritarian stance. He will see it as vindication and justification for his ham-fisted ways. His violent, murderous, unhinged followers, like the ones we’ve seen this week, will crawl out of the woodwork.
It’s make or break time here in America, and it’s frightening.
Just want to repeat that the Pittsburgh murderer was not exactly a follower of Trump. He did not vote for Trump and criticized him for being cozy with Jews. But he did buy into his fear of immigrants. As anxiety builds in general, more crazies may be triggered, of whatever political stripe or mix of views.
Just want to repeat that the Pittsburgh murderer was not exactly a follower of Trump. He did not vote for Trump and criticized him for being cozy with Jews. But he did buy into his fear of immigrants. As anxiety builds in general, more crazies may be triggered, of whatever political stripe or mix of views.
This is from an opinion piece in the Washington Post by Julia Ioffe:
The president did not tell a deranged man to send pipe bombs to the people he regularly lambastes on Twitter and lampoons in his rallies, so he’s not at fault. Trump didn’t cause another deranged man to tweet that the caravan of refugees moving toward America’s southern border (the one Trump has complained about endlessly) is paid for by the Jews before he shot up a synagogue. Trump certainly never told him, “Go kill some Jews on a rainy Shabbat morning.”
But this definition of culpability is too narrow, too legalistic — and ultimately too dishonest. The pipe-bomb makers and synagogue shooters and racists who mowed a woman down in Charlottesville were never even looking for Trump’s explicit blessing, because they knew the president had allowed bigots like them to go about their business, secure in the knowledge that, like Nemtsov’s killers, they don’t really bother the president, at least not too much. His role is just to set the tone. Their role is to do the rest.
Trump sets the tone.
That tone is all about fear, anger and hate. When he has to backpedal and make some weak insincere statement of regret, no one is fooled by it. It’s obvious someone in his staff wrote it for him and he’s just parroting the lines. We all know where his true sentiments lie.