Funny and not so funny at the same time.

Last edited Sun Aug 12, 2012, 02:31 PM - Edit history (1)

From the LA Times: Sikh temple gunman Wade Page shot himself in head, police say

“We still have not identified anyone else in this shooting except him. We also have not identified a motive,” said Teresa Carlson, FBI special agent in charge of the Milwaukee division, during the briefing at FBI offices.

The FBI interviewed Page’s former girlfriend, Misty Cook, at her South Milwaukee home Sunday, and “she was cooperative,” Carlson said. Agents spotted a firearm at the home and arrested Cook on suspicion of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Carlson said investigators have conducted more than a hundred interviews nationwide in connection with the shooting, including some with family and associates of Page. She said they have issued 180 federal grand jury subpoenas and were pursuing more than a hundred leads worldwide.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-sikh-temple-gunman-20120808,0,6354736,full.story

I think that it is encouraging that the FBI has issued those grand jury subpoenas, no doubt to those Page was known to communicate who encouraged his views, and that they are following up so many leads worldwide. People like him and Brevik do have global connections. Brevik was supported by some of the radical right wing here after his politically motivated murders in Norway, as doing what needed to be done to stop immigration. Liberals were his focus, as they are here among domestic terrorists.

These groups are so large and well-connected politically, even if not officially, that yes, the government is afraid of going after them. They are in the military or are ex-military, and brandish their knowledge of weaponry and tactics to intimidate others. When they say they want to kill Obama, in a nation with a hisotry of political assassinations against liberals, why pretend that it is something else?

They and their media get more militant and violent when the government tries to treat them as what they are behaving as, and have always been, domestic terrorists. I'm talking about neo-Nazis, KKK and militias and various hate groups. This isn't about the RK & BA, either.

It's about people who intimidate through seemlingly random acts of violence in order to shut up progressives and liberals, anyone that doesn't look or talk like them, whoever they've been taught to hate. They've been given a pass for years, as part of the majority, so they are 'normal.' What passed for normal in this country, with seemingly no argument by that same majority, was the open endorsement of the KKK by government officials in many states beyond the South. They were part of the police force, corportions, church and every other institution.

This was not in keeping with what America is supposed to be working toward, never fully realized, yet we are required to be going in the direction of full equality for all persons, no matter who that person is. This goes hand in hand with the respect for all living things which leads to environmentalism. There is a reason it went publicly unchallenged for decades. The reason was the pervasive public demagoguery and private acts of terrorism, to keep those they wanted to use, abuse, or simply disappear, silent. A silence paid for by the work, land and lives of broken communities and people.

It was the minority of people who spoke up against them or enacted laws that the groups felt was going to curtail their power in society who were killed for it, including some of the best known leaders in the last century. Since the media always backs the voices of repression, it's hard to change the language on this, but we're going to have to do so, or face another civil war, but it won't be a regional conflict.

What struck me was the difference in handling between Hassan or the underwear bomber (or the DC shooter), the Colorado shootings a few weeks ago, and the Sikh temple shooting.

The Colorado shootings were neutral. You could think what you want, but the reporting I heard didn't assert or deny terrorist activity. It didn't assert or deny collaborators or a wider conspiracy. It just said, "Here's what we know." The perp was white. The targets were random with respect to any of the categories that journalists use to define the world.

With Hassan and some others, there was the open quasi-denial: "We have no firm evidence that there is a connection to other groups. Any speculation as to motive is premature." This might go on for days. To immediately label Hassan a "terrorist" acting in collusion with others or tied to some other attribute he had was beyond the pale. The FBI and DOJ were forced into it. Same for the underwear bomber. Others jumped to assumptions, and it was just a coincidence that they turned out to be right.

With the Sikh temple gunwielding dolt from the get-go it was terrorism, no question. "Some evidence suggested" that he had a partner or collaborator and was connected with white supremacist groups. It was just a question of getting solid evidence, the assumption we jumped to in the first 20 minutes had to be valid. White people shoot masses of religiously-homogeneous uniformly brown people for no other reason.

(3) is funny. Those investigating the possibility of Muslim terrorism have been in the news off and on. They're usually strenuously objected to. However, those objecting aren't in positions to derail them, by and large. That's the relevant distinction. It's best to separate out "desire to suppress reports" with "having the power to suppress reports." It's what lets blatant racists off the hook--they don't have power to oppress (many) others in any (meaningful) way, so how can they be racist? Then they get power, they're the same pigs they were when they had no power, and suddenly they can possibly be viewed as racist.

And so it goes. We each have our own confirmation bias, so we each have our own set of facts.