I agree that we should not refer to Dylann Roof as mentally ill. Let’s call him “crazy as a loon unhinged freak of nature.”
Obviously the “crazy as a loon” bit in no way means he shouldn’t stand trial and go to jail as a mass murderer that he is.
Have you seen his photo? He even looks like a total degenerate.
Fox news called this incident ‘war on christians’. The governor of the state said ‘We don’t know what caused this.’
Here’s a white supremacist explicitly telling his victims why he’s doing this just before he shot them to death. But yeah, we’ll never know. Such a fucking mystery this is.
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“The governor of the state said ‘We don’t know what caused this.’”
The guy is a useless piece of garbage.
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Yes, how could anybody possibly guess. We are all sitting here, hugely mystified.
The guy is a useless piece of garbage
Nikki Haley’s existence as a female Republican non-white governor depends on bending over backwards not to call anything any white person does or says, racist. If she even implies mild criticism, she’s toast. She has to minimize and pretend bafflement. I tried linking to her biography in another thread.
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If this guy did what he’s being accused of then I want him to fry. I don’t care about his mental issues.
That said, as far as can be told this is not terrorism in any real meaning either though the debased US media cannot be bothered to keep basic meanings of words clear.
The pictures are very, very odd. I’m not sure if ‘degenerate’ is the word I’d use… (I’d drop a letter and move one)
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“The pictures are very, very odd. I’m not sure if ‘degenerate’ is the word I’d use… (I’d drop a letter and move one)”
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Of course it’s not terrorism. The guy was white!
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It definitely should be investigated further to see if there is an organization behind this. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was.
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Yes, there is. It’s called ‘The South’. That confederate flag waving proudly on top of the courthouse.
These things don’t happen in a vacuum.
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What does that have to do with it?
A single mentally unstable person who commits an unspeakable crime (even if they imagine a political motivation) is not a terrorist in any real sense.
If he’s part of a wider organization and acting on their behalf – yeah, terrorism.
If he’s roughly sane (a la Breivik) – yeah, terrorism.
No real evidence on either front yet. Though there is apparently evidence that he was or had been taking a drug associated with violent behavior.
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They need to keep investigating. The guy had photos with the Rhodesian flag. I wonder how he even knew about Rhodesia. I’m just not seeing this degree of cultural sophistication in his face.
I’m not saying he couldn’t have been a loner. But he also could be a part of something or a pawn of smarter people who chose to stay in the shadows.
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Cliffy boy getting his feelings hurt at Dylann Roof being called a terrorist. Cliffy boy has a sad.
http://gawker.com/heres-what-we-know-about-the-alleged-charleston-shooter-1712278933
“An officer who responded searched him and found Suboxone, a prescription drug used to treat opiate addiction and frequently sold in illegal street transactions. ”
White knight away, dude.
He Has a Criminal Record
He’s Openly Racist
He Told People He Was Planning a Massacre
He Owned a Gun
He Left Survivors So They Could “Tell Everyone What Happened”
He Was “Compliant” When Cops Found Him in North Carolina
Of course, the only fact that matters for Cliffy boy is that he took a pill. Everything else is irrelevant.
Poor, troubled Dylann. Hey, Cliffy boy, why don’t you start a gofundme page for him so that troubled child can work out his mental issues?
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Superficial question: the only word I can come up with (if you drop a letter and move one from “degenerate”) is “generated.” What’s the answer to this puzzle? It’s driving me nuts.
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That’s the word I was thinking of, but I’ve changed my mind after doing more reading (though the flags in the one picture don’t look like they’re part of it but he could have added them in himself).
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How does that make syntactic sense? You think he looks “generated?
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I meant the picture, it looked… off. But I’ve seen enough others that I think that was just a weird picture.
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Why is it so hard for you to believe a racist white guy killed 9 black people? I see people on the internet saying no it wasn’t motivated by racism because clearly the guy isn’t white, he looks ‘mixed’. Then you have the hardcore conspiracy types who’re saying this is some false flag operation clearly ordered by President Obummer to make white folks look bad.
I mean, what the fuck. ‘His photo looks shopped’ should NOT be your first reaction upon reading this news. Jesus.
And, yes, I know you’re capable of civil conversation. But when it comes to matters of race, you’re ‘off’. Maybe you try too hard to be a contrarian or something. Maybe it’s your lol libertarian beliefs. I don’t know what it is. Your language is civil but your thoughts are profane.
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“You lost the fucking war 150 years ago. ”
Oh, the war about state rights, you mean. Or the war of northern aggression.
lol at historical revisionism.
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I once witnessed a long debate among colleagues – college professors – whether the Civil War “was really about slavery.” It was a strange experience.
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The popular explanation was that it was only about slavery but history is never that near. It was certainly one issue (a very big and important one) and Southern Debt to the North was another.
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“You lost the fucking war 150 years ago. Just get over yourselves already.”
I once read that the Civil War is anomolous in US history in creating generationally transmitted antagonism that never goes away.
Just about every European country’s history is full of these (and as you go East and South the frequency increases) though they’re directed at other countries usually.
It stands out so much in the US because it’s the only case.
And it’s one-sided. I remember when my brother’s northern fiancee visited the first time and was freaked out by the confederate flags everywhere. She’d always thought of it as dead ancient history and I had sort of assumed it was alive in the memory of the north as well.
The first time I was in Spain I was struck by how vividly people talked about the Reconquista. they became much more animated and bothered at the Moors than they did when talking about Franco (dead less than 10 years at that point).
Similarly, I was reading on thread on unz.com about the Russian invasion of Ukraine (from a pro-Russian author) and the comments quickly degenerate into irrelevant and exhausting trivia about the Austro-Hungarian Empire or Kievan Rus’.
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The Kievan Rus obsession drives me nuts! Who cares what happened 1000 years ago if Putin needs to withdraw the troops either way?
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Just wanted to say that I really loved the linked article.
// If he’s part of a wider organization and acting on their behalf – yeah, terrorism.
If he’s roughly sane (a la Breivik) – yeah, terrorism.
What if he is sane, but acted alone, not with the goal to bring any change but purely to express the hatred inside? Is it terrorism?
I think, the hatred could’ve been towards (his) life in general, with adopting racist views being the first thing that jumped into his head (*) and the Black people being the easiest target. Still don’t know from reading the articles what was the cause of such huge desire to hate somebody.
(*) Because of prevalence of racism in society.
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“What if he is sane, but acted alone, not with the goal to bring any change but purely to express the hatred inside? Is it terrorism?”
Then he’s unspeakably evil. But not all evil is terrorism (bonus question: is all terrorism evil?)
The reading I’ve done over the morning makes this seem likely the most obvious scenario. He doesn’t seem like a joiner (what group would have him) and I’m thinking he acted alone out of the evil in his heart and any supposed aim is just rationalization for doing evil. He doesn’t seem to have been stable enough to have any kind of political goals.
Again, nothing excuses this and if he’s found guilty of this (as I assume he will be) then I want him to fry.
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I don’t think one has to be an official part of an organization in order to be a terrorist. I think terrorism has to be a) politically motivated and b) have civilian targets. From what little I know of this story, it seems that both these criteria were fulfilled.
This point goes beyond semantics. We are starting to see a pretty consistent pattern of violent, racially-motivated far right rhetoric– particularly since Obama took office. If we dismiss this as “craziness,” we stop ourselves from recognizing what could amount to a fairly severe domestic threat. We also need to start holding supposedly “mainstream” politicians accountable for deploying language of revolution and governmental overthrow.
Also coming on the heels of several cases of extreme police brutality against unarmed Black citizens, I would imagine that Black Americans are starting to feel quite terrorized right now– in the very real sense of the word. Sometimes terrorism can be judged by effects– not just deeds.
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Killer: ‘I want to start a race war’
Media: ‘Who can say why he did it.’
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What useless tripe this is. Nothing “defies explanation.” Especially when the killer himself provided an explanation.
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“I think terrorism has to be a) politically motivated and b) have civilian targets.”
By this definition Charles Manson was a terrorist.
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Terrorist, mass murderer – as long as he goes to jail and never comes out, it’s good with me.
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The odds are essentially 100% that he’ll get the death penalty in South Carolina.
And in that state, they may actually carry out the sentence before he’s old enough to collect Social Security.
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I’d much rather he just suffered in lockup for the next 60 years. But it’s for the citizens of the state to decide, of course.
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I’d prefer the chair (or whatever they use there). They don’t try to be understanding with rabid animals and try to cure them, they eliminate them for the good of all involved.
And if he goes to prison, chances are sooner or later some do-gooder would try to get him parole or he might even escape.
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I agree with Stringer on this, to a point. The “stars and bars” flag represents treason and should never be flown anywhere. However, not everyone who flies the symbol is racist. Most, maybe, but not everyone.
The US has a long history of bigotry stemming back to the Know Nothing party of the mid 1800s. The KKK wasn’t just a white supremacist organization, it was also anti-Catholic and anti-foreigner of any kind. (Yes, Clarissa, you would be a target of theirs.)
The Klan is still around, along with the American Nazi party, Skinheads, and various private militias equipped with both surplus and stolen Army weapons.
One factor that enables these people is economic. A quote attributed to Aristotle is that “Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.” Dickens wrote about the threat posed by “ignorance and want.” These groups collect people who are needy and feel they are somehow victims and lack hope — the kinds of people who are fodder for terrorist organizations elsewhere in the world.
Now, was this idiot shooter a member or supported by these organizations? Don’t know, but it seems unlikely. Had he heard their hate messages? Probably, and his parents and friends have to be suspect on that, although he could have found them on the internet easily.
The story has one bright spot. The person who caught the shooter was a white devout churchwoman who not only saw him and called the police, but then followed him in her car until the police arrived. She said that she couldn’t bear the thought that he might hurt someone else. Her role, and the tears she shed when interviewed, help to reframe this event.
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“I agree with Stringer on this, to a point. The “stars and bars” flag represents treason and should never be flown anywhere.”
How is it treason? The flag as it now appears had no official status in the Confederacy (though versions of it appeared as parts of larger flags).
Also, now that I think of it, it’s presence as something seen everywhere all the time dates more from the 1970s. I was young but I don’t recall seeing it as a motiff in the 60’s, more like starting in the early mid 1970s.
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Yes, large parts of the South adopted in the 1960s (and it only appeared here and there or as components of flags in the Civil War)… as a direct push back to the civil rights movement.
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Of course “lone nutcase” or else “member of a full fledged terrorist organization” are not the only options. It seems that various hate groups troll around the internet looking for “promising” young men (e.g., angry, marginal, delusions of grandeur & etc.) that they can goad into violence by assuring them that they will be considered heroes. Something like that could be going on with Roof.
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That is certainly a possibility.
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Yeah, I would like to know how Roof was ‘radicalized’.
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“It seems that various hate groups troll around the internet looking for “promising” young men (e.g., angry, marginal, delusions of grandeur & etc.) that they can goad into violence by assuring them that they will be considered heroes. Something like that could be going on with Roof.”
I guess I would consider that terrorism– just a less organized form.
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I know that the flag is complicated. There was a handbag that featured this flag in a local store, and I almost bought it for my niece because I actually didn’t know what it meant. My husband had to stop me and explain. The owner of the store is black, though, and so is most of the clientele. I didn’t ask the owner why it was there because I don’t feel like it’s my business to lecture black people on their relationship with the flag.
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Well my surprise for the week is some googling that shows that apparently some blacks don’t mind the flag at all and a few even display it. I don’t remember this at all.
It occurs to me that blacks taking apologists at their word that the flag is about regional pride and adopting it as well would be a far more effective strategy than banning it (by the time you ‘ban’ something you’ve admitted that you can’t think of anything else to do – that is you’re out of ideas, which is never a good thing to admit to).
As for other considerations why would you buy something that looks so much like the “Novorossija” flag? (the biggest difference being the lack of stars on the Putinoid thing)
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I was trying to purchase the handbag (here it is, by the way) long before Novorossiya was invented. And yes, I’m very curious about the eerie similarity between it and the confederate flag. Last week, a group of terrorists surrounded a black student from Africa in Donetsk and was tainting him, yelling “Hey, we caught ourselves an Obama.”
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Can we abandon the ‘abnormal psychology’ narrative now? Please?
http://gawker.com/report-dylann-roof-told-cops-he-almost-didn-t-go-throu-1712507964
Charleston shooting suspect Dylann Roof told police he “almost didn’t” kill nine people at Emanuel AME Church Wednesday night “because everyone was so nice” to him, according to a report in NBC News. Eventually, though, Roof decided he had to “go through with his mission.”
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He’s abnormal in the sense that it’s not normal to walk around murdering people. But he’s not abnormal in the sense of not being competent to stand trial or not being responsible for his actions.
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It’s entirely possible that the man
is :
A)mentally ill, legally insane and a terrorist;
B)mentally ill, legally sane and a terrorist;
C)sane in both senses and a terrorist.
If it makes you uncomfortable remember that one person’s terrorist act is another person’s hate crime is another person’s freedom fighter act.
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“…Bury the South together with this man,
Bury the bygone South.
Bury the minstrel with the honey-mouth,
Bury the broadsword virtues of the clan,
Bury the unmachined, the planters’ pride,
The courtesy and the bitter arrogance,
The pistol-hearted horsemen who could ride
Like jolly centaurs under the hot stars.
Bury the whip, bury the branding-bars,
Bury the unjust thing
That some tamed into mercy, being wise,
But could not starve the tiger from its eyes
Or make it feed where beasts of mercy feed.
Bury the fiddle-music and the dance,
The sick magnolias of the false romance
And the chivalry that went to seed
Before it’s ripening…”
Stephen Vincent Benet
John Brown’s Body
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Another crazy-ass response:
“”I don’t know what was on the mind or the heart of the man who committed these atrocious crimes,” Bush said in remarks at a Faith and Freedom Coalition summit in Washington. “But I do know what was in the heart of the victims.””
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jeb-bush-charleston-shooting-remarks
Oh, Lordy.
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\ I’d much rather he just suffered in lockup for the next 60 years.
Can you explain why you’re against death penalty, if there are other reasons except the danger of killing innocent people?
I also began thinking about forgiveness:
A woman, whose mother was killed, said she forgives Roof. I read this first at Israeli news site, and there some commented how it’s connected to Christianity and talked how American-Jewish mother, whose daughter was murdered by a serial killer, demanded his death in an interview (it was long ago, as I understood). The commentor thought American-Jewish mother had a more normal reaction. Others also commented that only murdered victims may forgive.
I don’t want to judge grieving people, but wanted to ask what is meant by forgiveness and whether there is great social pressure in American culture to say ‘I forgive’ because of Christianity, which doesn’t exist in Israel. If one says ‘I forgive,’ does it mean the person would be against death punishment? Ironically, the not-forgiving Israeli Jews kill less criminals and (arrested) terrorists than forgiving Christian Americans.
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From the Lord’s Prayer:
“Forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.”
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\ “Forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.”
OK, I understand Christianity stressing forgiving, but what is meant by forgiveness in practice?
“I forgive him, but still want him to be killed” sounds very weird to me. (That’s not what that relative said, but it seems to be a maintream American atttude. Is it all an empty rhetoric?)
Now I have an idea for a new post – “Forgiveness in American culture: rhetoric vs reality.”
Also, what about the difference between the trespasses of saying an unkind word vs. murder in cold blood?
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Against us, not against others.
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The forgiveness mantra is a self-soothing ritualistic thing. I wouldn’t connect it to any religion because I see the same thing in FSU as well, and there’s no religious tradition there.
In psychological terms, “I forgive” can be translated as “I take control of the situation and refuse to continue feeling helpless.” It’s a coping mechanism and we all use the coping mechanisms we can.
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I would use the term “dangerously wrong”. That spares me any argument that I am making an unqualified mental heath diagnosis.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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