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On the literary transmission of terror: 1: mirroring Twitter-feeds

[ by Charles Cameron — IMO, these paired mass casualty shootings call for mass humility on both sides of the divide — let’s build a corpus callosum for the nation ]
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Let’s just do this with headlines, the El Paso shooter above, the Dayton shooter below:

The moral would appear to be: no matter what “side” you’re on, there may be some folk who take it to an extremist extreme. They may kill for ideas on “your side” — at least in contemporary American politics. I tend to the left, so Crusius is no surprise, but Connor Betts, WTF?

ANd you’ll tell me it’s the opposite way around for some of you — WTF are Crusius and others like him doing?

And BTW, DoubleQuote!

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Okay — Connor Betts:

The Dayton shooting was the 250th mass shooting “event” in the US this year, but its exact motivation is unclear at the time of this writing — the shooter, Connor Betts, who was wearing a bullet-proof vest, killed his sister among others, and had written a “hit list” of girls while at High School at one point — so school issues and family feud are among the possible explanations for his violence, which killed 9 in 26 seconds before he was taken down by police. He was far from a Breivik follower, however. His Twitter page revealed, as reported by Heavy:

Or quoting Heavy again —

[H]e described himself as “he/him / anime fan / metalhead / leftist / i’m going to hell and i’m not coming back.” He wrote on Twitter that he would happily vote for Democrat Elizabeth Warren, praised Satan, was upset about the 2016 presidential election results, and added, “I want socialism, and i’ll not wait for the idiots to finally come round to understanding.”

That’s pretty aggressively [is that the word?] left and male, eh?

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Sources:

  • Heavy, Patrick Crusius: Suspect’s Twitter Page Shows Trump Support
  • Heavy, Connor Betts: Twitter Posts on Being a Leftist, Guns
  • Readings:

  • Politico, What Both Sides Don’t Get About American Gun Culture
  • The Hill, Graham to offer bipartisan ‘red flag’ bill with Trump’s support [added]
  • 3 Responses to “On the literary transmission of terror: 1: mirroring Twitter-feeds”

    1. Charles Cameron Says:

      According to this CNN interview, courtesy UCLA’s Jean Rosenfeld, the Dayton killer had in High School a hit or chill list for boys and a rape list for girls. — and also had a girlfriend to whom he showed mass casualty videos.
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      T.hat’s just toi clarify (a) the lists and (b) that given the GF reference, he presumably wasn’t an incel.

    2. Charles Cameron Says:

      Continuing the cascade of terrorist incidents accompanied by online statements, the Guardian reports in Norway mosque attack suspect ‘inspired by Christchurch and El Paso shootings:

      The suspected gunman in an attack on a mosque in Norway on Saturday was inspired by recent white extremist attacks in New Zealand and the US, online posts suggest.
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      In messages posted on the day of the attack, Philip Manshaus, a 21-year-old man who has been named by local media as the main suspect, described himself as “chosen” by “Saint [Brenton] Tarrant”, the gunman who killed 51 people at mosques in New Zealand in March.
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      [ … ]
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      “My time is up, I was chosen by Saint Tarrant after all … We can’t let this continue, you gotta bump the race war threat in real life … it’s been fun,” one post reads.

    3. Charles Cameron Says:

      The Russians and Ukrainians Translating the Christchurch Shooter’s Manifesto

      In a testament to the increasingly transnational nature of violent far-right extremism and the global reach of far-right ideologies, Bellingcat found at least fifteen translations of the manifesto online. Whether French, German, Spanish, Croatian, Hungarian, Polish, Ukrainian or Russian, among others, the Christchurch shooter’s manifesto is available to read for hundreds of millions around the world who don’t speak English or would prefer to read the rambling screed in their native tongue.

      There’s lots more..


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