Writte by Caitlin Johnstone; Originally appeared at her blog
Two mass shootings have rocked the United States in less than 24 hours, leaving dozens dead and many more wounded. The first in El Paso, Texas was allegedly perpetrated by a white supremacist whose racist motives are outlined in a rambling “manifesto”, the second allegedly by a self-described “leftist” whose motives, like the 2017 Las Vegas shooter, are presently unknown. These incidents occurred a week after another mass shooting in Gilroy, California.
All the usual US gun control debates have of course reignited, which is understandable. Alongside this debate, however, we are seeing another, far more pernicious agenda being raised that I would like to address here.
Malcolm discusses the need for congress to pass domestic terrorism laws. @MalcolmNance #AMJoy pic.twitter.com/PWlH85IYF6
— La Femme Nikita (@LaF3mm3Nikita) August 4, 2019
In an interview with MSNBC’s Joy Reid, notorious liar and propagandistMalcolm Nance claimed that existing laws aren’t sufficient for prosecuting the El Paso shooter, because there are no laws designating his act of mass murder as “domestic terrorism”.
“I think that Congress needs to take up right away a series of domestic terrorism laws,” Nance said. “It’d be very simple: just match them to the words ‘international terrorism’, so that a member of al-Qaeda and a member of a white nationalist terrorist cell or a militia that thinks they’re going to carry out international acts of terrorism are equal all the way around. Right now there are no laws called ‘domestic terrorism law’. They can get you for firearms, they get you for hate crimes, but you are not treated as a terrorist. This act in El Paso was clearly by all definitions a terrorist attack in the United States, but of course by the nature of the person being white and American he can’t be treated like a member of ISIS or al-Qaeda. He can’t even be detained, he can only be treated as a murderer.”
(The accused, for the record, is in fact under arrest currently, and prosecutors say that they are treating it as a domestic terrorism case for which they are seeking the death penalty. This is in Texas; he’ll be dead before the next Fast & Furious movie. Nance’s notion that prosecutors’ hands are somehow tied here is silly.)
“But he’s a murderer with a political intent who is spreading an ideology,” Nance continued. “So Congress should take that up immediately. And let’s see if the White House won’t sign that legislation. That would be very revealing.”
In other words, shove the legislation through and call anyone who opposes it a Nazi lover.
Years of misguided alarmism over "Islamic terrorism" resulted in the erosion of civil liberties, militarization of police, and a host of other bad outcomes. Applying the same alarmist logic to "white nationalist terrorism" is likely to produce a host of similarly bad outcomes
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) August 4, 2019
Political commentary is flooded with the word “terrorism” today. People are demanding that the El Paso shooter in particular and white supremacists in general be labeled terrorists by the narrative-making commentariat, and you know what? I totally get it. The push since 9/11 to tar Muslims as “terrorists” has been extremely obnoxious and fueled by hate and bigotry, so it makes sense for progressive-minded people to push for the egalitarian usage of that term. But before doing so, please reflect on what lessons we learned from the post-9/11 “Islamic terrorism” scare.
“Years of misguided alarmism over ‘Islamic terrorism’ resulted in the erosion of civil liberties, militarization of police, and a host of other bad outcomes. Applying the same alarmist logic to ‘white nationalist terrorism’ is likely to produce a host of similarly bad outcomes,” tweeted independent journalist Michael Tracey in response to the chatter.
“I am telling you now that the government will use the violence that Trump himself has rallied as an excuse for more militarization, more surveillance, more violations of civil liberties — and a lot of people are going to welcome these things because they are afraid,” tweeted Truthout’s Kelly Hayes. “I’m not guessing or being creative here. This is about having a sense of history and a sense of how these systems function in the present. I would love to be wrong. I would celebrate being wrong. But I’m not.”
Indeed, it is an established fact that the US government will use the narrative about the need to fight terrorism to advance pre-existing agendas. The first draft of the massive USA Patriot Act was introduced a week after the 9/11 attacks, far too fast for anyone to have gathered the necessary information from all the relevant government bodies about what changes were necessary and typed out the hundreds of pages of the bill. Legislators later admitted that they didn’t even have time to read through the densely worded bill before passing it the next month, so to believe that it could have been written in a week would be childish.
High-altitude surveillance balloons have been deployed over America to "deter narcotic trafficking and homeland security threats” via "hi-tech radar". To be clear, this is not something they're considering or opening up for public debate. This has already happened. https://t.co/q7IKr5WMLN
— Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) August 3, 2019
In 2011 then-Congressman Ron Paul told Politico that “the Patriot Act was written many, many years before 9/11,” adding that the attacks simply provided “an opportunity for some people to do what they wanted to do.” Paul was serving in Congress when the Patriot Act was passed. The Act has since been used to erode human rights at home and abroad by destroying Fourth Amendment protections and legalizing Orwellian surveillance, and it’s safe to assume that the opaque and unaccountable government agencies who were greatly empowered by it had already wanted this to happen.
I have no easy answers for America’s mass shooting epidemic, and as an Australian I see the gun control debate as outside my sovereign territory. I will simply suggest, as I so often do, that if Americans really want to address the problem then the best place to start is to do the first ever honest and in-depth study on the effects of domestic propaganda on the American mind, particularly war propaganda. There are only so many times a certain type of mind can be told violence-glorifying lies before it snaps; if anyone researches mass shootings in the light of the constant psychological abuse that Americans suffer at the hands of their mass media, I guarantee they’ll find a connection. Americans are the most propagandized people on earth because of their proximity to the most strategically crucial part of the empire; it’s not a coincidence that they’re also by far the most prone to mass shootings.
One thing I can tell you won’t fix your problems, America, and that’s listening to the propagandists who want you to hand over even more control to a government that has already begun floating high-altitude surveillance balloons over your country without your permission.
Don’t let them bully you with fear.
To use a false historical analogy, in its latter days, from the 4th century onwards, the Roman Empire became ever more oppressive as well. The bureaucracy and army expanded and the emperors became even more absolute as every pretense of the old Roman Republic was ditched. Rome itself no longer mattered as the government moved elsewhere. Increasingly the state only served to maintain the army. If you were born a peasant that was what you were going to remain, were you born the son of a soldier, that was going to be your career as well. By the time the barbarians came and took over parts of the empire the locals actually welcomed their rule, as the barbarians held up the idea that Roman rule still existed, offered protection but with less oppressive taxes. And there are a lot of barbarians (figuratively of course) waiting at the borders of the US. And EU.
There ends the false historical analogy. False, for while things may look the same, when you examine it in detail you’ll notice the many differences. So I basically said nothing. ;-)
A few points I would like to make. As far as propaganda goes the MSM likes to blame everyone except themselves. They are the biggest purveyors of propaganda and hate yet they get a free ride. Hollywood and Network News live off of deviance, hate and division and no gun laws will change that. And there are way better ways to kill large numbers of people than with guns. Also these guys are guilty of mass murder which should draw the death penalty. What the hell does it matter if there are other charges that can be brought up against them? It is beyond stupidity to think that they wouldn’t commit murder just because some bureaucrat would charge them with domestic terrorism or a hate crime. What? Are they going to execute them once for every charge? Lastly and most importantly, LOOK OUT FOR RED FLAG LAWS!!!!!!!!!! Here we go people. You think that they will just pass a law banning guns? NOT! What they do is pass laws saying that “certain” people, because of their actions, can’t own guns but now they are going to say that some people are a possible threat, even though they haven’t done anything, so they can’t own guns. And all the Oath Keeper Sheriffs will be more than happy to do the bidding of their masters and confiscate your guns if “they” determine that YOU are a threat. And get it clear that “they” will determine what a “threat” is. Face it, the Second Amendment is dead just like every other, so called, right that the Constitution enumerates.