[Content Note: Antisemitism.]
Daniel Clevenger, the mayor of a town in Missouri near the residence of Frazier Glenn Cross, who killed three people at Jewish centers in Kansas earlier this week, says he knew Cross well, and shares his antisemitic beliefs, even though he doesn't agree with his actions.
There is a whole fucking story about this guy's rank antisemitism, which includes this incredible passage:
Although Clevenger puts blame on some minorities, he said he stands firmly against violence. He also said he doesn't hate anyone.
Oh, I'm quite sure he said that he doesn't hate anyone. That's what every jackass bigot says. But I am tired to my very bones of reading that line of bullshit in every news story featuring quote after quote of unapologetic disgorgements of vile hatred.
That isn't news. It is the opposite of a fact; it is a demonstrable lie. It doesn't belong in a news story.
I'm achingly fed up with this habitual, reflexive inclusion of some line of manifestly absurd apologia in news stories. Who the fuck cares if someone who rattles off six paragraphs of hatred then asserts he doesn't hate anyone? That's a lie. Stop printing it.
Just stop.
There is absolutely no need to continually breathe life into the ridiculous narrative that it's possible to dehumanize, other, oppress, marginalize, scapegoat, or otherwise demean an entire population of people while not "hating" them.
And even in some semantic game where it's possible to monolithize and demean an entire population of people without "hating" individual human beings from that population, who the fuck cares. It's irrelevant.
"Hating" someone isn't the bigger offense. Between oppressing me with a smile, and hating the fuck out of me but nonetheless respecting my basic rights, I'll take the latter every time.
Open Wide...
Shut Up!
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Rape culture] As today is Tax Day in the US, here is our annual reminder for assholes that to describe what has "been done to you" by the IRS and/or US Government by requiring you to pay taxes is not "rape." Thank you and have a nice day.
[CN: Terrorism; gun violence; death; racism] Today is the one-year anniversary of the Boston Marathon Bombing. There will be many moving pieces in the media today about the survivors, and about the first responders, and about a city that is recovering from a grave trauma. And, without diminishing the importance of those stories, I want to also recommend this piece [cn: appropriative "blindness" language], about the violence in Boston that doesn't get recognized in the same way, the victims who aren't mourned in the same way.
[CN: School violence] The teenager who stabbed classmates and a school security guard last week reportedly made threatening calls to two classmates the night before the stabbing. Also: A bunch of video game stuff was found at the alleged attacker's home. News.
[CN: Terrorism; antisemitism] Frazier Glenn Cross, who killed three people at Jewish centers earlier this week, will likely be charged with a hate crime, but not with a terrorist act.
[CN: Transphobia; misogynoir] Monica Jones is a social work student at Arizona State University and a black trans activist who was arrested and "convicted through controversial anti-prostitution programme she fought against." Here is why it is important to #StandwithMonica.
[CN: Racism; profiling; police harassment] Former Chicago Cub Doug Glanville writes a powerful piece about being racially profiled in his own driveway in Hartford, Connecticut: "He'd been outside his jurisdiction—the representative from internal affairs had confirmed this. That meant a police officer from another town had come to my house, approached me while I was shoveling my own driveway, and—without any introduction—asked me a very presumptuous question. All of this had put me in an extremely vulnerable situation. In one moment, I went from being an ordinary father and husband, carrying out a simple household chore, to a suspect offering a defense. The inquiry had forced me to check my tone, to avoid sounding smug even when I was stating the obvious: that I was shoveling the driveway because the house belonged to me."
[CN: War; violence] Ukraine Moves Against Separatists as Medvedev Evokes Civil War: "The government in Kiev started the operation after fighting between its forces and pro-Russian separatists turned deadly this week. The U.S. and the European Union also deliberated deepening sanctions against Russia, which they blame for stoking the unrest, as Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin remained at odds over who was at fault."
India's Supreme Court has issued "a landmark verdict recognizing transgender rights as human rights, saying people can identify themselves as a third gender on official documents. ...Previously, transgender Indians could only identify themselves as male or female in all official documents. The decision was praised as giving relief to the estimated 3 million Indians who are transgender. The court noted that it was the right of every human being to choose their gender while granting rights to those who identify themselves as neither male nor female. 'All documents will now have a third category marked 'transgender.' This verdict has come as a great relief for all of us. Today I am proud to be an Indian,' said Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, a transgender activist who, along with a legal agency, had petitioned the court."
[Note: The language and culture of the third sex in India differs in some ways from the Western paradigm. Also: Trans Indians have the option to identify as male or female if they have sex-reassignment surgery, which does still leave a problem for people who want to identify as male or female but don't want or can't afford surgery.]
Welp: "New documents released by the FBI show that the Bureau is well on its way toward its goal of a fully operational face recognition database by this summer." Welcome to America 2.0.
All right then: "For a moment, it seemed like Google and Facebook were about to pursue two different techniques to deliver internet signals from the sky: Google with weather balloons, and Facebook with high-flying drones. But now, it seems that Google will own drones as well. Google has just bought Titan Aerospace, the very company that Facebook was rumored to be acquiring."
And finally: Here is a ridiculously adorable story about a mama cat adopting a baby squirrel. I mean.
Open Wide...
Shut Up!
[Content Note: Guns; violence; antisemitism; white supremacy; eliminationism.]
Yesterday, in Overland Park, Kansas, a 73-year-old white man killed two people at a Jewish community center, then got in his car and drove to a Jewish retirement community, and killed one more. He shot at two more people, but missed them. The man was then taken into custody, and there were reports that he shouted antisemitic phrases, which, at the time, police would neither confirm nor deny.
Tonight is the first night of Passover.
Today, we have more information on the shooter and the shooting:
After officers arrested Frazier Glenn Cross — an Aurora, Mo., man better known as F. Glenn Miller — Sunday afternoon, authorities said he went on a rant inside the patrol car. Though Overland Park Police Chief John Douglass wouldn't say what Cross hollered, a television crew captured him on video while he was handcuffed in the back of the car.
"Heil Hitler," Miller yelled out, and then he bobbed his head up and down.
Four hours after the shooting rampage was first reported, Douglass said in a news conference that it was too early to know definitively what the shooter's motives were, but added: "We are investigating this as a hate crime."
During the police chief's press conference yesterday afternoon, he said the killer used a shotgun, and may have also used a handgun and an assault rifle.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, "Frazier Glenn Cross" is an alias of Frazier Glenn Miller, a "longtime anti-Semite" who has spent most of his life in the white supremacist movement.
Miller is the former "grand dragon" of the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, which he founded and ran in the 1980s before being sued by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for operating an illegal paramilitary organization and using intimidation tactics against African Americans.
After subsequently forming another Klan group, the White Patriot Party, he was found in criminal contempt and sentenced to six months in prison for violating the court settlement. He went underground while his conviction was under appeal but was caught by the FBI with a weapons cache in Missouri. He served three years in federal prison after being indicted on weapons charges and for plotting robberies and the assassination of SPLC founder Morris Dees. As part of a plea bargain, Miller testified against other Klan leaders in a 1988 sedition trial.
Miller is a raging anti-Semite who has posted more than 12,000 times on Vanguard News Network (VNN), whose slogan is "No Jews, Just Right." VNN founder Alex Linder has openly advocated "exterminating" Jews since December 2009. Miller, a close partner to Linder, has called Jews "swarthy, hairy, bow-legged, beady-eyed, parasitic midgets." Miller is also one of VNN's largest donors and he printed and distributed thousands of copies of VNN's newsletter, The Aryan Alternative.
This man is a terrorist. And there is no fucking way he should have had access to guns.
I am so desperately sorry for the families, friends, neighbors, colleagues/classmates of the people who were killed. Two of the victims were grandfather and grandson. My condolences to the Jewish people in the community in which this happened. And to every Jewish person who is feeling the reverberating threat of this heinous act, you have my sympathy, my support, and my profound anger.
Open Wide...
Shut Up!
