“ties to witchcraft,” whatever that means to the authorities.
Whatever “the authorities” means to the reader. I have authored a few things myself.
From AP’s roundup:
Maybe it was the Moonsanto Sect…
Reality: Department of Homeland Security employee murders family of three.
Spin: Ritual killing by lone actor into Witchcraft tied to infrequent lunar event.
The problem with the first is that it potentially makes us question our authoritarian militarized system, the second is preferred because it turns that anger/fear against anything not christian. They must have run this through the “Fox News” filter before making their public statement.
Seeing as it is Florida, we must keep in mind that the bible belt is cinched around the head, not the waist.
i tend to do my ritual killings with sacrificial stone knives. This doesn’t pass the ancient evil test.
** A Naval Criminal Investigative Services spokesperson today said they “have determined there are no issues involving … national security elements.”*
Other than the issue of multiple murders that may have been committed by a DHS employee, sure.
Terrorism is defined as using violence or threat of violence to change society, terrorism and official fear after 9-11 was super effective in getting the US government to surrender and comply fully with Al Quaida’s demand.
This does sound like a lone nut with no national or warfare motivations, just a lone murderous nut.
The rifle massacre nuts we get every few years, also mostly not terrorism, are they trying to influence anyone, or are they pissed about a crappy life experience?
KKK classic terrorism, they explicitly use terror to turn back societal and possibly military losses to the ‘black man’ and northern liberal sympathizers, the burning cross is intended to be a warning and to induce fear and is more economical than a murder or assault legally, especially before hate crime laws.
Which is also, coincidentally, one of the main definitions of the nation-state. Which are pervasive enough to render the supposed threat of terrorism rather indistinct and meaningless. It seems to simply be a way to harass non-state actors for doing what states do.
Naval Criminal Investigative Services, eh? Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs will sort that out for us in an hour, including commercials.
Sounds like macabre murders that may or may not have an occult slant. Not sure why terrorism would be linked at all???
Floridaman? ✓
DHS? ✓
Wacky police? ✓
Satanist scare? ✓
Man! This reads like a Boing Boing bingo card!
It needs more drones and fedoras.
I thought the checkoff was Ethics in Games Journalism, not fedoras. The article seems to have some helicopter footage, and what’s a helicopter if not a locally piloted drone? So 
on that one.
Now all we need to know if there were bananas or bananalike items around the crime scene.
Only one way to find out if there’s bananas at the crime scene! JUST LOOK AT IT!
Anything not Christian? Aren’t most things not Christian?
If the point is to highlight the way that the word is often eagerly used to label any act of violence by Muslims while assuming a political motive, or to question the usefulness of the term, fine. Based on what we know though, this really didn’t have anything to do with terrorism, or at least the US Government would be defined as a terrorist group according to their own definition long before this guy:
“International terrorism” means activities with the following three characteristics:
- Involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law;
- Appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and
- Occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S., or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum.*
“Domestic terrorism” means activities with the following three characteristics:
- Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law;
- Appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination. or kidnapping; and
- Occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S.
(Source)
Sure, of course. But the spin isn’t based on anything so factual or logical, it plays to fears and sweeping generalizations.
In 'merica there is a conservative propaganda idea that christians are being targeted and/or discriminated against by everything not christian that gets lumped into one big mass. This conservative propaganda movement tries to instill blanket fear about this (like everything else), which is exactly why we are seeing the “witchcraft” label. I highly doubt they know anything about wiccan or pagan traditions or are in any way qualified to make a connection like this that doesn’t exist except in their conservative paranoia.
Once you run things through the conservative propaganda “Fox News” filter it very seldom makes logical sense, it doesn’t have to though, it only has to affirm a narrow conservative world view and instill fear about anything outside of that narrow view.
There’s no talk of terrorism because he was also white.
Exactly, and rightly said. And thank you Xeni for saying it.
As opposed to state-sanctioned ritual killing, which involves straps and injection, or straps and electrification if the deity of justice deems it necessary.
