Yep. As an American Jew who has seen firsthand quite a bit of antisemitism over the last half-century, it was one way of coping with the fact that posters on forums like this one are hijacking this horrific act (which is completely consonant with centuries of violent acts against my people around the world) as a soapbox for discussing any old thing they think is connected.
It isn’t about gun control, it isn’t about generic racism that might go away with a new generation, it isn’t about 4chan or Qanon, it isn’t (just) about the current US administration, and it isn’t because “old white men” are in charge. For me, what happened in Pittsburgh is personal, I feel it as an existential threat that is specific to my background, and frankly not at all like the examples you brought up.
It seems to me that you are exercising a willful ignorance of current conditions, which ignorance may contribute to them.
The gunman who attacked the synagogue in Squirrel Hill expressed great anger about a right-wing conspiracy theory that Jews were bringing black and brown people into America to destroy the white race, “committing genocide to his people.” In specific, Bowers claimed that Jews in the HIAS refugee assistance organization were helping transport members of the migrant caravan in Mexico, and stated this as the reason for his attack. Before the attack, he posted a list of services being held on behalf of refugees.
Where could Bowers get the idea to blame Jews for an “invasion” by Central Americans? From Trump and other members of his party who have publicly blamed “globalists,” George Soros, and other Jews for paying the migrants in that caravan to come here, in addition to other anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that have been ramping up under Trump.
Putting your hands over your ears and pretending you don’t hear that doesn’t change it. There had never been any threat against the Tree of Life Synagogue before this. Pretending that this act of terrorism, in which the perpetrator made specific reference to events happening right now, and to conspiracy theories promulgated by politicians right now, has nothing to do with the current political climate, is hiding your head in the sand.
One day, after you are long gone of natural causes (heart attack from one too many fillet o fish on the toilet with explosive anal hemmoraging), I will make it a family pilgrimage once a year to piss on your grave.
I debated over pissing or shitting on the grave. Shitting is more disrespectful, but it would fertilize it so things might grow there again. But after the piss tape scandal, I thought he would enjoy the piss too much.
I settled on piss because I didn’t want to wipe in a cemetary. Thats how horrible I find this orange piece of garbage.
45 is the closest thing to the antichrist I can imagine- and I’m probably an atheist. He deserves neither respect nor being called president. He’s an amoral monster, a conglomeration of every worst trait of mankind and crony capitalism; narcissism, apathy, indifference, bigotry, and more. I can’t even list them all.
All the worst of my country, wrapped up in one orange tub of lard with a manged ferret for a hairpiece. Fuck him.
Ever since the Columbine shooting, I have recoiled at all the lame things being said for people to get to feel better about this… these are not even distinct stories in my mind anymore, it’s just one big long ongoing story that just keeps getting longer and more horrific with each installment.
I dont want to know what was going g through the shooters mind when he planned this, I dont doubt that the victims were all decent human beings who didn’t deserve any of this.
Really, the only thing I want to know about any of this, each time it happens, is where did the shooter get their gun, and what kind of laws might have slowed them down long enough for something different to have happened?
Everything else is just sound bites meant to make the news look new.
There is nothing wrong with the 2nd amendment, just the recent interpretation and fetishization of it by people who need guns to define their way of life.
Government tyranny does and has existed. That was the spirit in which it was drafted to oppose. Unfortunately they never forsaw the rabid nuttiness of something called the NRA.
I grew up a deer hunter, and even among outdoorsmen there are sane gun owners who dont stockpile ammo and ill intent. I dont hunt anymore, cant after seeing and petting herds of tame deer in Japan for a few years. There is a place for guns in America- no amount of banning them will stop murders or bullshit like this. But gun control, sensibly, and new ways to manage their ownership are needed. And people like this should not be allowed to have them.
Keep in mind, im not ever going to defend the NRA crowd. And this hit my old neighborhood, and I take this violence personally. Very personally. But sanity is sometimes disagreeing with nice people, with good intentions. I respect your view and your thoughts, I just can’t see that alone solving the problem of hate.
I can only compare the situation to my own, in a place that has nothing even remotely similar to your second amendment and which is not suffering from government tyranny any more than you are. Probably less to be brutally honest. The way I see it, the amendment has a long list of negative consequences and no clear benefits.
I’m not disturbed by the comparison. I have the strong feeling it doesn’t help to comprehend why anti-semitism is still a motive to kill human beings, and how to prevent future murders.
I also have the feely the scale of the shoa is so gigantic that the comparison makes it easier to dismiss the comparison as “hyperbolic”. To be clear: it is the same hatred which kills people, regardless where and when.
Obvious to you and the NRA, but SCOTUS has made it clear that the second amendment in no way prohibits gun regulation. The bill of rights is not a sales slogan.
Is that what you think I’m doing? You have no idea, and honestly I don’t understand why you’ve decided that this is a good time to pull a lot of assumptions out of god knows where and hurl them at me.
Anti-semitism has been on the rise again here and elsewhere for several years, even before Trump, and my community has long been wondering when, not whether, an attack like this would happen. The public assertions of a link between this current tiny set of migrants and organizations like HIAS or individuals like Soros was a trigger, but what it released was there to be released well before this story, and the idea that there is a “globalist” conspiracy to weaken the body politic is a standard trope that we’ve seen before in other decades and other places. Trump is a symptom of that rise, not the cause, and while he and his ilk have made it more socially acceptable through their speech and actions act to engage in hate crimes, that is a really incomplete lens through which to view these events.
Jew-hatred never really went away. It went underground and became socially unacceptable to talk about. But it was still there, waiting to come out along with racism, sexism, Dominionism and all the rest of that toxic sludge.
Please remember that in the beginning most Germans weren’t murderous Jew-haters just like most Americans didn’t hate Jews, Muslims, or Mexicans a few years ago. Most still don’t. But with unremitting propaganda and a leader with a cult of personality who preaches hate 24/7/365 it is on the rise, and the Brown Shirts or Proud Boys are bolder and more violent. The acts of terrorism are more numerous and deadlier. The support for this sort of thing slowly becomes applauded as virtuous and official policy.
The death camps come later. First we have demonization and dehumanization. We have citizenship for the Other revoked. We get more escalating rhetoric. Truth, Science, and the Press are denigrated. There is more terrorism. Eventually Something has to be Done to stop Them. The more active phase of the genocide begins a bit later.
I’ve heard this repeated elsewhere, by other groups who are victims of our nation’s rising fascist tendencies.
But Trump isn’t just a symptom. He’s a symbol. A catalyst. And that’s why he specifically is so dangerous to our democracy.
You are 100% correct that he is not the first fascist in the US in a position of power. Nor will he be the last. But with the media machine fully behind him, he is by far the most toxic we’ve seen in generations.
I don’t disagree with this. But he is acting as a focus for something much bigger than he is, and without which he wouldn’t have been in a position to help enable these events.
Trump is owned by the NRA, and their solution to EVERY problem is “MORE GUNS”. The Republican party USED to have some moderates in it, who would at least pretend to stand up to the NRA, but now that the Republican Party is dead and gone, completely consumed by the ALL RADICAL ALL THE TIME TRUMP CULT PARTY, they’ve been purged.
I am all for no-fee visas for Israeli veterans, starting today if possible.
And we all need some of that Meir Kahane attitude, so we can be Jewish Defense League volunteers. ATF still is not regulating Louisville Sluggers, get yours now so we can defeat the Nazis on American soil before they completely take over DC.
