Originally published at: Profile of Kenosha protest killer Kyle Rittenhouse | Boing Boing
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Right wing politics: not even once.
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(Why, though? I’d rather he be dropped down the internet oubliette.)
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it is made unambiguously clear that Rittenhouse have been grifted to the bone by the right-wing culture warriors who latched onto him, set up shady fundraisers in his name, and posed him with white supremacists and proud boys.
American fascists are always on the lookout for their own Horst Wessel. This arsehole will be useful for raising funds, but what they really want is a dead martyr.
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It’s good to have a detailed, extensively fact-checked exemplar of the truism that all this shit is a grift
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You are correct, and I shake my upraised fist at the currency [pun intended] of today’s celebrity culture.
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It does seem that all of right wing politics is a way to flush out the credulous rubes and fleece them.
Step 1: claim batshit nonsense is truth
Step 2: note the morons that buy into it with both hands and a shovel.
Step 3: profit!
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Is there a paywall or something? The article just ends after quoting a Kevin Hart tweet…
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He’s not the first nor the last of his kind. Understanding how these guys are created can help people spot warning signs and better target prevention efforts.
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Among other useful parts of this article, I appreciated the very detailed second by second account of the sequence of events around Rittenhouse’s shootings on the night of August 25, 2020. The escalation between Rittenhouse and others in the crowd as well as the behavior of the police are all quite eye opening:
During the chaos, Rittenhouse moved down the street toward Car Source’s second mechanic shop, where rioters had been smashing car windows. He crossed paths with the angry bald man, who chased him into the shop’s parking area. The man now wore his T-shirt as a head wrap and face mask, leaving his torso bare. Screaming “Fuck you!,” he threw his plastic bag at Rittenhouse’s back. Rittenhouse, holding his rifle, reached some parked cars just as a protester fired a warning shot into the sky. Rittenhouse whirled; the bald man lunged; Rittenhouse fired, four times. The man fell in front of a Buick, wounded in the groin, back, thigh, hand, and head.
The nearest bystander was Richie McGinniss, the video chief at the Daily Caller, the online publication co-founded by Tucker Carlson. McGinniss, who had been covering protests all summer, had been following the chase so closely that he had nearly been shot himself. He removed his T-shirt and knelt to compress the man’s wounds. Dying, the man breathed in a horrifying growl.
Rittenhouse stood over McGinniss for half a minute. Amid the sound of more gunfire, he didn’t stoop to check on the injured man or offer his first-aid kit. “Call 911!” McGinniss told him. Rittenhouse called a friend instead. Sprinting out of the parking lot, he said, “I just shot somebody!”
Demonstrators were yelling: “What’d he do?” “Shot someone!” “Cranium that boy!” Rittenhouse ran down the street toward the whirring lights of police vehicles. To those who had heard only the gunfire and the shouting, he must have resembled a mass shooter: they tend to be heavily armed, white, and male.
A demonstrator ran up behind Rittenhouse and smacked him in the head. When Rittenhouse tripped and fell, another man executed a flying kick; Rittenhouse fired twice, from the ground, and missed. Another demonstrator whacked him in the neck with the edge of a skateboard and tried to grab his rifle; Rittenhouse shot him in the heart. A third demonstrator approached with a handgun; Rittenhouse shot him in the arm, nearly blowing it off.
He rose from the asphalt and continued toward the police lights. A man screamed, “That’s what y’all get, acting tough with fucking guns!”
Rittenhouse tried to flag down armored vehicles that were now moving toward the victims, but they passed him by, even after witnesses pointed out that he’d just shot people. Next, he approached a police cruiser, but an officer inside apparently told him, “No— go .”
Two men were fatally shot. A third was maimed. Everyone involved in the shootings was white. The astonishing fact that Rittenhouse was allowed to leave the scene underscored the racial double standard that activists had sought to further expose: the police almost certainly wouldn’t have let a Black man pass.
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You have inadvertently stumbled upon the etymological meaning of the word ‘monster:’ something to be beheld. See demonstrate, remonstrate, etc…
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That is the part I pointed out the was the most fucked up - hard evidence of police bias and that maybe these protestors had a point. They didn’t even stutter in their step to over look the guy, because “clearly”, he couldn’t be part of the problem.
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You don’t get to vote in prison.
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Same here, it’s strange.
Google cache has the whole article though:
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:BqRP5znlROYJ:https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/07/05/kyle-rittenhouse-american-vigilante+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uy
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Thanks!
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US right wing politics seemed to be inextricable from right wing religion, and vice versa.
But at least in right wing religion, the fleecing is more direct (“give me this money for the church”). Or you’re getting something for your money (“give me this money for prepper food you’ll never use”).
In right wing politics, the fleecing is indirect (“give me this money for a tax cut for the Koch Brothers”) and you get nothing except schadenfreude (“give me this money so I can take it away from, and/or directly harm, someone else, possibly you”— eg, build border wall, pass anti-trans bill, repeal Obamacare).
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My best guess as to his outcome: 40-65 years in prison (Two 2nd degree Murder convictions, consecutive sentences + attempted murder). He is exempt from a life sentence. WI Law does not permit it when the person was a minor at the time of the offense. (Arguments for “self defense” are laughable and designed more for fundraising than for court)
His mom will end her days monetizing her convicted mass murdering son with “Free Kyle” merch.
The right wing will further its decline into outright fascism and find another mass murder to rally behind.
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