250.7 - Orlando and terrorism

Orlando and terrorism

[Note: I have broken my discussion of the Orlando shooting into four parts for convenience.]

But as the saying goes, "facts are stubborn things" and I have been somewhat encouraged by the fact that over the past day, that is, as I do this on Wednesday, the storyline is slowly, reluctantly, but clearly being dragged toward describing the heinous event as a hate crime rather than one of terrorism, particularly Islamic terrorism.

The difference matters in more than legal technicalities of what defines either hate crime or terrorism. It matters in understanding what happened and what is means for our society.

Calling something terrorism suggests that it was intended to affect more than the immediate target - that, in this case, it was intended to terrorize the entire LGBTQ community with thoughts of similar fates.

But frankly, I wonder, based on my reading of Omar Mateen, if such terrorizing was part of his motivation. Maybe it was, in which case this reasonably could be called terrorism, but I wonder if it wasn't more strictly, as I described it earlier, an explosion of self-loathing turned outward. An act of pure, unrestrained, blind, hatred.

There is also more than a hint here of what is called "suicide by cop," which refers to situations where someone acts in a way where they appear to be deliberately provoking police to shoot them, to carry out the death sentence they feel unable to impose on themselves.

If Omar Mateen had wished solely to carry out an act of terrorism, particularly one in support of some religious fundamentalism or another, he could easily have fled the scene, as the attackers in Paris, for example, or the Boston Marathon bombers, did. He had more than enough opportunity. But he didn't. Instead he stayed, he holed up, he announced via that 911 call that he was an ISIS terrorist, in subsequent conversations with cops he claimed things like he was going to strap bombs to various people and place them around the building, he did pretty much everything short of saying "Come get me, coppers!"

Until finally, perhaps to his ultimate relief, they did.

So why it is important that we see this more as a hate crime than terrorism? Because as long as we maintain the "terrorism" narrative, we can continue to tell ourselves that it is primarily a case of the "other," the "alien," not by citizenship but by nature, the "alien" in our midst, that it is not about us in any way other than as victims.

But if we face the fact, as we should, that this was not an act of terrorism by any but the most general meaning of the word, that this was an act of hatred based in homophobia, then we have to recognize that for all the strides that have been made over the past couple of decades, for all the celebrations we have been able to have over gains of rights, for all the gains in acceptance we have been able to watch, still, as Phil Ochs sang in a different context but still it fits, "beneath the greatest love is a hurricane of hate."

Orlando was a bursting forth of the hurricane of hate which our LBGTQ brothers and sisters still face, a hurricane of hate perfectly illustrated by a Baptist pastor from Sacramento, California named Roger Jimenez who just hours after the massacre preached to his congregation "Are you sad that 50 pedophiles were killed today? I think that's great. I think that helps society. I think Orlando, Florida's a little safer tonight."

A hurricane of hate of which Orlando is but one gale. A hurricane of hate that despite the gains has yet to blow itself out.

And that is what should be the lesson of Orlando - that, and that we have too damn many guns and they are too damn easy to get.

Sources cited in links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFi7_U1a9VA
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/06/14/baptist-pastor-applauds-orlando-shooting/21395110/

250.6 - Orlando and the media

Orlando and the media

[Note: I have broken my discussion of the Orlando shooting into four parts for convenience.]

So it does look like Omar Mateen was a disturbed individual, disturbed in a way that makes him almost a poster boy for our "violence has nothing to do with us" evasions.

But unlike so many other mass killers, he is being denied that narrative as another narrative is foisted on us. And I can tell you exactly when that happened: when we found out his name was Omar Mateen.

Initially, news accounts called the tragedy a "shooting" and continued to do so for hours after officials said it was being investigated as an possible act of terror. But as soon as they knew his name, as soon as they knew that while he is a US-born citizen, his parents are from Afghanistan, the storyline changed.

For example: At 9:01am the morning after the attack, CBS News tweeted that the shooter has been IDed as Omar Mateen. Just 10 minutes later, its description of the event had changed from a "shooting" to a potential case of "Islamic terrorism."

Other media outlets quickly fell in line and what had been a "shooting" became a possible and soon thereafter an unquestioned act of Islamic terrorism. Once they knew the accused murderer was named Omar. That's all they needed.

In fact, an early version of Reuters' article about the shooting (since changed) spent the first two or three sentences going on about "missed red flags" of "Islamist leanings" and the need for "better security," and then immediately thereafter - literally the very next words - said quote "much remains unknown" about Mateen's motives. We don't know why he did it, but so what? Red flags! Islamist leanings! Security! Be afraid!

Every hint of some possible connection to some radical Islamist individual or group was reported breathlessly. Past FBI investigations were mentioned over and over and over. The fact that the FBI investigated him and found nothing there could not be allowed to be an indication that there is nothing there, it had to be proof of "missed red flags."

A big deal was made out of the report that Mateen and his wife Noor Zahi Salman visited Walt Disney World in April. Oh my God! He was scouting the site! The idea that maybe he was just going to Disney World with his wife and kid was beyond the imagining of our media moguls. I'm sure at some point went to local supermarket, another place where there can be a lot of people around with minimal security. Scoping it out!

But of course the big deal was that he claimed to be a supporter of Daeah - of ISIS - in a 911 call he made during the attack. Proof it's Islamic terrorism!

Except: He had previously claimed to be a supporter of both al-Qaeda and al-Nusra front, even though the three - al-Qaeda, ISIS, and al-Nusra are all bitter rivals, in fact the latter two are fighting each other in Syria - but he also claimed to be a member of Hezbollah, even though Hezbollah is Shiite and the other three are Sunni!

FBI Director James Comey said "It's not entirely clear at this point just what terrorist group he aspired to support." Or, as a senior US official put it more pointedly to the Wall Street Journal, "He seems to be looking for any opportunity to associate with the terrorist group du jour." Which sounds less like some religious fanatic and more like someone who feels powerless trying to feel more powerful by connecting to something "big."

Oh, and speaking of religious fanaticism, recall the description of him going to Pulse and getting drunk. You do remember hearing at some point that getting drunk is forbidden in Islam, don't you?

But of course none of that could be allowed to derail the narrative, so we had some "expert" saying that his conflicting claims of loyalty are to be expected from a "low-level" follower. That is, if you claim allegiance to some radical Muslim group, that proves you're an Islamist terrorist. Claim to follow a bunch of different, conflicting, groups, and that really proves you are an Islamist terrorist.

Likewise, the failure to find any connection between Mateen and any group simply proved he had been "radicalized online." The idea that, whatever his political belief may or may not have been, the idea that his murderous was not driven by religious fanaticism or indeed by any fanaticism other than fanatical hatred, hatred of LGBT people, simply was not entertained.

Our media has been, as is all too common, a miserable failure.

Sources cited in links:
http://fair.org/home/when-media-learned-killers-ethnicity-then-they-knew-to-call-it-terrorism/
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-florida-shooting-gunman-idUSKCN0YY11B
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/06/12/fbi-gay-nightclub-shooter-investigated-for-having-ties-to-suici/21393853/
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/06/13/report-orlando-shooter-scouted-disney-world-for-potential-attac/21394481/
http://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/was-the-orlando-shooting-at-gay-nightclub-terrorism-or-a-hate-crime/3375985.html
http://www.opednews.com/articles/If-Omar-Mateen-were-white-by-Trevor-Timm-Guns_Isis_Orlando-Shooting_Shootings-160613-448.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/james-comey-orlando-shooting-omar-mateen-fbi-2016-6
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/06/13/police-orlando-gunman-was-cool-and-calm-during-hostage-standoff/

250.5 - Orlando, Omar Mateen, and homophobia

Orlando, Omar Mateen, and homophobia

Omar Mateen

[Note: I have broken my discussion of the Orlando shooting into four parts for convenience.]

But having said all that, the thing is that the more we learn about Omar Mateen, the more the description of "troubled" seems to fit this case.

His first wife, from a marriage that lasted just four months until, in her words, her famiy rescued her, described Mateen as bipolar, as being violent, as having beaten her.

A co-worker at G4S Security described Mateen as "unhinged and unstable" and said he frequently made homophobic and racial comments. The co-worker said he quit after Mateen began sending him multiple texts a day.

A woman who went to middle school with Mateen called him a "troublemaker in school," including having "punched a teacher." Other stories and accounts along similar lines have emerged.
   
And then there is the issue of his sexuality. Multiple witnesses said Mateen was seen at Pulse, the club where the shooting occurred, on as many as a dozen occasions, with one person saying "Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent."

He is also reported to have used the gay chat and dating app called Jack'd, including exchanging messages on and off for a year with at least one man.

Others reported related experiences, including one man who said Mateen asked him out on a date.

But the same time, there was that co-worker at G4S who said Mateen made homophobic statements and the claim of Mateen's father that Mateen had become enraged a few months before the shooting when they were in downtown Miami and he saw two men kissing each other.

And there of course was the blunt fact of the shooting. The shooting carried out at a LGBTQ nightclub of which he had been a patron.

What all this adds up to, to me, is someone brought up in a home that condemned homosexuality (In a recent video, his father declared "God will punish those involved in homosexuality.") and who hated and struggled with his own homosexual or bisexual desires and leanings until finally his own self-loathing was turned outward.

That is, it seems that this is a case where the label "unstable individual" we like to attach to mass murder actually seems to apply.

Sources cited in links:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/ex-wife-of-suspected-orlando-shooter-he-beat-me/2016/06/12/8a1963b4-30b8-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/283216-former-co-worker-of-orlando-nightclub-shooter-he-was-unhinged
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/06/12/what-we-know-about-orlando-nightclub-shooter-omar-mateen/21393742/
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/14/omar-mateen-gay-men-terrorism-pulse-jackd-sexuality
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-orlando-nightclub-shooting-20160613-snap-story.html
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/ex-wife-pulse-patrons-omar-mateen-was-gay-regularly-attended-lgbt-nightclubs

250.4 - Orlando and guns

Orlando and guns

[Note: I have broken my discussion of the Orlando shooting into four parts for convenience.]

The topic of guns just leads us to the elephant in the room: Orlando. Orlando. Which will now be invoked in the same tones as Newtown, Aurora, San Bernadino, Columbine, and the rest.

In the early hours of Sunday, June 12, a man named Omar Mateen walked into a LGBTQ nightclub called Pulse in Orlando, Florida, armed with a Sig Sauer MCX, reasonably described as an "AR-15 type" semi-automatic assault rifle, and a .9mm Glock pistol. He opened fire.

When it was all over three hours later, 50 people, including Mateen, were dead and 53 more wounded.

And once again we have to face up to the reality, the reality we try so hard to ignore, to forget, of mass violence in America. And the reality that the common denominator in almost all of these cases is an "AR-15 type" assault rifle and don't give me any crap about "there's no such thing as an assault rifle" or the fallback that it isn't an assault rifle because it's not fully automatic and the rest of the evasive, self-serving bull. The fact that it can fire repeatedly as fast as you can pull the trigger - about 45 rounds a minute - and the fact that it can carry high-capacity magazines and that it has repeatedly proved its value in committing mass murder are more than enough to overcome those weasel word objections.

The exact number of mass shootings we experience and have experienced depends on how you define the term: how many have to die to call it a mass shooting; how many injured; do any of the victims have to die for it to be a mass shooting since the victims were, after all, shot; does it have to be a single incident or can it be multiple incidents - think the Virginia Tech shooting - and if multiple how close do they have to be geographically or chronologically; the arguments about the details of definitions go on. But what is clear is that by any definition, the home base of mass shootings is the US.

Using its own measure of mass shootings, the FBI found that from 1966 to 2012, just under a third of all the mass shootings that took place anywhere in the entire world too place in the US - even though we have just 5% of the world's population.

We have too damn many guns and they are too damn easy to get.

And even that dramatically understates the daily carnage guns bring to the US, the vast, vast majority of which do not involve mass killings or shootings but are the slow daily grind of blood.

The graphic comes from work compiled by the Washington Post and reflects figures for the US for the year 2015.

25,000 gun-related injuries. That's more than 68 a day.
12,000 gun-related deaths, half of them suicides. That's nearly 33 a day.
But just 39 deaths from mass shootings: just over 0.3% of total gun deaths.

Mass shootings, mass tragedies such as at Orlando, get our attention, but they do not truly reflect the daily death toll of guns.

We have too damn many guns and they are too damn easy to get.

And even when we are faced with the latest atrocity, when we are faced with such as Orlando, we have our escape clause, our one-size-fits-all excuse for gun-enabled mayhem: Oh, the shooter was mentally disturbed, not normal, they were "troubled," and what we really need to do is focus on better mental health treatment, certainly not guns!

But that's largely a myth. A satisfying myth that enables us to ignore the looming presence of guns, but a myth nonetheless.

Best and recent research shows no reliable predictive value in associating mental health and gun violence. Put another way, the research says that people with mental illness are no more likely to be violent toward others, especially to commit mass violence, than anyone else is.

We can't simply dismiss the harsh truth of mass violence with the slogan "better mental health programs." They are justified on their own account - but not because they will address the issue of mass shootings, because they will not. They are a gun lobby-pushed distraction.

Sources cited in links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Orlando_nightclub_shooting
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/washington-post-gun-used-by-omar-mateen-a-sig-sauer-mcx-not-an-ar-15/2281735
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/san-bernardino-shooting-assault-weapon-is-common-denominator-in-mass-shootings/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_shooting
http://wgntv.com/2016/06/14/us-home-to-nearly-a-third-of-worlds-mass-shootings/
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/23/us/americas-overlooked-gun-violence.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/mass-shootings-in-america/
http://www.care2.com/causes/the-media-is-promoting-a-dangerous-mental-illness-and-violence-myth.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318286/