[noobtube]

It is no surprise to me that on so many forums discussing issues related to collapse, preparation for disruptions, and the eventual end of the American empire, that the discussions have been so delusional regarding the epic events in Charleston, South Carolina on Wednesday, June 17, 2015.

10 years ago (2005) there was Katrina, which saw the United States as a struggling, incompetent, nation that could not save one of its own cities. The country did not want to hear anything George W. Bush had to say after that. Oil wars be damned!

Now, 10 years after Katrina, in 2015, there is Charleston. 9 completely innocent, God-fearing Christians are murdered by a white man simply for the color of their skin. This event appears to show the United States is a nation that is greatly divided and full of irrational and violent hate toward the innocent, the weak, and the defenseless. Is it possible the rest of the world will not want to hear the United States on its high-horse about terrorism, when the United States creates its own?

War on Terror, War on Drugs, Banker Bailouts, Income Inequality, the Old stealing food from the young through transfer payments, Culture Wars, hysteria over Muslims, over black people, over non-European immigrants, cops beating up children... the United States is coming apart at the seams, for all the world to see.

This was a well-fed, car-owning, clean water drinking, electricity-using, mall-shopping American white male with every advantage the world has to offer, at his disposal. Yet, in his head, it is black people, attending a Church (some are just old women), who welcomed him into their worship, that are somehow the most dangerous threat to his well-being, that required him to murder them all?

It is only going to get worse as the effects of Peak Oil continue to strangle the hope and extravagant entitlement of those who expect to have it all, namely the American degenerates.

The world will have no sympathy.

[dissident]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('noobtube', '
')
Now, 10 years after Katrina, in 2015, there is Charleston. 9 completely innocent, God-fearing Christians are murdered by a white man simply for the color of their skin. This event appears to show the United States is a nation that is greatly divided and full of irrational and violent hate toward the innocent, the weak, and the defenseless.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('noobtube', '
')This was a well-fed, car-owning, clean water drinking, electricity-using, mall-shopping American white male with every advantage the world has to offer, at his disposal. Yet, in his head, it is black people, attending a Church (some are just old women), who welcomed him into their worship, that are somehow the most dangerous threat to his well-being, that required him to murder them all?

It is only going to get worse as the effects of Peak Oil continue to strangle the hope and extravagant entitlement of those who expect to have it all, namely the American degenerates.

[Hawkcreek]

What ticks me off is that the perverted acts of one loonie are used as an excuse for any number of things.

Of course, the gun control card gets played --- there will be a call for more police - who will need to be more heavily armed and militarized-- the "hate" crime sentences will be increased, etc, etc.

But the money for social workers, mental health counselors, and education will never be increased. That is a "liberal" agenda. It might take money out of the pockets of a CEO somewhere. And the conditions that breed this type of idiot will become more and more entrenched.

Yeah, I am one of those who believe that people can be made better than they are. I say "can" be, but I don't really have any faith anymore that it will ever happen.

[PrestonSturges]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Hawkcreek', 'A')nd the conditions that breed this type of idiot will become more and more entrenched.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', 'G')o to any right wing blog and you will read people's fantasies about forming death squads and killing their liberal neighbors, and it will always be framed as self defense. Until the Boston bombing there was much talk about how they were going to build IEDs and kill cops, and by "they" I mean white Republicans. This behavior seems to be universally accepted, so that when someone like this kid Roof starts telling everyone about killing people, he's just one of a million people saying this on a given day.

[SeaGypsy]

Is there any history since the internet has been around about American forum posters going postal? I can recall the Unabomber was somewhat of a lobbyist before switching to actual terrorism to male his points. Brevik isn't American. Apparently the general form of American mass murderers is of very poor communication ability, mental health issues. Us intellects capable of hashing out arguments on a forum like this are not the same people doing the killing. Unless what a poster says is provocative to evil, how polite or otherwise posters are is irrelavent to this issue.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'I')s there any history since the internet has been around about American forum posters going postal?

[Sixstrings]

I don't know what my point is, other than something is screwy and the issue should be addressed. Not saying censorship, per se.

From news reports, it sounds like he radicalized "from the internet." He was not actually in some militia group or kkk group or whatever, in "the real world."

The whole West, Russia too, has already been having a problem with muslim teenagers getting "radicalized on the internet."

It's some kind of peculiar problem with young people and the internet. Maybe there should be something taught in schools, about the issue, to prevent youth getting radicalized.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')harleston shooting: Dylann Roof's stepmother defends 'smart' boy 'drawn in by internet evil'

“He went to catechism, he went to church,” Ms Mann said. “He was locked in his room looking up bad stuff on the computer.”

In an interview with the New York Daily News, she said: “Something on the computer drew him in – this is Internet evil. We just thought he was a lazy, this-generation kind of kid.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-stepmother-of-dylann-roof-defends-the-smart-boy-she-raised-having-been-affected-by-internet-evil-10334590.html

[SeaGypsy]

Recently my government has been blocking some extreme sites, but the selection is seemingly arbitrary, the block takes about a minute to kick in & is extremely easy to bypass. Sensorship isn't the answer. The problem we are discussing is about the very fragmentation of the society as mentioned in the OP.

[sparky]

.
Timothy McVeigh was very literate and didn't blog

McVeigh first and last address to the court before sentencing was

" If the Court please, I wish to use the words of Justice Brandeis dissenting in Olmstead to speak for me.
He wrote, 'Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher.
For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example....That's all I have."


Before the execution, Nigh said McVeigh was "in amazingly good spirits," "calm" and "acting himself."

He slept a few hours Saturday night before he was moved Sunday morning, June 9.
he was placed in an isolation cell a short walk away from the execution chamber.

"He was able to look up in the sky for the first time in years, and see the moon directly," Nigh said.

Later, Dunne said McVeigh was "sleeping normally," but didn't elaborate.
The Buffalo News printed several letters from McVeigh on the day of his execution in which he called his bombing a "legit tactic" in his war against what he believes is an oppressive federal government.
He wrote that he was "sorry" people died - but added, "That's the nature of the beast."

Despite last-minute hints of sympathy for his victims, McVeigh never wavered from his radical-right convictions.
The 33-year-old Gulf War veteran did not say a word in the final minutes before his execution
McVeigh strained to look around the facility trying to make eye contact with the various witnesses

The execution began when a prison official said: "We are ready."
The warden read the execution order and a U.S. Marshal checked the phone lines to make sure last-minute reprieves had not been granted by President Bush or the Supreme Court.

McVeigh was not expected to request clemency, and did not.

As he took his final breaths, he made no additional movement and was described by one media witness as "seeming proud." Other witnesses said McVeigh lifted his head and looked at them and then looked at the ceiling. He died with his eyes open at 7:14 a.m.

the location of his ashes is kept secret

His chosen death poem was "Invictus" ,

"Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul."

[Sixstrings]

I have CNN on, they were talking about the fact there were warning signs that everyone ignored. That he talked about violence, plus espoused racist views. It's just common sense, if a 20 year old is burning american flags and gets into racism and is into guns and is doing specific violent crazy talk, then that's a lot of red flags.

They were saying on CNN that the common thread with all these incidents is that red flags are ignored, most especially talk of violence.

I don't think this tragedy is due to peak oil. But yes in troubled economic times / disruption then there's a rise in white supremacists / skinheads / neo nazis.

15,000 march in Charleston, against hate and to honor the victims:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')img]http://i.huffpost.com/gen/3100030/thumbs/o-CHARLESTONBRIDGE-570.jpg?7[/img]


Charleston, S.C. -- This is how the city of Charleston handles unspeakable tragedy.

On Sunday evening, hours after Emanuel A.M.E. Church opened its doors for the first service following the killing of nine of its congregants Wednesday, thousands in Charleston took to the streets in a show of support and solidarity.

A line of people packed Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, stretching more than two miles from the town of Mount Pleasant to the city of Charleston. Observers on the bridge, and thousands more at the base, joined hands to create a "unity chain," then held a moment of silence that lasted five minutes in honor of the fallen.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/21/charelston-shooting-bridg_n_7633190.html

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Karl Rove: Only Way To Stop The Violence Is To Repeal Second Amendment

When Chris Wallace asked Rove how we can, “stop the violence,” the long-time gun-rights advocate stated that we have made great strides as a nation in empathizing with the victims of these types of shootings, but the only way to guarantee they will stop is to “remove guns from society.”

WALLACE: How do we stop the violence?

ROVE: I wish I had an easy answer for that, but I don’t think there’s an easy answer

We saw an act of evil. Racist, bigoted evil, and to me the amazing thing is that it was met with grief and love. Think about how far we’ve come since 1963. The whole weight of the government throughout the South was to impede finding and holding and bringing to justice the men who perpetrated the [Birmingham] bombing.

And here, we saw an entire state, an entire community, an entire nation come together, grieving as one and united in the belief that this was an evil act, so we’ve come a long way.

Now maybe there’s some magic law that will keep us from having more of these. I mean basically the only way to guarantee that we will dramatically reduce acts of violence involving guns is to basically remove guns from society, and until somebody gets enough “oomph” to repeal the Second Amendment, that’s not going to happen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSL7ypRcwlQ

[onlooker]

Living all my life in this country, some things I really like about it, others not so much. Guns has been a problem for me. Now I realize I am not a hunter so I may lack empathy with hunters. But I can say if we just enforce laws that already exist and make them universal throughout the country it would help. Background checks, certain guns cannot be sold ie. assault weapons (cause are you hunting dinosaurs or something), a waiting period. I do not know if this law exists but making people who able to buy guns at dealerships within state where they live sounds good to me. Now of course the Internet is a problem too in so much as you can purchase a firearm without any of the safeguards mentioned above. Also, the community and family teaching kids that violence is not the way.

[Tanada]

[ROCKMAN]

onlooker - Some insight from a skilled marksman and former hunter: forget the focus on
"assault weapons"...it's irrelevant. Here's a rather cold but true fact none the less: a skilled Texas deer hunter armed with a bolt action Swedish Mauser manufactured in 1917 (like mine that I paid $89 for) could sit on a roof top in downtown Houston and kill 100+ people before the cops could even figure out where he's shooting from. And that's the problem: you can't stop insane people from committing insane acts. The maniac that shot those folks in the church could have killed them just as easily with a bag of Molotov cocktails. Just as those innocent young black girls that were murdered without a single shot fired at their church all those decades ago.

I always find it a bit disturbing when the act of one maniac is used by folks to spin their own political agenda be it liberal or conservative. In Houston we have a disproportionate number of violent crimes committed by blacks and Hispanics. So is it fair for our local brand of racists to tag both populations as evil? The primary reason those innocent folks at the church were slaughtered wasn't because of racism, gun laws, political ideology, etc. The primary reason was that an maniac had delusions that led him to act violently.

So exactly how does anyone propose to prevent the mentally ill from being delusional and acting out? Especially if they haven't been already tagged as insane. Gun sale laws won't do it because there's an endless supply of illegally sold weapons in this country. And even if you did how would you prevent a maniac from getting behind the wheel of a car, running over and killing even more then those shot in the church? There's over 300 million in our country. At anyone time if there was only 0.00001% of the population that are homicidal maniacs that's still 30 of them. How do we ferret out that tiny percent of the population? You can't stop them from acting out violently by passing any law.

Granted there are still a great many more hate filled racists in this country then 0.00001% but they aren't acting out with that level of violence we just saw. The sad truth is that there are many terrible events in life that cannot be prevented.

[onlooker]

I have to concede their is much truth in what your saying Rock. Not too much can be done about a disturbed person going on a rampage just like a terrorist doing the same.

[KaiserJeep]

This thread does NOT belong in "Peak oil studies, reports & models", rather it should be in the Americas thread.

Before anybody goes too far down the road on the "racial hatred" vehicle, note that:

1) Both racial intolerance and gun violence are way down in all statistics. The only thing that is up is the reporting of such incidents. The take-away message is things are improving. Before the Civil Rights movement, these things happened more and were reported a lot less.

2) The recent election of a black man as POTUS has poured oil on the flames or racial intolerance. It seems that everything that Barack Obama does makes things worse than they were before. I have long understood what many simply refuse to accept: the social policies of the US Democratic Party deliberately and definitely promote racial strife. This happens because there exist a great many race baiters within the Democratic Party, and racial strife enables their personal political power.

Don't believe me? Answer these questions:

Would Barack Obama have been elected, with his lack of all qualifications for the office of POTUS, if he were white?

Are there not prominent race baiters within the US Democratic Party, such as the Reverend Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson? Do they make things better or worse?

Does not the US Democratic Party have a record of repressing minorities that stretches back to before the US Civil War? Were not all former KKK members in Congress also Democrats?

I UNDERSTAND that most of you want to deny these undeniable facts, and why you want to do so. But I could never be a Democrat, because I hate racists.

[ennui2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', '
')2) The recent election of a black man as POTUS has poured oil on the flames or racial intolerance. It seems that everything that Barack Obama does makes things worse than they were before.

[KaiserJeep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ennui2', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', '
')2) The recent election of a black man as POTUS has poured oil on the flames or racial intolerance. It seems that everything that Barack Obama does makes things worse than they were before.