Can we call it stochastic terrorism now?

[backscatter712]

Because I think that the Sikh temple shooting can be pretty easily linked - the killer was a known white-supremacist.

Just to refresh your memory...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/01/10/934890/-Stochastic-Terrorism-160-Triggering-the-shooters

Stochastic Terrorism: Triggering the shooters.

Stochastic terrorism is the use of mass communications to stir up random lone wolves to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable.

This is what occurs when Bin Laden releases a video that stirs random extremists halfway around the globe to commit a bombing or shooting.

This is also the term for what Beck, O'Reilly, Hannity, and others do. And this is what led directly and predictably to a number of cases of ideologically-motivated murder similar to the Tucson shootings.

I would argue that the Wisconsin shooting is also an example of the results of stochastic terrorism. It can very plausibly be tied to the hate speech coming from the mouths of Limbaugh, Hannity, Bech, Michele Bachmann, etc. They spewed their demagoguery, stirred up the crazies, and sure enough, a neo-Nazi crazy shot up a Sikh temple.

[slackmaster]

1. Can you see the red queen?

[backscatter712]

2. Is the Pope Catholic? n/t

[tblue]

26. I think they do, whenever they see someone not white and not serving them.

Then they are compelled to attack.

[SidDithers]

39. Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life

Sid

[calimary]

3. Certainly seems to fit. And not JUST the attack on the Sikh temple, either.

These people are DOMESTIC TERRORISTS. By definition.

[Junkdrawer]

4. Way beyond that. Basically, the NRA issued a General Call for Preemptive Action....

In the world of RW gunner asshattery, the NRA is the Sinn Fein of the spectrum - the sensible, politically engaged arm of the movement. When they issue statements like this, it's tantamount to a call to arms:

Obama’s Secret Plan To Destroy The Second Amendment By 2016



by Wayne LaPierre, NRA Executive Vice President

If you want a glimpse of a genuine nightmare for America, just look at what’s headed our way.

But unlike a nightmare, this isn’t some fantasy. It’s a very real, very dangerous conspiracy of public deception intended to destroy your Right to Keep and Bear Arms. It’s targeted directly at you.

...

Over the past three years, the Obama administration and its anti-gun allies have been engaged in a silent but sophisticated long-term conspiracy to:

1. Neutralize gun owners and NRA voters as a political force in national elections, and thereby:

2. Win re-election to a second term in the White House, where they then will be immune to the will of voters and free to continue consolidating and misusing their ever-increasing power to:

3. Prosecute a full-scale, sustained, all-out campaign to excise the Second Amendment from our Bill of Rights through legislation, litigation, regulation, executive orders, judicial fiat, international treaties—in short, all the levers of power of all three branches of government.

...

But that’s just a diversion to distract you from their true beliefs and objectives.

Think about it: Before moving into the White House, Barack Obama spent his entire career proudly, publicly advancing the most radical anti-gun positions you can imagine.

He endorsed a total ban on the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns. He opposed Right- to-Carry laws. He voted to ban nearly all common hunting-rifle ammunition.

In short, Obama never met a gun he liked, and never met a gun ban he didn’t like. The same was true of his running mate, then U.S. Senator Joe Biden, D-Del.

...

Yet so far, President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have done nothing but shrug their shoulders, shirk responsibility and stonewall the investigations at every turn, as if Americans shouldn’t care that a massive criminal enterprise seems to have been run right out of our own Justice Department, just to set the stage for a future Obama gun ban.

....

http://www.nrapublications.org/index.php/11920/obamas-secret-plan-to-destroy-the-second-amendment-by-2016

Expect more, MUCH MORE, RW terrorism in the coming months.

[spanone]

8. they are some paranoid mf'ers

[krispos42]

65. Only to an extent

Obama, during his time in the Senate and in the Illinois legislature, was anti-gun. This is not an opinion, it is a fact.

The Democratic Party is anti-gun. It has, and has had for a generation now, an anti-gun plank in the party platform.

Most politicians calling for gun control are Democrats.

Democratic-dominated states have put into place significantly more restrictive laws on guns than Republican-dominated states.

Democrats passed the controversial ban on assault weapons back in 1993. Reinstating this expired piece of legislation is a major part of plans to expand gun control laws.

And in the wake of the shootings of the past few weeks, DU has been filled with "the NRA is a terrorist organization", "who will stand up to the NRA?", "fuck the NRA", etc., sort of threads... in other words, people seeking to destroy the NRA as a political organization.



I don't buy into the "Obama's waiting until re-election to take your guns" fiction, or the "the UN is going to take away your guns" fiction, but worrying about Democrats clamping down on guns isn't unreasonable.

[backscatter712]

15. And this NRA release is itself stochastic terrorism. n/t

[Initech]

25. The NRA are as much paranoid tin foil hat conspiracy theorists...

As much as the people who believe in alien abductions or that the FBI is coming to get them. And yet we allow these lunatics to dictate national policy? Fuck them.

[uponit7771]

31. +1

[Patiod]

33. So increasing gun violence is just part of a fiendish plan to take our guns away?

Do I have that straight, Wayne?

[nadinbrzezinski]

52. Yup, you do

[backscatter712]

55. My gun-loving brother-in-law was saying that.

He was saying that the James Holmes in the courtroom with the vacant stare and the red hair wasn't the same man as the pictured James Holmes from the earlier file photo, and yes, literally claimed that the Aurora shooting was a false flag operation to drive support for taking everyone's guns away.

Of course, the UN stormtroopers and black helicopters come later...

[Junkdrawer]

57. How about this Wayne....

Isn't it more likely your making up shit out of whole cloth

1.) To get your gullible members to cough up a bit more dough

2.) To get your gullible members to buy more guns and ammo they don't need

3.) Because you damn well know you're going to push some nut case or three over the edge and INCREASE GUN SALES YET SOME MORE

[Dash87]

62. I think that's also the NRA trying to

Fleece their sheep for more money. They pull the puppet strings by putting out unfounded scare stories, and the puppets dance (specifically pulling their wallets out).

[Scuba]

5. The local stochastic terrorists are named Mark Belling and Charlie Sykes.

[kctim]

6. No

Can't call it a secret government "false flag" operation either.

Yeah, I know, just like Alex Jones, I'm sure the stochastic terrorism nuts have "proof."

[backscatter712]

7. The whole point of using stochastic terrorism techniques is to make it hard to prove.

Bachmann, Beck and O'Reilly want to keep their own hands clean - they're far too cowardly to put their own asses on the line and risk a murder charge by being directly involved.

So Bachmann screeches about Muslim conspiracies to take over the government, Beck howls about Obama being a socialist, and O'Reilly says "Tiller the Baby Killer" over and over and over again.

Once the Sikhs (actually "collateral damage" because the killer Wade Page was not just a murderer, but a dumbass who mistook Sikhs for Muslims), Gabby Giffords and George Tiller get shot, then they all get to tsk-tsk, bemoan the violence and say "Nobody could have predicted it!" when their targets fall victim to psycho killers. And they move on to their next targets.

[kctim]

21. It is ridiculous

to believe that those three people intentionally phrase their words so that nuts will go out and kill innocent people.

This "stochastic terrorism" theory is nothing but a political catch-all used only against those with differing political beliefs.

Seriously now, why would three people who support and preach about the 2nd Amendment be giving secret messages to nuts to commit crimes that would further infringe on that right?

[lapislzi]

28. It may or may not be intentional.

I would not go so far as to say that Michele Bachmann is shouting "fire" in a crowded theater. But that's the point: she doesn't have to. She and her ilk are gently (or maybe not so gently) fanning the flames of people's latent biases and bigotries. Then one nut job catches fire and we have an incident.

That's how it works. It's insidious and carries complete deniability.

If you don't think Sarah Palin's bulls-eyes were stochastic terrorism, then you are very, very wrong.

And you are very very wrong to believe that anything at all is going to affect the Second Amendment. It is the only "right" that apparently carries with it no responsibilities or accountability.

[kctim]

35. That's pretty convienent then

because ANYTHING they say that does not conform to your opinion can be said to be "fanning the flames."

And again, there has to be proof of intent before deniability is demanded and, other than partisan opinions, there is no proof of intent.

Sigh. Palin was not the first, nor will she be the last, to use a bulls-eye to target something. If you believe right-wing public officials are using words and symbols to "fan the flames" that will result in murder, then the burden is on you to prove so. IMO, that is just as ridiculous as saying President Obama is okaying false flag operations to take away rights.

It's amazing how the extreme left and right would rather create elaborate fantasies to justify to themselves just how evil the "other side" is.

[docgee]

37. You are obviously not paying attention. nt

[lapislzi]

46. Disagree.

There is a certain style of rhetoric that the RW and its mouthpieces employ that IS inflammatory. When people like Ann Coulter can call for the killing of liberals--and not be called out on it--I call that inflammatory.

I do not hear this type of rhetoric coming from the vocal left. I just don't.

The whole point (which you are missing) is that stochastic terrorism is, by its very nature, not able to be proven. It can be identified, but not proven. There is no straight line from Michele Bachmann's mouth to the barrel of someone's gun.

More like, it is a steady diet of teh crazy being drip-fed to the low-information sector day in and day out, until someone's gasket blows open from the pressure of a continual stream of hate speech. I don't know why you find this difficult to understand, or are you being argumentative for the sake of it? The idea that the Wisconsin shootings were a false flag operation is absurd on the face of it. You and I both know that no meaningful discussion or legislation on the control of guns will come from this. Do not be disingenuous on this, because it does not serve you.

The rhetoric of "otherness," of "elimination" and "eradication," the demonization of opposing points of view, all serve to reinforce bias and bigotry.

Our everyday vocabulary even reflects this. Every news story is about "combating" (not even a fucking word) this or that, or the "battle against" some other damn thing. We can't "reduce" obesity (for example), we have to "combat" it. I dislike the violence in our language. It is not helping the cause of peace, I assure you.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

59. So what happens if someone listening to the stochastic terrorism debate

decides the RW poses a clear and present danger to their safety and starts shooting-up meetings of Tea Partiers?

Do you then become the inciter of stochastic terrorism?

[kctim]

61. I am not missing the point at all

My point isn't that words cannot influence a person, it is that those people are not secretly hoping or calling for the death of innocents in order to support their political beliefs.

Identifying something that cannot be proven is highly influenced by personal opinion and is always suspect. No straight line almost always means somebody is drawing a line free-hand in order to "connect the dots." All disagreeing views are considered hate and all airing of those differing views are claimed to be hate speech. All done with the sole purpose of linking everything to the extreme.
That is what stochastic terrorism depends on. That is why it is subjective. That is why it is unreliable.

I do not believe any of these shootings are false flags or signs of stochasitc terrorism. Both accusations rely on partisan interpretation of what is "really" going on, in order to support a theory of some grand conspiracy being committed against them.

[MissMarple]

50. "Once is a tragedy, twice is a coincidence, three times is enemy action".

At least read the article linked by the OP. Whether it is "callous disregard, or deliberate intent" is irrelevant. Inflamatory talk does attract the crazies, but the shooters seem to be mainly right wing ones....for now.

On edit...ipad fingers.

[ozsea1]

36. Nice try, strawman

please peddle your concern elsewhere.

[barbtries]

42. how have these crimes infringed on their rights?

exactly how?

[kctim]

63. You don't know how false flags work?

You create an incident in order to gain support. In this case, the claim is government is staging these shootings in order to scare people into support the taking of their 2nd Amendment rights. Or the bankers used government to stage the crash in order to take away the "human" rights of the people in order to get at their money.

It is always some grand conspiracy that can only be seen by those who know what is "really" going on.

[kestrel91316]

44. Glad to see you've got the skinhead/neonazi camp's back.

[lapislzi]

10. You're wrong

The whole object of stochastic terrorism is the concept of plausible deniability. "Well, no one could possibly have expected..." Does the term "useful idiot" mean anything to you? The Becks and the Limbaughs are adept at creating useful idiots to carry out their agendas while still keeping their hands clean.

Yes. Everyone who is paying attention EXPECTS this sort of thing. The wild card aspect is that we don't know who, where, or when. We just know it's going to happen.

[backscatter712]

12. One more point - Stochastic Terrorism doesn't even have to be conscious.

Billo, Bachmann and their ilk don't even have to be doing it intentionally. The result is the same, and they're still culpable in, or enablers of murder.

All they have to do is incite.

[slackmaster]

16. A Conspiracy so vast and pervasive that even its adherents don't know they're part of it

Where have I heard that before?

The Church is not responsible for the actions of individuals which may
result from their mere possession of this Book. Any resemblance by char-
acters in these pages to any person, living or dead, except where intend-
ed for direct satirical purposes, is strictly "Coincidence." That's
right, it's all a big joke! Ha ha! "The Conspiracy" - what a laugh! Ha
ha! 3,000 children starving to death in Mexico City every day, ha ha!
Radio- active waste canisters rotting in the ocean! Ha ha ha! Mind
control by horrible secret societies - yuk, yuk, yuk.

CAUTION - MAY BE HABIT FORMING. Do not drive motor vehicle or
operate heavy machinery while under the influence of this book.

http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/classic/classics/X0003_botsg-intro.html

[uponit7771]

30. +1

[Missycim]

34. So what do you suggest?

take away there rights to free speech? lock them up? What happens when the otherside does the same thing to one on the left?

[lapislzi]

48. Seriously?

What "other side" are you talking about? The left does not advocate the killing or elimination of entire groups of people. It just doesn't happen, not even on DU, and we can get pretty extreme sometimes.

Nice straw man, but no one's suggesting that anyone's "free speech" rights be infringed. I personally have a problem with irresponsible speech.

Also, you should buy a dictionary. Your post is incoherent.

[truth2power]

17. Why would you be at pains to deny that stochastic terrorism applies in this instance?...

It's an honest question. Do you categorically reject the idea of stochastic terrorism?

[kctim]

38. As defined here, yes

Speaking about the "horrors" of socialism in no different than protesting the "horrors" of capitalism.
Are you willing to blame stochastic terrorism for the millions of dollars of damage and violence at OWS events? Did the speakers incite those actions or were they actions of a few dumbasses?

[lapislzi]

49. Totally. Different. Animal.

We can talk about the horrors of lots of things. That is not subtly inciting people to violence, and you know it.

You cannot compare acts of vandalism which did occur at OWS events with the planned and systematic murder of a group of people. Nobody got murdered at OWS, and nobody called for anyone to get murdered.

Once again, your argument is disingenuous.

[kctim]

58. Not any different at all

Did you ever attend any of the OWS little gatherings? There are speakers shouting about "the evils of capitalism" and "ending the greedy bankers." Non-stop.

"Stochastic terrorism" is not only about murder:
- Stochastic terrorism is the use of mass communications to stir up random lone wolves to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable -

There were people speaking to mass crowds of people who shared their views. There were violent acts that statistically almost always occur at such events. These violent acts are always started by an individual trying to "fan the flames."

You cannot prove "planned and systematic murder." IF you could, people would be in jail.

Your argument is based on opinion and politics, not facts.

[Brickbat]

18. It's a non-falsifiable theory that seems to change as it needs to.

It looks like pseudo-science to me.

[Ikonoklast]

19. Then why aren't right-wing establishments getting shot up, people murdered?

White Fundy Mega-Churches firebombed?

Because no one is inciting anyone to do so.

Stochastic Terrorism is real, pretending it doesn't exist is ignoring reality.

[meow2u3]

40. If left-wing talk show hosts incited such incidents, they'd be summarily executed

IOKIYAR in operation.

[Ikonoklast]

45. You got that right.

There would be a hue and cry to shoot them down on sight.

[backscatter712]

54. Which is little different from the right-wing's usual rhetoric.

They're not quite saying "Shoot liberals on sight", they're just putting pictures of liberal politicians up with crosshairs on them...

[orpupilofnature57]

53. I love Alex Jones ,we're just not

allowed to talk about him.

[KG]

9. does the Ursidae defecate in the sylvan glade?

[lapislzi]

11. I would reply in the affirmative.

As the pontiff sports crimson headgear.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. After Aurora, yes, we can

but thanks for posting it. I did not want to go there again...

[BeHereNow]

14. Yes, and it's just getting started.

I will not be putting ANY political stickers on my car or anywhere else.
I have noticed that people seem to feel free to attack people verbally on the street-
How much longer until that turns physical?

Well, I mean I guess it has already started, but I think we will see an escalation
in the near future.

Time to keep your head down and be aware of our surroundings, IMO.

BHN

[Nostradammit]

24. Time to put MORE stickers on our cars.

Show them that they are seriously outnumbered.

Because they are seriously outnumbered, they just don't realize it yet.

[barbtries]

43. no way

i have a plethora of liberal stickers on my car and they are staying there. no FEAR.
btw, i'm in NC

[sinkingfeeling]

20. Yes, when a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee sees 'terrorists'

in the Congress and on the staff of the SOS, then crazy neo-Nazis will see them in Sikh Temples.

[backscatter712]

22. There's a reason why it's called STOCHASTIC terrorism - it's random.

A person inciting doesn't know who, when or where the "bullets" will strike. Just that if you incite enough times, that the laws of probability indicate that eventually someone will.

Since the point is to get unhinged psycho killers to do your dirty work and get the life sentence or lethal injection or suicide by cop for you, it's hard to target them precisely.

Wade Page was most likely going after Muslims, but got it wrong because he attacked Sikhs - they wear turbans, so for this moran, it was close enough.

[malaise]

23. Yes!

They won"t get away this time

[JoePhilly]

27. Shake the crazy tree frequently enough, and a NUT will fall out.

And the shakers will all look around and act surprised.

[uponit7771]

29. Looking at the facts on its face? ***YES***

[LongTomH]

32. The speech from the right has become 'ELIMINATIONIST'

Wikipedia's definition of eliminationism:

Eliminationism is the belief that one's political opponents are "a cancer on the body politic that must be excised — either by separation from the public at large, through censorship or by outright extermination — in order to protect the purity of the nation".

The term was coined by American political scientist Daniel Goldhagen in his 1996 book Hitler's Willing Executioners in which he posits that ordinary Germans not only knew about, but also supported, the Holocaust because of a unique and virulent "eliminationist antisemitism" in the German identity, which had developed in the preceding centuries.

Goldhagen maintains that eliminationism has been the cause of every mass killing in the 20th and 21st centuries.

AlterNet contributor David Sirota commented on the eliminationism inherent in Glenn Beck's vile rhetoric: Glenn Beck Finally Admitted His Great Desire: To 'Eradicate' Progressives:

To wild applause, he labeled this alleged tumor of "community" the supposedly evil "progressivism" -- and he told disciples to "eradicate it" from the nation.

The lesson was eminently clear, coming in no less than the keynote address to one of America's most important political conventions. Beck taught us that a once-principled conservative movement of reasoned activists has turned into a mob -- one that does not engage in civilized battles of ideas. Instead, these torch-carriers, gun-brandishers and tea partiers follow an anti-government terrorist attack by cheering a demagogue's demand for the physical annihilation of those with whom he disagrees -- namely anyone, but particularly progressives, who value "community."

Author David Niewert has blogged on the subject at Crooks and Liars, among other places. He's also the author of: Eliminationism: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right.

From a review:

The Eliminationists describes the malignant influence of right-wing hate talk on the American conservative movement. Tracing much of this vitriol to the dank corners of the para-fascist right, award-winning reporter David Neiwert documents persistent ideas and rhetoric that champion the elimination of opposition groups. As a result of this hateful discourse, Neiwert argues, the broader conservative movement has metastasized into something not truly conservative, but decidedly right-wing and potentially dangerous.

By tapping into the eliminationism latent in the American psyche, the mainstream conservative movement has emboldened groups that have inhabited the fringes of the far right for decades. With the Obama victory, their voices may once again raise the specter of deadly domestic terrorism that characterized the far Right in the 1990s. How well Americans face this challenge will depend on how strongly we repudiate the politics of hate and repair the damage it has wrought.

[SidDithers]

41. Looks like plain ol' hate to me...nt

Sid

[MissMarple]

47. Every time I read a Michelle Malkin piece I see it inciting the crazies.

I rarely read her, but our local editor loves her. She is in our paper all the time. They should all be ashamed.

[Iggo]

51. That's what it is....so, Yes. (n/t)

[RZM]

56. No not really

What would you guess the shooter's attitudes were towards mainstream conservative opinion-makers like Hannity and Beck? Hannity, for instance, has praised the Texas judicial system for sentencing James Byrd's murders to death. Those guys and the shooter were cut from the same cloth and it's unlikely the shooter would get behind somebody obviously hostile to his cause. Beck has tried to incorporate the legacy of MLK into his rhetoric for years now. That's hardly the type of person a white supremacist nutjob would pay a whole lot of attention to.

My guess is that fringe elements like this guy view mainstream conservatives as 'race traitors' who differ little from the left on racial issues. It's the same thing with an extreme leftist's view of mainstream liberals. They may hate them less than conservatives, but probably view the Democratic establishment and many liberal commentators as servants of the elites that really run the show. So in other words, the further you get from the center . . . the further you get from the center.

The stochastic terrorism argument is essentially the mirror image of the right's attempts to paint Obama and the Democrats as socialists who encourage class warfare, want to take away guns, or whatever. A 'real' class warrior knows that's bullshit, because they know enough of what they believe to realize who is on their side and who isn't. Same thing with these neo-nazi clowns. They know full well that Limbaugh and co. aren't their friends at all.

The idea that conservative pundits want to encourage people to shoot up Sikh temples is absurd. Arguing such represents the flimsiest of understandings about them and their ideology.

[arely staircase]

64. the idea that conservative pundits want to encourage people to shoot up temples is absurd

and indeed the likes of this shooter probably do consider Rush Limbaugh part of the problem as they see it and not the solution. as far as malkin goes they surely see her as an inferior "mud person" however, lets no pretend like the conservatives like the two mentioned haven't been playing with fire by trying to attract some of the same people those skinheads try to recruit. the whole birther movement, jeremiah write histrionics, "he needs to learn how to be an american" language are all part of the ame effort to appeal to certain closed minded and fearful segment of the population based on their prejudices of non-white and non-christian individuals and communities. th skinhead circles and the far right conservative circles overlap quite a bit on the ol' venn diagram.

[RZM]

66. I'm not sure there's much overlap because the skinheads are so small in number

At least in the big picture. If you added them all up it might sound like a lot, but this is a country of over 300 million. The number of people who identify as conservative, OTOH, is quite large.

I also don't think that the right makes much effort to appeal to them directly. To the extent that they do, they aren't appealing to skinheads specificially, but white people in general. I would bet that most skinheads see such appeals as way too rare and never going far enough. I would also bet that many skinheads do not vote, or vote for odd third party candidates when they do.

[arely staircase]

67. but who they make theor pitch too, which is the overlap im talking about

Which is any racist. There are a lot of those in this country and skinhead/white nationalists and Republicans try to harness their anger.

[arely staircase]

60. or a word people know nt