This is neither the time of week that I prefer to post at IC nor the beat that I feel comfortable covering… but I am frustrated beyond endurance over how Patrick Crusius has been projected from all mainstream quarters as a white supremacist" and a white nationalist" with FOX News repeatedly voicing its nolo contendere.
Crusius is white apparently: thats about where clarity begins to fade. (Is he also Jewish? His father at some point posted a YouTube video while standing in front of a Star of David… but we mustnt diminish the boys KKK credentials.) Beth Baumann confidently titling a piece on Sundays Townhall Tip Sheet Heres What We Know About the El Paso Shooter" manages to misspell Crusiuss name. En route to noting that El Pasoans are lining up to donate blood she uncritically reproduces the Associated Press capsulization of the lunatic manifesto: The document posted online expressed concern that an influx of Hispanics into the United States will replace aging white voters potentially turning Texas blue in elections and swinging the White House to the Democrats."
Many photos of the young killer are circulating on the Internet and a few social-media protests have insisted that these do not all belong to the same human being. That kind of reaction is overdone and Im trying to resist it myself… but with so little concrete evidence made available the scent of rat grows as strong around this story as over a Baltimore dumpster. Why couldnt Ms. Baumann have cited the actual document? I suppose the principled refusal to name a homicidal perpetrator or to publicize his lunatic screed is generally commendable; Ive now heard several high road" journalists proclaim with proudly lifted head that they are deliberately suppressing details in just such a surge of nobility. Yet when hit-and-run references to the facts leave too much truth bleeding in their wake then maybe its timeyesto look at the concrete evidence.
And the manifesto itself I find today has virtually disappeared from the Net; at least I dont have the time to dig it out from wherever its now holed up. Sebastian Gorka cited it helpfully in a piece on his personal websitebut his link to a copy on Twitter has (surprise!) gone inactive. Dr. Gorka sweeping all virtuous contempt of detail aside makes this desperately necessary point: this killer supports some of the most openly socialist policies in American political discourse today including universal income socialized medicine and a belief in global warming. Yet according to the media he is somehow just another far-right shooter who has been motivated by President Trump."
Gorka concludes that the mainstream medias determination to promote a one-sided narrative which runs directly contrary to the truth and the facts is playing into his Crusiuss hands and fulfilling his sick predictions. That is the Truth and the Truth is what matters above all else." Accepting Crusius as an angry homicidal Klansman and then smoothly pivoting to insist that we monitor the mentally ill more effectively is advocacy in a way (looking at you FOX). It just isnt basic journalism any more than CNNs chorus of Delendus est Trump harpies.
For like Dr. Gorka I actually saw substantial portions of the manifesto before our Fourth Estate denied it the glory" of being publicly available. The version of it prepped and staged for the cameras ignores a mountain of contradictory and disturbing evidence. Crusius is not a Klansman. His shoddily connected and admittedly featherweight manifesto indeed deplores the volume of illegal immigrants pouring into the country; but it also insists that people of many races reside here legally and have every right to remain here. The statements concern over illegal border crossings appears to stand in conjunction with a concern about the planets imminent demise due to climate change and also to an anxiety that a guaranteed minimum income cannot become the law of the land if too many Johnny-come-latelys climb on board. Your standard white supremacist carrying torch and pitchfork isnt an exponent of the Green New Deal and doesnt believe that Uncle Sam should cut paychecks to every citizen who has a pulse.
On Sunday night the virtuous commentators on Steve Hiltons New Revolution were sighing So the Left says Hes one of yours and the Right says Hes one of yours… but the important issues arent being discussed behind all this bickering." Excuse me: this is a crucially important issueand FOXs coverage is itself part of the issue. Shifting the discussion to mental health the dissolution of the family video games or somewhere else while a useful inquiry to pursue down the road brushes aside the downright eagerness on the part of all mainstream media (including the conservative impersonators in question) to embrace a very precipitate and arguable packaging of Crusius as a rightist wacko.
The manifestoat which we are not to look too closely because to do so only gives a sick mind its coveted day in the sunenvisions an American confederacy" whose separate states will be designated one by one for separate races. The word confederacy" is said to be a clincher: think Stars and Bars and plumed gray hats. May we shake off the Hollywood-level word-associations long enough however to notice that this scheme isnt remotely nationalist or even strictly racist? In fact it would fragment the nation (there at least it echoes the Confederate cause that moved the nationalist Union to arms). Furthermore the allotment of different territories to different races expresses no intent of giving lesser" races poorer land or otherwise elbowing them to the back of the bus. On the contrary: the scheme directly reflects such campus Identity Politics programming as recently inspired students at Evergreen State College for instance to ban white students from the institutions grounds for a day.
At least one private observer on Parler has published his suspicion that the document was engineered to broadcast what a 21-year-old nincompoop might imagine to be right-wing viewsbut that the idiot ideologue cannot keep his own cherished fantasies from leaking into the creation. This is actually not an improbable explanation. Yet whether its true or not the views that Crusius claims to hold do not qualify as white supremacist" white nationalist" or nationalist". And I should like to know why we are to accept their qualification as an exemplar of all such views as a starting point? Are the ladies and gentlemen FOX determined to ease this killers prosecution under hate crimes" statutes (themselves a grim God-playing" harbinger of an Orwellian world where thought shifts act into a different category of atrocity)? Or do these comely talking heads just not want to burn up their bull pen fighting against the MSM when theyre already ten runs down?
If the latter then something on the order of a mild conspiracy would be afoot; and dont rush too quickly into laughter as soon as someone utters the c" word. After all if conspiracies dont really exist then Christopher Steeles dossier is as good as gold and Robert Muellers team is Woodward and Bernstein. This would be a rather benevolent conspiracy in any case: Lets just concede the right-wing thing and move on. Local police departments arent cooperating and the optics of challenging Crusiuss KKK bona fides arent good."
Yet I very much fear that an even deeper conspiracy is possiblemuch deeper. Somewhat more marginal sources like The Washington Standard are muttering about it. I am reluctant to sign on without confirmation… but this is precisely the snag when you dont have a reliable Fourth Estate: who will provide confirmation? And then many of the red flags are thrown up by common sense. Query: why did Patrick Crusius drive 650 from his parents elite Dallas suburb (or his grandparents slightly less elite domicile) to wreak havoc in El Paso? Tony Elliott of WS remarks supposedly the shooter wanted to kill illegal aliens. If this were true why travel all the way from Dallas to El Paso when the goal could have been achieved in Dallas?" This is true. Maybe broadcast crews in the Beltway believe that you have to cross the Pecos to find a Mexican influence… but Ive visited Little Mexicos in the Metroplex where you can hardly buy bottled water at the Dollar Store if you have no Spanish. For that matter Crusius was attending Collin County Community College (and actually living with his grandparents while doing so). He could have strolled the broad halls of that institution and brought down scores of Latin victims without much fear of an immediate robust response from security.
So… why El Paso? Heres my own additional question: was Crusius looking for a quick escape route across the border? Did he expect accomplices to join him from Juarez and then spirit him away with them? Did accomplices in fact join him?
On that score Elliott writes further An eye witness on the scene reported seeing 4 men all dressed in black run into the store shooting." That makes sense. For how could the killing have been spread over such a broad areaparking lots a Wal-Mart a shopping mall? (Was Wal-Mart actually in the mall? No one would answer that of all the reporters scurrying around to gather feelings".) And why in such a crowded space on a Saturday morning right before the start of school did police need so long to respondunless they did respond instantly to multiple and confusing reports and… and two or more shooters got away. Elliott adds There is also Walmart video footage showing the suspect entering the store wearing fatigues however when he was apprehended from his car just moments later he was wearing khakis. He would not have had the time or even thought of changing his pants." Its been suggested to me that a clever psycho might have changed his look instantly to favor his escape… but that would be a very un-clever waste of time when authorities had not even obtained a rudimentary description.
Are investigative bodies giving us the full story or are decisions being made at high levels to suppress certain facts so as not to panic the public… or so as to favor a certain political partys spin? When our FBI is indubitably corrupt at the top can we afford to assume that the high command of any local law enforcement agency has remained untainted by politics? Was the Las Vegas investigation" of a much more sanguinary massacre not evidence to the contrary?
What are we to make of the fact that Crusiuss father Bryan Crusius is a psychotherapist who has actually raised money for a shooting victim over the past year and gives every superficial sign of profiling soft" on the Second Amendment? Is Patricks rampage then supposed to be a rebellion against his fathers values?
Is that the portrait of a white nationalist": a frustrated sociopathic boy who wants to stick it to Daddy? Is that the face of Trumps America? No… no better to keep the grieving father out of the news entirely. Hes suffered enough… and so on and so on.
Would anybody else like a little genuine clarification on these matters? Or do we just let political grandstanders seize upon the meme" of a punk in a MAGA hat as the crimes truth drains away to the universes dark gutter there to cool to absolute zero beside Fast-and-Furious and the Las Vegas massacre?
This is neither the time of week that I prefer to post at IC nor the beat that I feel comfortable covering… but I am frustrated beyond endurance over how Patrick Crusius has been projected from all mainstream quarters as a white supremacist" and a white nationalist" with FOX News repeatedly voicing its nolo contendere.
Crusius is white apparently: thats about where clarity begins to fade. (Is he also Jewish? His father at some point posted a YouTube video while standing in front of a Star of David… but we mustnt diminish the boys KKK credentials.) Beth Baumann confidently titling a piece on Sundays Townhall Tip Sheet Heres What We Know About the El Paso Shooter" manages to misspell Crusiuss name. En route to noting that El Pasoans are lining up to donate blood she uncritically reproduces the Associated Press capsulization of the lunatic manifesto: The document posted online expressed concern that an influx of Hispanics into the United States will replace aging white voters potentially turning Texas blue in elections and swinging the White House to the Democrats."
Many photos of the young killer are circulating on the Internet and a few social-media protests have insisted that these do not all belong to the same human being. That kind of reaction is overdone and Im trying to resist it myself… but with so little concrete evidence made available the scent of rat grows as strong around this story as over a Baltimore dumpster. Why couldnt Ms. Baumann have cited the actual document? I suppose the principled refusal to name a homicidal perpetrator or to publicize his lunatic screed is generally commendable; Ive now heard several high road" journalists proclaim with proudly lifted head that they are deliberately suppressing details in just such a surge of nobility. Yet when hit-and-run references to the facts leave too much truth bleeding in their wake then maybe its timeyesto look at the concrete evidence.
And the manifesto itself I find today has virtually disappeared from the Net; at least I dont have the time to dig it out from wherever its now holed up. Sebastian Gorka cited it helpfully in a piece on his personal websitebut his link to a copy on Twitter has (surprise!) gone inactive. Dr. Gorka sweeping all virtuous contempt of detail aside makes this desperately necessary point: this killer supports some of the most openly socialist policies in American political discourse today including universal income socialized medicine and a belief in global warming. Yet according to the media he is somehow just another far-right shooter who has been motivated by President Trump."
Gorka concludes that the mainstream medias determination to promote a one-sided narrative which runs directly contrary to the truth and the facts is playing into his Crusiuss hands and fulfilling his sick predictions. That is the Truth and the Truth is what matters above all else." Accepting Crusius as an angry homicidal Klansman and then smoothly pivoting to insist that we monitor the mentally ill more effectively is advocacy in a way (looking at you FOX). It just isnt basic journalism any more than CNNs chorus of Delendus est Trump harpies.
For like Dr. Gorka I actually saw substantial portions of the manifesto before our Fourth Estate denied it the glory" of being publicly available. The version of it prepped and staged for the cameras ignores a mountain of contradictory and disturbing evidence. Crusius is not a Klansman. His shoddily connected and admittedly featherweight manifesto indeed deplores the volume of illegal immigrants pouring into the country; but it also insists that people of many races reside here legally and have every right to remain here. The statements concern over illegal border crossings appears to stand in conjunction with a concern about the planets imminent demise due to climate change and also to an anxiety that a guaranteed minimum income cannot become the law of the land if too many Johnny-come-latelys climb on board. Your standard white supremacist carrying torch and pitchfork isnt an exponent of the Green New Deal and doesnt believe that Uncle Sam should cut paychecks to every citizen who has a pulse.
On Sunday night the virtuous commentators on Steve Hiltons New Revolution were sighing So the Left says Hes one of yours and the Right says Hes one of yours… but the important issues arent being discussed behind all this bickering." Excuse me: this is a crucially important issueand FOXs coverage is itself part of the issue. Shifting the discussion to mental health the dissolution of the family video games or somewhere else while a useful inquiry to pursue down the road brushes aside the downright eagerness on the part of all mainstream media (including the conservative impersonators in question) to embrace a very precipitate and arguable packaging of Crusius as a rightist wacko.
The manifestoat which we are not to look too closely because to do so only gives a sick mind its coveted day in the sunenvisions an American confederacy" whose separate states will be designated one by one for separate races. The word confederacy" is said to be a clincher: think Stars and Bars and plumed gray hats. May we shake off the Hollywood-level word-associations long enough however to notice that this scheme isnt remotely nationalist or even strictly racist? In fact it would fragment the nation (there at least it echoes the Confederate cause that moved the nationalist Union to arms). Furthermore the allotment of different territories to different races expresses no intent of giving lesser" races poorer land or otherwise elbowing them to the back of the bus. On the contrary: the scheme directly reflects such campus Identity Politics programming as recently inspired students at Evergreen State College for instance to ban white students from the institutions grounds for a day.
At least one private observer on Parler has published his suspicion that the document was engineered to broadcast what a 21-year-old nincompoop might imagine to be right-wing viewsbut that the idiot ideologue cannot keep his own cherished fantasies from leaking into the creation. This is actually not an improbable explanation. Yet whether its true or not the views that Crusius claims to hold do not qualify as white supremacist" white nationalist" or nationalist". And I should like to know why we are to accept their qualification as an exemplar of all such views as a starting point? Are the ladies and gentlemen FOX determined to ease this killers prosecution under hate crimes" statutes (themselves a grim God-playing" harbinger of an Orwellian world where thought shifts act into a different category of atrocity)? Or do these comely talking heads just not want to burn up their bull pen fighting against the MSM when theyre already ten runs down?
If the latter then something on the order of a mild conspiracy would be afoot; and dont rush too quickly into laughter as soon as someone utters the c" word. After all if conspiracies dont really exist then Christopher Steeles dossier is as good as gold and Robert Muellers team is Woodward and Bernstein. This would be a rather benevolent conspiracy in any case: Lets just concede the right-wing thing and move on. Local police departments arent cooperating and the optics of challenging Crusiuss KKK bona fides arent good."
Yet I very much fear that an even deeper conspiracy is possiblemuch deeper. Somewhat more marginal sources like The Washington Standard are muttering about it. I am reluctant to sign on without confirmation… but this is precisely the snag when you dont have a reliable Fourth Estate: who will provide confirmation? And then many of the red flags are thrown up by common sense. Query: why did Patrick Crusius drive 650 from his parents elite Dallas suburb (or his grandparents slightly less elite domicile) to wreak havoc in El Paso? Tony Elliott of WS remarks supposedly the shooter wanted to kill illegal aliens. If this were true why travel all the way from Dallas to El Paso when the goal could have been achieved in Dallas?" This is true. Maybe broadcast crews in the Beltway believe that you have to cross the Pecos to find a Mexican influence… but Ive visited Little Mexicos in the Metroplex where you can hardly buy bottled water at the Dollar Store if you have no Spanish. For that matter Crusius was attending Collin County Community College (and actually living with his grandparents while doing so). He could have strolled the broad halls of that institution and brought down scores of Latin victims without much fear of an immediate robust response from security.
So… why El Paso? Heres my own additional question: was Crusius looking for a quick escape route across the border? Did he expect accomplices to join him from Juarez and then spirit him away with them? Did accomplices in fact join him?
On that score Elliott writes further An eye witness on the scene reported seeing 4 men all dressed in black run into the store shooting." That makes sense. For how could the killing have been spread over such a broad areaparking lots a Wal-Mart a shopping mall? (Was Wal-Mart actually in the mall? No one would answer that of all the reporters scurrying around to gather feelings".) And why in such a crowded space on a Saturday morning right before the start of school did police need so long to respondunless they did respond instantly to multiple and confusing reports and… and two or more shooters got away. Elliott adds There is also Walmart video footage showing the suspect entering the store wearing fatigues however when he was apprehended from his car just moments later he was wearing khakis. He would not have had the time or even thought of changing his pants." Its been suggested to me that a clever psycho might have changed his look instantly to favor his escape… but that would be a very un-clever waste of time when authorities had not even obtained a rudimentary description.
Are investigative bodies giving us the full story or are decisions being made at high levels to suppress certain facts so as not to panic the public… or so as to favor a certain political partys spin? When our FBI is indubitably corrupt at the top can we afford to assume that the high command of any local law enforcement agency has remained untainted by politics? Was the Las Vegas investigation" of a much more sanguinary massacre not evidence to the contrary?
What are we to make of the fact that Crusiuss father Bryan Crusius is a psychotherapist who has actually raised money for a shooting victim over the past year and gives every superficial sign of profiling soft" on the Second Amendment? Is Patricks rampage then supposed to be a rebellion against his fathers values?
Is that the portrait of a white nationalist": a frustrated sociopathic boy who wants to stick it to Daddy? Is that the face of Trumps America? No… no better to keep the grieving father out of the news entirely. Hes suffered enough… and so on and so on.
Would anybody else like a little genuine clarification on these matters? Or do we just let political grandstanders seize upon the meme" of a punk in a MAGA hat as the crimes truth drains away to the universes dark gutter there to cool to absolute zero beside Fast-and-Furious and the Las Vegas massacre?