Tag Archives: New Zealand massacre

national news

Study shows hate crime spike

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How are we supposed to interpret this study?

Get a load of this: A University of North Texas analysis has disclosed that hate crimes increased 226 percent in those counties where Donald Trump staged political rallies during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Huh? But . . . wait! Don’t the Trump allies say there’s no relationship between the president and the reported resurgence of white supremacist hate groups?

Hmm. Well, I don’t know about that.

The study was done by Ayal Feinberg, a political science doctoral student at UNT, along with Regina Branton and Valerie Martinez-Ebers, two UNT political science professors.

They contend that the study reveals that the spike occurred in the months immediately after Trump held those rallies while he was campaigning for president of the United States.

According to The Hill newspaper: “They said their research sought to explain how some of Trump’s rhetoric ‘may encourage hate crimes.'”

How do you dismiss the findings, that such hate crimes spiked 226 percent in those counties were Trump fired ’em up with his red-hot rhetoric?

It’s difficult to separate the findings from the president’s speech.

The Hill’s story explains how the researchers collected their data. Read it here.

I have resisted suggesting that Trump’s rhetoric was directly responsible for horrific acts, such as — for example — the Christchurch, New Zealand, massacre of 50 people at two mosques the other day. The white supremacist/moron arrested, though, reportedly had been inspired by something Trump had said.

And, yes, the president did equate neo-Nazis, Klansmen and white supremacists with counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 by referring to “very fine people on both sides” participating in that deadly riot.

This is the individual who serves as president of the Land of Opportunity.

Oh . . . my.

International news

New Zealand PM acts swiftly, decisively and with passion

National sovereignty is a wonderful thing. It gives nations the ability to enact laws on their own without regard to how other nations handle crises.

Such is the case in New Zealand, where Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has just announced a nationwide ban on all assault weapons and a stiffening of penalties for those who break the law regarding firearms possession. The country’s parliament needs to sign off.

Can you hear the grumbling now from here? From the United States of America? Where this kind of swift governmental action regarding firearms is unthinkable?

Ardern’s action is in response to the massacre of 50 people who were gunned down in two Christchurch mosques. A suspect is in custody; he purports to be a white nationalist who detests immigrants.

How does this apply to the discussion of gun violence in this country? Well, we have this Constitution here that guarantees in its Second Amendment the right of citizens to “keep and bear arms.” Our system of government precludes the kind of ultra-rapid response that Prime Minister Ardern has demonstrated.

For the record — once again! — I want to stipulate that I do not want the Second Amendment repealed in this country. I favor it in principle. I believe in the concept of firearm ownership. I have a couple of weapons myself.

That all said, I also believe there are ways to legislate improvements to the Second Amendment that protect the rights of citizens to own guns while increasing the standards for those who want to purchase them. In other words, I favor universal background checks.

I also believe we need to regulate gun shows to ensure that firearms purchased at these events are channeled into the hands of those who deserve to own them.

Our Constitution and our form of government are vastly different from much — if not most — of the rest of the world. Thus, I have no intention of seeking to foist a New Zealand-style response to this tragedy on the United States.

We just need in this country to seek some common ground on this most knotty issue of gun ownership, gun violence and the carnage that keeps erupting.

The slaughter of those worshipers in New Zealand has gotten the world’s attention. It also grabbed that country’s leaders by the throat and created a climate that seeks an immediate remedy.

If only we could get that kind of swift action in the United States of America.

International news

Yes, keep the gunman ‘nameless’

Jacinda Ardern is a woman after my own heart.

The prime minister of New Zealand, a nation reeling from the slaughter of 50 worshipers at two Christchurch mosques, has pledged never to mention the name of the suspect arrested in the tragedy.

Why? Because, according to Prime Minister Ardern, he wants notoriety. She doesn’t intend to give it to him.

I am following her lead. Indeed, this blog hasn’t published the names of several mass murderers over several years for precisely the reason that Ardern has laid out. I don’t want to give these individuals any more publicity than they are getting already.

Keep their names out of print

Indeed, merely writing about the events they perpetrate does serve some nefarious purpose for them. They get publicity merely with the mention of the act.

As for publishing their names, I won’t do it.

Yes, I know that we all remember the names of noted assassins: Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan, James Earl Ray all come to mind. And . . . yes,  I have posted the name of the guy who blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in April 1995, killing 168 people.

That was then. I have turned the name ID corner as it regards these monsters.

To that extent I totally endorse Prime Minister Ardern’s decision to keep the name of the mass murderer to herself.

Donald Trump

Trump ‘is not a white supremacist’

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Donald Trump deserves criticism for his tepid response to incidents involving white racists, bigots, nationalists, supremacists.

I am going to agree with acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, though, when he defends the president by saying he “is not a white supremacist.”

Mulvaney made a talk-show appearance Sunday in which he defended the president’s speeches calling for religious liberty and individual liberty. He said also that Trump does not subscribe to the white supremacy doctrine.

I believe Mulvaney.

My wish is for the president to declare categorically, unequivocally and without an ounce of reservation that acts such as the horrific massacre in New Zealand the other day must be condemned with full-throated passion.

Trump doesn’t do that. He is unable or perhaps unwilling to speak to Americans about the evil of such acts. The president hasn’t yet found it within himself to declare open warfare against those who hate other human beings on racial, ethnic or religious grounds.

I want the president to say those things. He needs to speak to us candidly, frankly and with passion.

I do not believe he is a white supremacist, as Mulvaney has declared. However, he needs to demonstrate his willingness to condemn the actions of those groups that have cheered his election as president of the United States.

national news

Trump emboldens racists, bigots?

“The president uses language often that’s very similar to the language used by these bigots and racists.”

That statement comes from someone who’s got a bone or two to pick with Donald Trump. His name is Tim Kaine, the Virginia Democratic U.S. senator who got beat running with Hillary Rodham Clinton on the 2016 presidential ticket. Kaine was Clinton’s VP running mate, so you can expect him to think little of the guy who defeated them.

Except that he is correct. Kaine’s comment comes in this period immediately after the massacre of 50 people who were worshiping in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

I am not going to “blame” the president directly for the carnage that erupted in New Zealand. It is instructive to acknowledge that Trump’s language has emboldened individuals and groups around the world. These would be the white nationalists, white supremacists, racists, bigots and haters.

We must not ignore the statements of people such as former Ku Klux Klan lizard/wizard David Duke who famously said that he considered Trump’s election as president to be a blessing.

The Charlottesville, Va., riot in 2017 that erupted when KKK members, Nazis and white nationalists protested the taking down of a Confederate statue provides another example. The demonstration produced a counter protest and a women was killed in the ensuing riot when a white nationalist allegedly ran her down with his car.

Trump’s response was to say there were “fine people . . . on both sides!” Yes, on “both sides.” He placed the haters on the same moral plain as those who were protesting them. Disgusting.

One of the gunmen who allegedly opened fire in Christchurch is a white supremacist who reportedly drew inspiration from the rhetoric he has heard from Trump and others in this country and around the world.

To blame Donald Trump directly for causing the tragedy that was unleashed Down Under would suggest that Trump makes his angry statements intending to create such misery. I do not believe that’s the case.

It is not a stretch to suggest that the president needs to acknowledge that his rhetoric has contributed to the toxicity that exists around the world.

International news

Why not call white supremacists ‘terrorists,’ Mr. President?

Hey, Mr. President . . . didn’t you lambaste your predecessor in the White House for declining to use the term “Islamic terrorist” while talking about the nation’s war against international terrorism?

You made a decent point back then, Mr. President. I actually backed you on that one.

Why, though, are you so reluctant to (a) recognize that white supremacist acts of terrorism are on the rise and (b) call it what it is, an act of terrorism?

You offered that tepid, timid and frankly cowardly response the other day to the reporter’s question about the slaughter in New Zealand and whether it represents an increase in white nationalism/supremacy around the world.

Mr. President, acts such as what was perpetrated at those two mosques in Christchurch weren’t simply a result of a “small group” of people with “serious problems.” They seem to symbolize a much broader epidemic that is spreading around the world.

Haven’t you read the papers, Mr. President? These incidents are increasing in Europe, in Australia, oh, and in the United States!

Yet you maintain your virtual silence on this crisis, Mr. President.

You wouldn’t tolerate Barack Obama’s reluctance to use the term “Islamic terrorist” in referencing the fight against the monsters who seek to do us harm. Why should we tolerate your own refusal to refer to white nationalists and white supremacists as terrorists when they seek to do the very same thing?

Count me as an American who wants to call you out for your reluctance to “tell it like it is.” These a**holes are committing acts of terror and you need to call them what they are: terrorists.

International news

World tries to digest the New Zealand massacre

As the worldwide shock starts to sink in regarding the slaughter of 49 worshipers at two Christchurch, New Zealand mosques, many of us are wondering: How does this kind of thing happen in a country known to be one of the more peaceful places on Earth?

Who’s to blame? I guess the early nod goes to the Internet, the purveyor of all kinds of emotional messaging. And that includes hate of the most evil variety, hate that manifests itself in unspeakable violance.

One of the suspects charge with the massacre of Muslims is a known white nationalist from Australia. He had channeled some of the rhetoric — allegedly — that he heard from Americans. He reportedly is fervently anti-immigrant.

So what does he do? He travels to New Zealand and along with two accomplices takes his rage out on people who were praying to God.

Terrorists collect ammo to fuel their hatred from all manner of sources. It appears the Internet has been available to the individuals responsible for this hideous spasm of violence.

I am not going to say we should eliminate the Internet. Nor am I going to suggest that everyone on Earth boycott it.

I merely am expressing one individual’s sense of agony at the plethora of hatred that travels like lightning around the world and ends up infecting what passes for the hearts of individuals like those who perpetrated this monstrous act.

Donald Trump said today he doesn’t believe the world is witnessing an increase in white nationalism/supremacy. The president is mistaken. Or he is deliberately misconstruing what the evidence is producing.

I believe reports that suggest a 17 percent spike in hate crimes over the past couple of years. As we have witnessed in the past 24 hours, the Internet — that worldwide communication platform — is potentially able to poison all communities.

Even those known to be peaceful places.

International news

Not a ‘small group,’ Mr. President

“I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems.” 

So said Donald Trump today in response to a reporter’s question about white nationalism and whether it’s a worldwide problem.

Mr. President, it is not merely a “small group” of people. It is a growing crisis around the world. The New Zealand massacre at the two mosques in Christchurch presents a symptom of what we’re witnessing.

White supremacists are getting bolder in Europe. We see more of it in Latin America. Make no mistake, there has been a serious increase of white nationalist attacks in the United States of America.

I won’t belabor the reason for the increase in this country. We’ve trod down that path before in this forum and elsewhere. I just have to challenge the president’s assertion that it is not a “rising problem,” that the surge in such terror attacks are the work of a “small group of people” with “serious problems.”

Trump is correct to call it a “terrible thing, a terrible thing.”

Yes it is, Mr. President.

The crisis, though, is worse than you would have us believe. As the leader of the United States, the president needs to step up and lead the chorus against the scourge of race- and faith-based hatred.

International news

That’s why they’re called ‘terrorists’

To be terrorized means that acts of blind hatred can strike anyone, anywhere and in any context.

Such horror has erupted again in what I consider to be a most terribly ironic location.

Gunmen believed to be white supremacists opened fire in two mosques, killing 49 Muslims, in — get ready for it! — Christchurch, New Zealand.

Forty-nine people are dead. Why? Because the people who killed them hate immigrants. They despise non-Christians. They took their vengeance out on people in their houses of worship. Three suspects — two men and a woman — are in custody.

What in the world does one make of this latest spasm of utterly senseless violence? I am shaking my head in mourning and grief this morning as I seek to make sense of something that makes no sense at all.

Expressions of sorrow are pouring into the country from around the world. Donald Trump extended his sympathy and support for New Zealand as it seeks answers to what its leaders call the worst such event in the nation’s history.

The president spoke for his country. Indeed, it is impossible to grasp fully the mayhem that has exploded in a country long believed to among the most peaceful places on Earth.

Terrorists and the acts they commit against unsuspecting victims are, by definition, cowards of the first order.

The world’s heart is broken today.