It's Not Terror If An Old White Guy Does It

Just because it's the worst (nonmilitary or state-sanctioned) gun massacre in modern American history, and thousands of people were terrified by it, doesn't mean you get to call it a terror attack.

A quick Google search of headlines on the Las Vegas atrocity reveals that media outlets are mostly going with "mass shooting" to describe the carnage. Not only was the gunman apparently not a Muslim or an ISIS sympathizer. He was an older white professional with no criminal record who lived in a $400,000 house. Talk about an atrocity not being media-ready, or especially Trump-ready! The most that the bombastic president could glumly tweet out was hs "deepest condolences" minus the usual dog-whistling outrage at which he is so adept.

There was no way CNN could cue the canned Doomsday soundtrack for this one, and absolutely no way that weapons manufacturers could immediately book and run the usual ads which both fund and ramp up the War On Terror. National security actors were left twiddling their thumbs by the phone. For one thing, the shooter himself was at one point in his life an auditor for the mega-weapons, fighter jet, bomb and drone manufacturer Lockheed Martin. Talk about not fitting the standard narrative!

So all CNN could come up with as of this morning was Suspect Killed 50+ People and Had 10 Rifles.

NBC was similarly bland, but went even further and put its own headline in the passive mood: More Than 50 Killed and 406 Hurt Near Mandalay Bay. They did not mention that concert-goers were "terrified" until the second paragraph. The suspect is not an assassin, he is a "gunman."

CBS managed to bypass human agency entirely in its headline: Las Vegas Shooting Leaves At Least 50 Dead.

It's not until the second page of the morning's Google results that we venture across the pond and get the name of the domestic terrorist right in the headline. The BBC bluntly announces: Las Vegas Shooting: Steven Paddock Kills Over 50 People.

But wait, stop the presses! The Independent, also based in the UK, announced that Isis was claiming responsibility after all!* Adjust the Google algorithm, pronto, as the corporate media outlets cue the Doomsday soundtracks and enlarge the headline fonts to full capacity for the global terrorized viewing pleasure of millions.

If this claim of Isis involvement is true, watch as Paddock magically metamorphose from a respectable guy who just "snapped" to a stark raving mad evil jihadist in the space of a minute.

Celebrities and politicians will adjust their own settings and change the tune of their Tweets asap, vying for the chance to be first to blame it all on either Trump (if they're Democrats) or the vast Muslim conspiracy (if they're Republicans) to supplement the hash-tagged thoughts and prayers to the victims of the inevitable #VegasStrong.

As ever, all talk of gun control legislation has been declared "too soon" out of solemn respect for the dead. If they couldn't get it done after the Sandy Hook massacre, they certainly won't get in done for a few hundred country music fans. What happened in Vegas will, sadly, probably stay in Vegas.

Of course, when a right-wing white supremacist congressman named Steve Scalise is the victim of a would-be assassin, the media will fawn all over him and his miraculous, well-insured recovery, while he solemnly hopes that his shining courageous example will break the "gridlock" and inspire a whole new wave of bipartisanship. (as in tax cuts for the wealthy, and social program-slashing for the rest of us.)

Country music star Jason Aldean, one of the Vegas performers, was certainly right when he observed that "this world is sick."

*Update: The FBI said there is no evidence of Isis involvement in the Vegas terror attack. So let our rulers put this terrible tragedy behind us as they get on with the important work of terrorizing the public with the narrative of Russian meddling in American politics, a/k/a the war on democracy itself. The Kremlin agitprop on Facebook has gotten so bad that even Fido isn't safe.

Be properly afraid and patriotically believe everything the "intelligence community" tells you through its Mighty Wurlitzer house organs, the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Hillary's Hideous Honesty

 You can take the woman out of the authoritarian New York Times, but you can't take the authoritarian New York Times out of the woman.

Jill Abramson, the first female executive editor ever to be hired and fired by the Paper of Record, has a new gig writing a bi-weekly column on politics for the centrist Guardian. That is neoliberal code for writing a bi-weekly press release for Hillary Clinton.

In Monday's offering, Abramson touts Hillary's "shocking honesty". Clinton's problem is not corruption, Abramson claims. Her problem is a lack of transparency about her own innate decency. Plus, Hillary is a victim of sexism. Jill should know. 

Meanwhile, the smarmy Hillaphilia practically jumps off the page at you:

The yardsticks I use for measuring a politician’s honesty are pretty simple. Ever since I was an investigative reporter covering the nexus of money and politics, I’ve looked for connections between money (including campaign donations, loans, Super Pac funds, speaking fees, foundation ties) and official actions. I’m on the lookout for lies, scrutinizing statements candidates make in the heat of an election.

The connection between money and action is often fuzzy. Many investigative articles about Clinton end up “raising serious questions” about “potential” conflicts of interest or lapses in her judgment. Of course, she should be held accountable. It was bad judgment, as she has said, to use a private email server. It was colossally stupid to take those hefty speaking fees, but not corrupt. There are no instances I know of where Clinton was doing the bidding of a donor or benefactor.

See my previous post about a quid pro quo not being a necessity for influence peddling and corruption to occur. Jill Abramson has obviously never delved into Zephyr Teachout's masterful Corruption in America.

But just for the sake of honesty, let's take Abramson at her word. Although she doesn't use it as an example, Hillary's painful honesty about endemic American corruption and brutality shines through loud and clear in the following State Department cable, released by Wikileaks in December 2009:

"Saudia Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaeda, the Taliban, LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan and other support groups." -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who then went on to complain that the Saudis only act against terrorists when their own country is threatened. 

Whereupon she wasted no time in completing the sale of billions of dollars' worth of lethal weapons to Saudi Arabia, which has since openly and honestly used  them them to slaughter innocent civilians in the United States' proxy war against Yemen. Whether any arms were also spirited by the Saudis to such fundamentalist terror groups as ISIS is still unknown.

Hillary's deal with the Saudis was not a secret backroom accomplishment by any stretch of the imagination. It was totally, boastfully transparent.  Although both Hillary and her boss, Obama, were safely out of town enjoying the winter holidays while the actual papers were being signed, her Neocon minion Victoria Nuland held a totally open and honest press briefing about the sale. During one foggy Christmas Week, Santa and a whole retinue of his right jolly old elves came to Foggy Bottom to have their say.

The bureaucrats doing the honors, and the reporters basking in the honors, sounded absolutely merry and giddy. Whether they were drunk on booze or whether they were simply drunk on power/access to power is anyone's guess. From the transcript: 

NULAND: Good afternoon, everybody. Before we do our regular daily briefing, we have a special briefing today on U.S. arms sales to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. With us today, we have Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro, and we have Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy James Miller.

So without further ado, Assistant Secretary Shapiro.

QUESTION: Can we attribute the on-time nature of this briefing to the fact that someone from the Pentagon is here? (Laughter.)

MS. NULAND: Absolutely. We have military discipline – (laughter).

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SHAPIRO: Well, thank you everyone for coming this afternoon. And as Toria mentioned, I’m joined by Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Dr. Jim Miller.

As you may recall, in October 2010, I officially announced the Administration’s plan to sell to Saudi Arabia a significant defense package that would include advanced F-15 fighter aircraft and helicopters. We are pleased to announce that over this past weekend, the United States and Saudi Arabia signed a letter of offer and acceptance for the sale of up to 84 advanced F-15SA fighter aircraft. It also includes upgrades to its current fleet of 70 F-15 aircraft, as well as munitions, spare parts, training, maintenance, and logistics.

This sale is worth $29.4 billion. These F-15SA aircraft, manufactured by the Boeing company, will be among the most sophisticated and capable aircraft in the world. This agreement serves to reinforce the strong and enduring relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia. It demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a strong Saudi defense capability as a key component to regional security.

Miller went on to claim that the sale would "advance U.S. interests" (read: bloat the obscene profits of Boeing, chief beneficiary of the Export-Import Bank boosted by Clinton and decried by her rival Bernie Sanders.)

 It would, Miller continued, "send a strong message to countries in the region that the United States is committed to stability in the Gulf and the broader Middle East." (read: better watch out, Yemeni wedding parties and Doctors Without Borders hospitals and mothers and children who have the nerve to exist in the buffer zone between the Saudis and countries like Syria and Iraq and Iran and Libya.)

Although he glossed over Hillary's brutally honest, yet secret, assessment that Saudi Arabia is the major financier of terror in that region, Miller himself was brutally honest in admitting that the arms sale was all about the brutal greed of everybody concerned:

 It will enhance Saudi Arabia’s ability to deter and defend against external threats to its sovereignty. It will advance interoperability between the air forces of our two countries through joint training and exercises. And lastly, this agreement will positively impact the U.S. economy and further advance the President’s commitment to create jobs by increasing exports. According to industry experts, this agreement will support more than 50,000 American jobs. It will engage 600 suppliers in 44 states and provide $3.5 billion in annual economic impact to the U.S. economy. This will support jobs not only in the aerospace sector but also in our manufacturing base and support chain, which are all crucial for sustaining our national defense.

War is only hell for the grunts who get killed and maimed fighting it. It is pure heaven for the tax-exempt "job creators" and investors who make tons of money from megatons of death and destruction every single minute of every single day. 

And in Hillaryland, every day is Christmas.

In the spirit of sincere honesty preceding her run for the presidency, husband Bill forthrightly admitted that Saudi bigwigs had returned the favoritism and gifted the Clinton Foundation with millions of dollars in "charitable" donations. The Clintons have transparently decided to keep the money from an aider and abettor of terrorism just because they are so above-board and deserving of our trust.

Ethics? They don't need any stinking ethics when they are absolutely shameless in their honesty.

Those Other Terrorists

While the professional purveyors of paranoia are raking in the bucks and salivating over the Belgium terrorist attack and bitching about the president's failure to properly render his thoughts, prayers and revenge, Those Other Terrorists have received a silent slap on the wrist.

If outrage has not ensued, it is because Those Other Terrorists are American troops. And as we all know, America does not do terror. It only fights terror.

The American terrorism that shall not be named is of the state-sponsored variety. I am talking about the dozen or so unnamed pilots and military bureaucrats who unleashed a brutal wave of destruction last fall against a charity hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. Although they terrorized, killed and injured scores of innocent people, they won't be facing any criminal charges, civil charges, or be faced with military courts martial.  They are receiving little to no TV coverage. They have only been given administrative letters of reprimand which will, the Pentagon boasts, severely endanger their future chances for promotion through the ranks. Their individual roles in the Kunduz terror attack will merely be appended as a blot on their permanent records.

Their careers might be stalled, but their lives will go on. They will continue to get their paychecks. They won't be demoted. If they fly, their pilots' licenses won't be revoked. They were only following orders. Mistakes were made. They will be shielded from accountability,because that is what American Exceptionalism is all about.

A full six months after the air attack that killed 42 and injured 37 at the Médecins Sans Frontières hospital, the new commander of U.S, and NATO forces finally visited the site of the devastation to personally express his condolences.

 As commander, I wanted to come to Kunduz personally and stand before the families, and people of Kunduz, to deeply apologize for the events which destroyed the hospital and caused the deaths of the hospital staff, patients and family members,” said General John W. Nicholson. “I grieve with you for your loss and suffering; and humbly and respectfully ask for your forgiveness.”

This apology is the latest official statement about the "tragedy" in which victims were decapitated, disemboweled, dismembered, and literally incinerated in their beds. First, American officials insisted they didn't know they were attacking a hospital. Then they claimed that American troops were being attacked in the vicinity of the hospital. Then they changed their story again, asserting that Afghan troops had lied to them about the hospital being used as a headquarters for the Taliban, and that it was the Afghans who'd requested the bombardment.

Nicholson was accompanied in his visit to Kunduz by his wife, security analyst Norine MacDonald, who reportedly met with some survivors for about five minutes.  Her husband issued his formal apology in a closed session with Afghan officials, and did not meet personally with victims' families to ask their forgiveness. As the New York Times reports, the people were not placated:

They hit us six months ago and are apologizing now?” said Zabiullah Niazi, an operating room nurse at the hospital who lost an eye, a finger and the ability to use one hand. He also suffered other wounds. “The head of the provincial council and other officials who said we accept the apology, they wouldn’t have said it if they had lost their own son and eaten ashes, as we did.”

Mr. Niazi said about 18 male members of victims’ families and two survivors had been called to the governor’s office for a meeting with General Nicholson. But the general himself did not show up, instead making a speech in a packed auditorium where family members and survivors did not get a chance to speak.

MSF still maintains that the attack was deliberate and has demanded an independent war crimes inquiry. A final "report" on the terrorist attack by the American military will be issued soon... by the Pentagon itself. Names will be redacted, reputations saved, crocodile tears shed. Call it the Bush Trickle-Down Method for the Protection of War Criminals. If President Obama can blithely admit that "we tortured some folks" and then call the torturers patriots, then he and the brass can blithely excuse anything. Even the deliberate bombing of a hospital.

Meanwhile, the media-political complex wants all you citizens to perform your patriotic duty of staying very afraid of the Terrorists Over There. And while you're shivering and shaking over the All Terrorism All the Time show, they want you to join them in sanctimoniously condemning the awful Trumpian Islamophobia which they also broadcast for great profit at Donald's Fight Club political rallies. Because as you should all know by now, that is not Who We Are.

America is better than that.

* Update: Neil deMeuse has other examples of how not all terrorist deaths are treated equally. The mainstream media devoted little attention to a very similar attack by a Kurdish group in Ankara,Turkey a few weeks ago, which actually killed and injured more people than the one in Belgium. Of course, one attack killed mainly Western Europeans and the other killed Eastern Europeans and Asians (including, as in Kunduz, people of the Muslim faith.)  The disparity between coverage of the Brussels and Ankara bombings parallels that of the disparity between the other similar attacks in Paris and Beirut.

The coverage of the Belgian atrocity is so wall-to-wall that it
 even included a story in the New York Times about all the Starbucks restaurants closing down in Brussels. DeMeuse observes

The usual defense of US outlets that offer lesser coverage of deaths in other parts of the world cites readers’ and viewers’ increased interest when Americans are somehow involved — at its most base, the principle expressed in McLurg’s Law that a death in one’s home country is worth 1,000 deaths on the other side of the world. (This was on full display in the Chicago Tribune’s lead story on the Brussels bombings, which was headlined “Brussels Attacks: 3rd Bomb Found; Americans Hurt.”) But while US citizens were injured in Brussels — three Mormon missionaries caught in the airport blast received widespread coverage, including in USA Today (3/22/16) and on CBSNews.com (3/22/16) and NBCNews.com (3/22/16) — and none in Ankara, another Turkish bombing this month did have American casualties: Two Israeli-Americans, Yonathan Suher and Avraham Goldman, were killed along with two others in an ISIS suicide bombing in Istanbul on March 20. Their deaths earned brief stories in the New York Times (3/19/16) and Bloomberg News (3/19/16), but no mention elsewhere in the US news media.

He added that coverage of terrorism depends on what region of the world is terrorized. If you reside in a Muslim area, for example, bombings are just shit that you expect to happen. But in the West, terrorism is considered so outside the norm that it merits the wall to wall coverage. This is despite the fact that the United States has more gun deaths than any other "civilized" nation on earth. When it comes to terror, killings perpetrated by "insiders" are less interesting to the media than killings committed by The Other. 

Goodbye, Middle Class. Hello, Fear

In 1971, two-thirds of Americans lived in middle class households. Today, only half do. And their numbers keep dwindling.

Until very recently the vast majority of US citizens, no matter how unemployed, underemployed, and struggling they were, still considered themselves a part of the middle class. That fantasy is rapidly losing the magic perpetuated by political propaganda. Cold, hard reality is finally beginning to set in. More and more of us are willing to admit that not only are we dirt-poor, we are getting nowhere fast. 

In the same week that the Pew Research Center issued its stunning report chronicling the death of the middle class comes a new New York Times/CBS poll revealing that those refugees from the middle class are scared to death...of another terrorist attack. It is so much easier to be fearful of the Enemy Outside than of the Enemy Within, especially when the telephoning pollsters limit the questions to ISIS terrorism, and ignore economic terrorism. It is so much easier to turn to billionaire success story Donald Trump after watching nonstop doomsday terror coverage on CNN than it is to vainly scour the mainstream news for information on the sane, liberal solutions of Bernie Sanders. It's so much easier to blame "those Muslims" and "those illegals" for our woes than it is to blame the predatory plutocrats hiding in their boardrooms and their gated communities.

The poll also shows that attitudes toward gun control are shifting. "Only 44 percent of Americans favor a ban on assault weapons, 19 percentage points lower than after the mass shooting in Tucson in 2011," reports the Times. "And while 51 percent favor stricter gun control in general, that is down from 58 percent in October."

The harder and faster we fall from the middle class, the more weaponized we seem to get.

****

In his "Empowering the Ugliness" column today, Paul Krugman explores the similarities and differences between the rise of right-wing extremism in Europe (LePen) and the United States (Trump and the GOP). The European elites, he writes, have tried to freeze out the Right, while here in the U.S. the Right is embraced by the elites. He traces the American roots of extremism to Nixon's Southern Strategy, which is correct insofar as it goes.

 But then Krugman goes on to timidly tiptoe around the neoliberal mantra of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, avoiding how their project spawned decades of unfettered capitalism, and how it morphed into Clintonism, Bushism, and Obamaism. Austerity dictated by financialized capitalism has intensified, if not created, Western xenophobia. Maybe it's because neoliberalism has always been a bipartisan (deregulation, corporate coups known as "free trade") thing in this country, and Krugman must limit himself to searching across the pond and shooting GOP fish in a barrel during election season. He writes, "Even admirers and supporters of the European project (like me) have to admit that it has never had deep popular support or a lot of democratic legitimacy. It is, instead, an elite project sold largely on the claim that there is no alternative, (my bold) that it is the path of wisdom."

(Well, at least he smarmily admits that he admires neoliberal elitism.)

My published response: 

"There is no alternative" (TINA) was actually said by Margaret Thatcher as she and Reagan launched their global Neoliberal Project in the 80s. This project is governance of, by, and for high finance. When turbo-charged capital driven by a small group of plutocrats is allowed to speed across borders without any brakes, humanity and public institutions are left crushed and gasping in its wake.

Clinton and Blair added the sweetness of "social responsibility" to the free trade gas. Bush's wars of aggression and tax cuts for the rich were the toxic additives.

Trump, consummate entertainer and manipulator that he is, is TINA's end-product. Forsaking the dog whistle, he belches out the xenophobia that's been churning in the American gut for decades, if not centuries The only shocking thing about the Donald Trump Experience is that the elites of the media/political/military complex are shocked by it at all. After all, they created this monster.

Besides the Trump ugliness, there's the ugliness of what the Pope aptly calls a piecemeal World War III. There's the whitewash of the US bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital, and the cover-ups of racist police murders in Chicago and elsewhere. There's paranoid spying on citizens, mass incarceration, and an epidemic of gun violence. Wealth inequality spawned by TINA has reached such grotesque proportions that the middle class is no longer the majority.

It's ugly and it's cold and it's cruel out here. So let's Feel the Bern.