Blame Fox News

There is no question that Fox News plays a significant role in spreading misinformation and with that views from specific hosts that contribute to the rise of Anti Semitic and White Supremacist views. They lend their voice to the paranoid. And like Mass Shooters I have no desire to name the names of those who seem to truly be mouthpieces for hate. But they are only one part of the campaign to destroy Democracy.

The rise of the Internet and specifically Social Media is perhaps the biggest contribution to the lack of dialogue and ability to communicate effectively. It is part of the reason for the divisiveness and the tribal nature of our current state of mind. And with that our minds have become tools in which to serve either larger tech companies to fuel their Tesla’s with and line their wallets with the immense amount of data they have collected and use to sell you more shit, be that believes or actual shit. The other is by political leaders and their agenda in which to control the message. America is most at risk as their are few and far protections for this type of propaganda that lines the interwebs. Under the guise of free speech many platforms can be hijacked by any number of agents of mass destruction to weave a web of lies and misinformation. We have seen that repeatedly by both Russia and China but it has happened in many other countries where access to larger sites are not available so the back channels also are manipulated to enhance fear and spread discontent.

There are Web Sites, Blogs, Advertisements, Chats, all clickbait that are also equally tooled in which to confuse and mislead others. They thrive in what is often called the “dark web” but in reality they are right there in the light but Google and other search engines simply don’t boost those searches to the top of the food chain. When someone can find a White Supremacist meetup openly on Twitter they are not doing that great of a job to hide such info. The lack of ability to actually monitor all that shit on reddit, Twitter, etc is a massive task that is beyond the scope and scale of several individuals who speak every single language in which one speaks. They rely on users to do what they fail to do. But in the time that the info is up the damage is done. Technology is made to be addictive and we have a way bigger crisis than the opioid one with regards to this.

When Paul Pelosi was attacked out came the cry, Blame Fox! Yeah a homeless drifter has been watching cable news as the shelter. Really? The man was always on the fringes. but with a cell phone you have internet access to something way larger in scale and by far more dangerous. I have written about the educated and supposed sophisticated New Yorkers with college degrees and live in the Upper West Side and their dalliance with Q’Anon and trust me New York for all its grandiosity it is a very provincial town. Many never leave their neighborhoods and if so do so by cab or car service and frequent the same places daily. They are often clueless about their own city and where things are or what to do unless they have a review from the Times that has made it a must see/go. Then they all flock like sheep to it and head back to their overpriced apartments unless they are oldsters and have rent controlled ones. They are all to some degree the overrated Fran Lebowitz, she just became famous capitalizing on the Yenta persona. I have people here in Jersey City a 5 minute PATH ride or Ferry Ride into the City who don’t. Trust me people are tribal, they live in them and have little reason to venture into another one’s territory and that reason is FEAR. Fear of not knowing and the effort it takes to know. As long as people are AFRAID you can have some sort of conformity and compliance, it makes it easier to rule and keep order.

Much of the current state of paranoia or another type of “plague” is that of CRIME and the fear of being attacked, harmed, raped, murdered, robbed etc. The largest criminal activity most have ever experienced is a car break in or car theft, some other type of small scale robbery taking something that was left out or visible, like package theft; however, in most cases there is no actual VICTIM. Wait, but I was harmed, yes but not physically. Victimless crimes are the ones that fill the Police docket and lead to the most Police shootings, They are the stop and frisk, you look suspicious and lack an actual complainant. Michael Brown was “suspected” of taking cigarettes, George Floyd of passing a fake 20, Sandra Bland a traffic stop. But if they had not died in Police Custody we likely would never hear of it, unless Sandra or George drove and killed a nice white girl jogging, walking, taking a nap at the park, going to a Wendy’s, or say Michael being accused of raping a nice white girl… you know like Emmet Till.

Actual Crime Stats are not that interesting and you do have to search for them and again they are largely happening in the Brown and Black communities. And actual data and information is complex as this thesis from the Brennan Center discusses.

And then we have the media with its own agenda and crie du cour headline or clickbait invite to remind you that shit is happening and we got you covered, now back to Stu for Weather! Crime sells folks and paranoia does as well. I read this profile of a family in Arizona who are divided over their beliefs and those are largely formed by a 24 hour dose of Fox. I literally laughed out loud reading this story as these are the epitome of White Trash Americans. None seem to have a real job and claim to have degrees as in multiple ones, and of course add the entire faux spirituality bullshit shared by many MAGA and non MAGA Americans. The Shaman anyone? Any religion, any cult, with a focus on a belief be it standard vanilla or neopolitan has a person predisposed to myths and bullshit. So add to that a drifter, a person not connected to standard anchors that can at least circumvent some of this. And even that is not a guarantee that the bullshit one needs in which to feel they belong to a “tribe”. And Paul Pelosi’s attacker fits that bill to a tee. As do many of the attacks on Jews, Asians or others who are profiled in the news and believed to be the raison d’etre for the assault. Asian hate began after the spa attacks and which there were none after that and we have heard nothing more about the case or the attacker’s motives. What happened there, no trial or what? Again we move on and then a a random attack by a mentally ill lunatic on the street towards an Asian and sure enough we have a crime spree and Asian Hate. The mentally ill likely not again watching Fox at the Shelter but has access to information aka disinformation on the one medium they do have access to – the interwebs. Then the idea is implanted into their broken brains and they act upon this as to belong to the “tribe” to be seen, to have a narrative and have a place. So pick a week and pick a new victim in which to target. And with it hear more about it where? The news and social media which will affirm and reaffirm the real and more importantly the imagined. And then some idiot who is already losing their religion, so to speak, acts on it.

What this is is Stochastic Terrorism. This is violence committed by an attacker who, though acting on personal volition, is inspired by language demonizing the target. It has existed for as long as those who hatemonger have communicated and urged their communities to despise some minority in its midst.

This is explained in the article I have put below to enable you to understand this concept and how it affects many and their motives behind their acts. Some are clearly used to defend and support their beliefs and others who have simply been swept up in the medias drumbeat and the way social media adds to it only making it louder and more resonant to those who have little else in which to belong. And don’t we all want to belong? Oh yeah and be more white.

Troubled Loner? Political Terrorist? Both? It’s Often Hard to Say

The attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband has raised questions about the role of demonizing political speech in violent acts, not for the first time.

By Max Fisher The Interpreter The New York Times Nov. 3, 2022

The search for a larger lesson in the invasion of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home, chiefly from among the details of the accused invader’s life and social media history, has, like so many things in American life, been split by partisanship.

“The Republican Party and its mouthpieces now regularly spread hate and deranged conspiracy theories,” Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, tweeted. “It is shocking, but not surprising, that violence is the result.” Others, though, have argued that the attacker’s mental state makes any political cause he latched onto incidental.

Just because a debate is partisan does not mean that both views are equally valid. Experts in political violence have argued for years that dehumanizing and apocalyptic language by prominent right-wing figures is helping to drive the rise in far-right violence. Federal agencies call far-right terrorism a growing threat.

The man who attacked Ms. Pelosi’s husband, Paul, may have been inspired by acrimonious political messaging. At the same time, he also may be a troubled loner who latched onto political conspiracies incidentally. The two possibilities are not necessarily in tension.

Some extremism researchers see those two explanations as so intertwined that there is even a name for the sort of violence they can jointly provoke: stochastic terrorism.

Stochastic terrorism is defined as violence committed by an attacker who, though acting on personal volition, is inspired by language demonizing the target. It has existed for as long as hatemongers have urged their communities to despise some racial or religious minority in their midst.

What details have emerged about David DePape, the man accused of attacking Mr. Pelosi, have raised the possibility that his attack might fit this model. Prosecutors’ filings portray him as acting on behalf of right-wing political narratives that characterized Ms. Pelosi as a danger to the nation. But the filings also give no indication that the attack was anything other than his idea alone.

Other details about Mr. DePape suggest that he was adrift and emotionally troubled. This is hardly unusual with individuals who commit violence on behalf of some cause encountered online — indeed, it is a profile that extremist groups are known to actively pursue — but it makes the question of motivation a psychological as much as a political one.

The term “stochastic terror” emerged in the 2010s, as extremist groups of all stripes began using the internet to reach millions in the hopes that even one individual might be inspired to action. It comes from the Greek word stochastikos, meaning randomly determined or a guessing aim, referring to the instigators’ inability to control who will act on their incitement or how.

The messiness of assigning motive in such cases means that society’s biases can sometimes intrude. In the United States, white attackers are often identified as disturbed loners, where a Muslim attacker with a similar profile might more readily be called a terrorist, for example.

What we now call stochastic terror is most associated with modern jihadist groups like the Islamic State, which have issued online calls for volunteers to indiscriminately attack civilians in countries at war with the groups.

But they did not invent such methods. In the early 1900s, Russian newspapers filled with hateful conspiracies against Jews, helping to provoke the waves of communal violence known as pogroms. In the 1960s in the United States, a series of angry loners acted on far-right language demonizing civil rights leaders, launching a wave of assassinations.

More recently, in India, Hindu nationalist groups have trumped up accusations against the country’s Muslim minority, inspiring some Hindus to turn on their Muslim neighbors.

Often, the demonizing language might inspire violence without calling for it explicitly. Instead it suggests that the offending target poses a danger so grave that extreme action may be necessary.

In a paper last year, Molly Amman, a former profiler for the F.B.I., and J. Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist, cited as one example an attempted plot to kidnap and perhaps kill Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan.

The accused plotters appeared to be likely acting in part, the authors suggested, on language from then-president Donald J. Trump portraying Ms. Whitmer as a runaway despot and urging followers to “liberate Michigan.”

That there was no explicit link between Mr. Trump’s language and the accused plotters’ actions, and that Mr. Trump may not have even intended as much, can be typical of such violence, Ms. Amman and Mr. Meloy argued.

“The speaker’s rhetoric may range from bombastic declarations that the target is a threat by some measure, to ‘jokes’ about violent solutions, or to the shared problem posed by the target,” the authors wrote.

In individual cases, the authors added, the speakers’ intentions are often impossible to prove, as is the role of that speech in nudging some listener closer to action.

Sometimes this is deliberate, meant to instigate violence while inoculating the speaker from blame. But sometimes the language is not aimed at incitement at all, but merely at rallying supporters in ways that provoke some of them to action.

But, regardless of intent, the instigating speech tends to follow a pattern far more specific than merely denigrating some individual or group — meaning that, like calling “fire” in a public theater, the resulting danger is foreseeable.

Messages in these cases tend to divide the world between a pure and virtuous “us,” who is besieged by an implacably hostile “them.” Listeners are told that they are locked in an existential battle with enemies who seek their total domination and the destruction of their way of life.

This threat is portrayed as imminent and unchecked — justifying, even necessitating, drastic steps to prevent it. And the speaker often describes society as having fallen into lawlessness and chaos, leading some listeners to conclude that they alone have the power to act.

J.M. Berger, a scholar of extremist violence, has called this “the crisis-solution construct,” writing that it can resonate especially with isolated or troubled individuals. It reframes their personal struggles as caused not by impersonal social or economic forces, but by the nefarious actions of some “them” group waging a war on the listener’s virtuous “us” group.

This makes the listeners feel less alone, their hardships feel more comprehensible and the solution, however extreme, within their power to impose.

Some argue that the motivation of such attackers, on an individual level, could be said to be chiefly psychological, the details of whatever political cause they latched onto almost incidental.

“The connections between mental illness, conspiratorial thinking, right-wing rhetoric, and violence are made in our heads, not theirs,” the writer Jay Caspian King wrote in an essay for The New Yorker on efforts to understand Mr. DePape.

“How we ultimately choose to describe these violent men often betrays more about us than about them,” he added.

But such a view misses the point of how stochastic terrorism works, scholars have argued.

As political demonization following the script of incitement saturates a society, regardless of whether the propagators of that language intend as much, the odds that someone will follow through on the implied call to action increases sharply.

If those people are often lost souls with histories of unruly behavior who appear to have only a tenuous relationship to the political causes that seemed to help inspire them, then this is how extremist recruitment has always worked.

The propensity of such language to provoke violence is established enough that some terrorist monitoring groups now track upticks in such speech as an early-warning indicator for attacks that are thought to follow as a result.

Sure enough, as extremist right-wing language has escalated across Western countries in recent years, so have attacks by white extremists, many of them seemingly loners.

Ms. Amman and Mr. Meloy, the extremism researchers, warned that the diffuse nature of this threat, emerging as it can from individuals with no formal ties to hate groups, makes it both especially dangerous and devilishly difficult to prevent.

“It is as dire as it sounds,” they wrote.