The October Surprise

This is the followup to the About Those "Bombs" posting.

As expected, the not only have none of the devices failed to detonate. The person who mailed them (who should never have been given the media attention he is now getting) declared that he didn't mean to harm anyone. Indeed, a cursory glance at the evidence shows this to be the case. In particular the device sent to DeNiro was delivered two days before the retired NYPD officer called in the bomb squad. If that was the case, when was the timer set to go off? It has been many days and we still have not been told when the "bombs" were supposed to detonate. If it had a timer or alarm, this would be known. Secondly we have not been informed of what the explosive material was. Hence it is irresponsible to refer to these devices as bombs. Yes we had a "bomb scare" but we had no bombs.

Since these devices were not intended to actually harm their targets then they could only be thought of as intended to invoke fear in the targets. Isn't it odd that a person who claims that he supports Trump, to the extent that he plastered his van with multiple images of Trump and Pence, would then go and do something so spectacularly stupid? As stated earlier, this event did and does nothing to help Trump or any other Republican. It DOES provide evidence for the continued narrative of crazed, violent Trump supporters.

But then we had the shooting in Pittsburgh, PA. Here had a person who like many of the supposed white nationalists out there, did not support Trump and who had a dislike of Jews. Feeling that his people were under attack, he decided less than two weeks ahead of the mid-term elections to make his way to a Synagogue and shoot it up.

Two separate incidences of political and "racially" motivated crimes that happen prior to a mid-term election. Talk about an October surprise! Personally I'm suspicious. Nothing these two individuals did could not have waited until after the elections. But then again, that supposes that these individuals were really *thinking*.

But shortly after there was a twist I did not see coming. Gab.ai.

The PA shooter had an account on Gab. There he, like many others said his things about Jews. Now, as of this writing, numerous internet companies have no-platformed the company. Strange isn't it? A white male who thinks that Jews have "control over the media and the like" shoots up a synagogue and an array of companies come out and act together to destroy a company simply because the shooter expressed himself there. Way to go providing evidence of "Jewish Power". When BLM member/sympathizer shot up police, nobody went after Facebook which has and had plenty of people calling for police murder. No one called for a shut down of Twitter over the multiple accounts calling for the killing of police and white people in general. If hosting content calling for murders of a race of people, is a no-platforming offense why is Facebook and Twitter even in existence? Do some peoples lives matter more than others? Do some people get a pass on their murderous tirades while others don't? Who and why?

There was recently an election in Brazil. The alleged "far right" candidate won. One of the commentaries I was hearing prior to the election was that many Brazilians were getting their info (and I'm sure, mis-info) from Gab sources. This was because Twitter and Facebook (and no doubt others) were busy de-platforming, censoring and otherwise meddling in the election in Brazil. Hence Gab has been seen as a "credible" threat to the information control exercised by Twitter and Facebook and thee media giants that use it to determine The Narrative(s)

I'm not saying that the "powers that be" knew about the shooting in advance and wanted to use this as a means of shutting down Gab, but I would be surprised if it was NOT the case that shortly after the event, it was seen as the perfect pretense to use the "Constitutional Censor".

But back to the actual events. I'll say this again: The government needs to deal with the political violence. When the Charlottesville police refused to do their duty and allow the Unite The Right Rally to proceed without interference and refused to arrest and prosecute those who assaulted people, they not only contributed to the death of Heather, but they let it be known that political violence was OK so long as it was the "right kind of violence".

When media outlets like the NYT seriously debate whether it's OK to punch a Nazi, you have a serious problem. "Nazi" grew to be Trump supporter. That grew to be Republican. That grew into any white person. Recently in Oregon we had Anti-fa take over a street and assault a man with North Carolina plates because he was trying to go somewhere. The police and authorities did NOTHING. In NYC Anti-fa vandalized a building and sent a note threatening bodily harm to persons who would attend a private meeting. That is *THE* definition of terrorism. Yet the governor of NY blamed the targets of terrorist threats simply because he disagreed with their supposed speech. None of us have heard the speech so we have no idea what exactly was objectionable about it.

And that's the thing now. People can be shut down, threatened and indeed physically assaulted simply for having alleged opinions that are allegedly disagreeable. Brent Kavanaugh was called a rapist for nearly two weeks by all the national media, even though there was zero evidence of any such behavior. Why? He was a conservative [white] male. How is any of this acceptable?

Right now there is a low level civil war going on. It stays low level so long as people think there is a non-violent means to a resolution (and that there is a resolution that allows for staying a single polity). If [more] people think that violence is how they get their way, synagogue shootings and bomb scares will be the least of our worries.