It’s become an almost every day occurrence in America. Mass shooting incidents has become so normalised in the country with staggering statistic of 251 shootings in just 2019.
El Paso, Texas was the scene of the 252nd mass shooting. One of three in that day alone, but El Paso stood out for a number of key reasons.
One was the scale of the massacre. 20 were confirmed dead and another 24 injured. The suspect, Patrick Wood Crusius, wrote a manifesto that was published on 8CHAN 20 minutes before going out with an assault rifle. It was filled with White supremacist rhetoric and had clear language expressing hatred towards immigrants and Latinos in particular.
It also expressed ideas that are regular soundbites for Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Republican Party, such as “Hispanic invasion“, Democrats are using “open borders“, and “free healthcare for illegals” to attract new voters.
His social media praised Trump and, in particular, his effort to build a wall across the border. El Paso is also known to be a place along the Mexico-US boarder that is frequently visited by Mexicans.
Everything points towards this being a targeted terrorist attack. His motive and act of violence was designed to maximise terror and was deeply ideological and political. Yet Crusius is not being charged as a terrorist, but rather as a murderer who committed a hate crime. Why?
Media outlets have been shy in calling him a terrorist as well. Despite the information about his support of Trump and the contents of the manifest being made known by Sunday morning, majority of outlets including UK media did not report them. CNN reported that same morning that the FBI is investigating the incident as “domestic terrorism”. A piece of information that didn’t make it to the BBC or any other media outlet for the rest of the day. Again, why?
The Fox And The Wolf
Malcolm X talks about his concept of “the wolf and the fox”. The wolf is unashamed of their hatred towards you, whilst the fox pretends to be liberal, modern and compassionate. In reality, they both harbour the same hatred and are after the same thing, upholding a system of exploitation via discriminating minorities.
The liberal media is not much different from the fox. They spend a lot of the time denouncing and condemning Trump and others for his overt racist views, but their subtle coverage during terrorist attacks has been clearly discriminatory, both in terms of focus and the manner of coverage. And despite social media pointing this out every time, little has changed.
They helped generate the noise that made the public believe Muslims were the major cause of terrorism and the cover for the growing White Supremacist threat is now undeniable.
Till this day, the same media outlets have whitewashed the coverage of White terror incidents. They’ve described them as mentally ill or lone wolves rather than focusing on the clear ideological underpinnings of their actions as they have done with terrorists of Muslim background.
Doesn’t Western media understand that this kind of discriminatory coverage led to the rise of Trump and his White Supremacists?
After all the white washing, they have given hate preachers in power a free pass. How else could Trump get away with deflecting blame from himself by saying Crusius was “mentally ill” if western media, across the board, did not already cement that narrative? The liberal media in the US and generally across the West may be against Trump but have hardly been on the side of minorities.
It’s All About The Benjamins
The NRA had been lobbying the government to pull the US out of an International Arms Trade treaty, which as signed by Obama in 2013, is to help prevent the use arms for war crimes and human rights abuses. This stopped the US selling arms to the likes of Syria, North Korea and others. Trump realised the NRA’s goal and took the US out of the treaty.
The NRA opposed this because it cuts the main revenues for the US arms trade: autocratic militarized states and areas of the world where conflict is proxy and escalating. Nations such as North Korea and Syria essentially.
But it’s not just the US. The NRA has financial ties to companies that operate globally such as Beratta and Glock and work globally. The NRA are also actively lobbying countries such as Brazil and One Nation in Australia.
The NRA…serves as a spiritual godfather to gun groups around the world.”
Foriegn Policy, Oct 19th 2009
All the lobbying the NRA does makes guns more available in those countries, but it affects countries that do have gun laws in place.
According to the US Government Accountability Office, 70% of traceable guns that were seized in Mexico between 2009-2014 were sourced from the US, smuggled into the US, and used across the country. In 2017, the total number of deaths due to gun violence in Mexico reached 30,000.
On top of that NRA has lobbied for laws to stop collecting data on where the guns and who the guns are going to. Any accountability and transparency, much like the International Arms Trade treaty, is just bad news for their bottom line.
Responsible Gun Laws Anywhere Are A Threat to Gun Markets Everywhere
As soon as ethical standards for selling of guns are legitimised and in force domestically, of course conversation of similar global standards will be legitimised too. And vice versa. This will invariably lead to less sales. The NRA and others say it is a threat to their freedom and it’s a narrative works well among White (and pro-Trump) Americans. But really, it’s a threat to their bottom line.
It’s also clear they are willing to use racism and Islamophobia to their advantage. Whether it’s the War of Terror or demonising Black Lives Matter or protecting the biggest buyers of arms in the US, white people, from feel guilty in buying a gun, its all good. Sales must only go up.
In short, the same vampiric greed of the US arms industry and the NRA, that has caused needless wars and destroyed countless lives beyond US borders, is the same force that refuses to allow needless killing to stop by introducing reasonable gun control.
The same media and US citizens that supported those illegal wars with all their national fever allowed their benefactors to grow so big, those same benefactors are now feeding off the blood of their own countrymen. It’s the same benefactors that have profited from White Supremacy and supported the rise of Trump. The chickens have come home to roost.
The violence we see in the US is directly linked to the violence it exports abroad. Its media is just as united on narrative when it comes to US foreign policy as it is when it comes to domestic terrorism.
Will their liberal factions and their media realise their role in all of this or will they continue to be in denial? Perhaps they are in on the deal. Who knows? But if Trump’s and his racist movement cannot make them look at themselves critically, then nothing will change and US violence will continue to plague themselves and the world.
