terrorist attacks throughout America

Eight people were killed when a man drove 20 blocks down a bike path beside the Hudson River in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon before he crashed his pickup truck, jumped out with fake guns and was shot by police officers, the authorities said.

Federal authorities were treating the incident as a terrorist attack and were taking the lead in the investigation, a senior law enforcement official said. Two law enforcement officials said that after the attacker got out of the truck, he was heard yelling, “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “God is great.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference: “Based on information we have at this moment, this was an act of terror, and a particularly cowardly act of terror aimed at innocent civilians.”

Two law enforcement officials said the driver of the truck, a 29-year-old man who came to the United States in 2010, was in grave condition. One official said he had rented the truck in New Jersey.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/nyregion/police-shooting-lower-manhattan.html

so it was neither spree nor shooting

It seems like 'aggravated suicide attempt' if such a thing exists.

Fake guns, shouting God is great, dot dot

Doesn't mean it's not terrorism as well, obv

It seems like 'aggravated suicide attempt' if such a thing exists.

See "suicide by cop."

The man who police say transformed a New York City bike path into a terror scene was an Uzbekistan native who made 1,400 trips as an Uber driver and formed two commercial truck businesses. Details of the life of the suspect — who had no known social media accounts — have just begun to emerge in the hours after Tuesday’s attack that killed eight people and injured at least 11.

Officials who were not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity identified Saipov as the attacker and said he is 29 and originally from Uzbekistan. He came to the U.S. legally in 2010, the officials said, and it is believed that he lived first in Ohio after his arrival.

Records show Saipov was a commercial truck driver who formed a pair of businesses in Ohio. The first business, Sayf Motors Inc., used the address of a family friend near Cincinnati with whom Saipov had stayed for a couple of weeks after his arrival in the country. The second, Bright Auto LLC, used an address near Cleveland.

https://apnews.com/fe3ba9f062f84b738c4045a4df829727/Uber-driver,-Uzbekistan-native:-A-look-at-NYC-attack-suspect

i miss the good old days. when reagan was president, and uzbekistan was part of the USSR, we would have blamed the soviets

This novelist wants you to know he would've been Jack Reacher and stopped today's tragedy. In the real world, he shoots himself in the dick. https://t.co/zS2EmCMb5D

— Dave Zirin (@EdgeofSports) October 31, 2017

5 of the people killed in NYC attack were Argentine tourists in town for a 30-year high school reunion, foreign ministry says
H/t @dpoliti pic.twitter.com/cNVahmGwrv

— Ernesto Londoño (@londonoe) November 1, 2017

Occurred to me this morning that this was the first successful terrorist attack in NYC since 9/11. It was a miracle that that pressure cooker bomb that went off in Chelsea last year didn't kill anyone.

You had the Boston bombing in 2013. That was "successful".

I said in NYC

You did, apologies.

Although tbf the anthrax attacks in 2001 certainly count, how the fuck did those people never get caught?

they strongly suspected a fellow named Bruce Edwards Ivins, who certainly was the type of guy who'd make for a creepy episode of Mindhunter. But there's no certainty.

pipe bomb goes off in NYC transit hub, no biggie

Yeah, one gets the sense that small terrorist actions are starting to be nbd in manhattan somehow

no one was even talking about it when I got (late) to work except in terms of commute delays

when nobody dies the rhetoric is more muted

as if it isn't still terrifying af

there may be a serial bomber in Austin

http://www.kktv.com/content/news/Teen-killed-after-package-explodes-at-Texas-home-476549513.html

^ not at all clear what, if any, political motivation might be attached to those bombings.

Definitely a serial bomber fwiw:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/03/austin-bombs-appear-to-be-targeting-prominent-black-families.html

so fucked up

Toronto van attack, 9 dead, 16 wounded.

http://torontosun.com/news/local-news/multiple-pedestrians-struck-by-van-on-yonge-st

I think the video of the cop making the arrest is on YouTube or Twitter. Instructive: on the all-news station here, they're praising the cop for his incredible restraint. On the right-wing call-in show out of Buffalo I sometimes listen to on the way home, they're all over the cop for his incredible restraint.

Anyway, unbelievable. Like most people, I always think of this stuff as happening Elsewhere.

so horrible and scary

I feel sick.

A self-identified incel and a fan of Elliot Rodger, apparently. Ugh.

has that been confirmed?

it's weird to me how little attention the attack seems to be getting from the US and the international media, though maybe the lack of attention is a good thing

A self-identified incel and a fan of Elliot Rodger, apparently. Ugh.

― pomenitul, Monday, April 23, 2018 9:24 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

where did you find that?

though maybe the lack of attention is a good thing

the usual suspects are going on about van-control, so yeah

An apparent Facebook post by a man with the same name and photo as Minassian's LinkedIn profile refers to the "Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger," a 22-year-old responsible for a deadly rampage in Isla Vista, Calif., that left six people dead and a dozen more injured.

...

The apparent posting by Minassian says the "incel rebellion has already begun. We will overthrow all the Chads and the Stacys."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-van-attack-driver-profile-alek-minassian-1.4632435

That said, 'CBC News has not been able to independently verify the post as having been written by Minassian' so it remains to be confirmed.

the usual suspects are going on about van-control, so yeah

Exactly what the doofus out of Buffalo was going on about this afternoon, thrilled with his own cleverness. Is that a talking point now for the right?

Thank god he did not have a gun.

There needs to be a good guy with a van . . .

I'm not sure how I feel about the Facebook crisis response thing labelling it as "the auto-pedestrian collision at Yonge st and Finch ave" I mean, I get not jumping to dramatic conclusions out of an abundance of whatever, but this fucker deliberately mowed people down on a sidewalk for nearly 2km. It's not a traffic accident.

if this is a "terrorist attack", then who was to be terrorized into doing what?

Maybe the ultimate "fuck the world" act should also be treated as terrorism.

then the start and end of the act is just "fear me", which really isn't much of a weapon to brandish, especially when "me" usually ends up dead minutes later. it's senseless, pointless and meaningless: just yer basic nihilism in action.

truck attack / car attack

using vehicles to kill is not new. there's even a legal category called vehicular homicide that's been around for a long time now.

then the start and end of the act is just "fear me", which really isn't much of a weapon to brandish, especially when "me" usually ends up dead minutes later. it's senseless, pointless and meaningless: just yer basic nihilism in action.

― A is for (Aimless), Monday, April 23, 2018 11:41 PM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't think it's just that, it's the new super suicide. i.e. "I hate being alive so much I'm going to kill myself because life is horrible, AND I hate living so much I'm going to take my revenge out on random people for existing." or something. it's existential terrorism

I dunno. If you call it terrorism, then presumably the aim is to provoke terror in service to some "ism", meaning some end. Since there doesn't seem to be a further end in view. I'm not sure why nihilism doesn't cover the facts.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-van-attack-driver-profile-alek-minassian-1.4632435

he was a fucking Eliot Rodger incel fanboy. I hope someone fucking shanks him.

xp yeah I was mostly spitballing. it's not terrorism as we usually use the word

The provoked terror is in service of the incel community, or else he would have just killed himself. Not sure why everybody wants to count angels on the head of this particular pin.

Is that verified now? I'm not sure the incel community will benefit from this in any way or that it has any particular demands it wants met. Seems like a lot of empty posturing, trying to be a hero-martyr to a bunch of ninnies.

lol..

if the goal is to make people afraid of antisocial (or internet-only social) young men, then it's pretty effective terrorism

'Incel' is kind of a misnomer, like calling yourself 'involuntarily unemployed' because you answer every job interview question with a pair of middle fingers. In that regard, acts like this seem to be fairly in line with their oppositional attitude toward the world-at-large, and I don't have a problem with using the label of 'terrorist' as a descriptor of someone who instantiates that repugnant ideology in such a fashion.

jack the ripper was a terrorist

a standard definition would likely include illegal use of force/violence, civilian targets or disregard for civilian bystanders, and some kind of political motivation. wanting society to be molded in ways that you and your pals agree with feels like as reasonable a definition of political aims as any.

you could argue the toss about it forever but one purpose of identifying these kinds of acts as terroristic would be to show that they come from a world-view and a set of ideas - however loose or terrible - that are being shared and propagated, and that the act is an expression of a worldview, even if it's an extreme expression of it.

it's interesting that the line between organised groups pursuing political goals and lone maniacs with no real interest in objectives beyond violence has become more blurred, probably bc of the rise of suicide attacks which masks the differences in a cloud of nihilism

"terrorism" has always been one of those words that is less taxonomic than propagandist tho, "one man's freedom fighter" etc.

and the capacity for a group to be organized has changed so radically thru the internet, any lone maniac can choose to affiliate themself to a cause - who's to say what the "real reasons" for killing complete strangers are or might be?

there is a trend for tying yourself to a cause but there's no real organisation in a lot of cases, just ppl reading things/watching endless youtube vids on their own

the muddier usage has no real use besides moral condemnation

tbf "lone maniac" or "shiftless loser" or "nihilist" all tend to moral condemnation too

all those terms, and "terrorist" too, could also be trying to contextualize actions that we find inexplicable? or we find them explicable because we attach our preferred label to them?

honestly, actual terrorism that has stated causes is difficult to parse because the manifesto and actual desired outcome might not line up

would al qaeda actually have been pleased if the western countries had pulled all military forces out of the middle east and pakistan/afghanistan, and business interests also left, or was that demand a red herring because they were looking for a war to bolster their own support?

they do, but they do so w/out confusingly grouping it in with the IRA/ETA/Boko Haram and so on

i think there's definitely one strand of tit for tat leftiness that likes to use terrorism as a descriptor to redress a perceived imbalance with the bad western governments's use of it

but i also think - and i'm way into hypotheticals here, not talking about this specific case - that there are organizations and ideologies formed from multiple "ppl reading/watching endless internet stuff". they may lack coherent structure or communication but they are identifiable communities nonetheless

xp with all the caveats about group ideology, jihadis like al qaeda shifted their focus onto 'the far enemy' bc they were propping up the regimes they had previously been fighting domestically, so... at least some of them probably wld be pleased?

There was some doubt about the veracity, but:

Facebook says the post from Alek Minassian referencing the "Incel Rebellion” and Elliot Rodger is real, and was posted publicly on his profile before Facebook shut it down.

— matthew braga (@mattbraga) April 24, 2018

i don't think it needs to be either/or and i don't think it muddies the water - some terrorist groups are more hierarchical and paramilitary in structure and maybe some aren't

we could call it post-terrorism, that should annoy loads of people :D

rhizome terrorism

lol

ISIS has been a v effective example of a group that blurs the boundaries (or you could just say deliberately seeks to inspire these disconnected copycats), but there is still a big difference between jabat al nusra and r/incel. it's basically the difference between an organisation and a cause

really mixed feelings about wanting to bring up even more things, but as this is our catalog of violent attacks, what the fuck is up with this waffle house shooter guy? we can't even effectively keep a guy who was trying to wander around the actual white house away from guns

makes me feel like there's absolutely no control of anything

xp yeah, agree with that

xp yeah, agree with that

"we can't even effectively keep a guy who was trying to wander around the actual white house away from guns"

that's a case of blaming the parent, no? his dad literally gave him back his arsenal

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-waffle-house-shooting-suspect-morton-20180423-story.html

Reminds me a bit of the Newtown shooter’s mom giving him access to guns. You can account for some things but you can’t always account for the stupidity of people.

I can't remember which shooter it was (a chilling thought in and of itself), but he supposedly underwent a psychological exam a few weeks prior to the shooting and his right to bear arms was maintained as holding guns was said to have a 'soothing' effect on him. I wish I could recall the exact details.

incel revolt is the weirdest theme of this dumb historical moment

post-terrorism = horrorism?

all of the horror of terrorism, but with none of that tricky "trying to achieve a political or ideological goal" stuff

the lines between online and the real world are starting to get blurred imo. "terrorism without a point" is common on the internet.

'Horrorism' works. As if we're hapless victims in an imaginary horror movie with an audience yelling at you to not go into one or another seemingly innocuous public place as they watch the spree killer approaching. Why'd you get hacked up with a machete? Because you were there.

it's a term i've seen before:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/sep/10/september11.politicsphilosophyandsociety

https://cup.columbia.edu/book/horrorism/9780231144575

i know i read the martin amis essay during the middle war years (jfc) but i'm not familiar with cavarero

the lines between online and the real world are starting to get blurred imo. "terrorism without a point" is common on the internet.

― Karl Malone, Tuesday, April 24, 2018 5:03 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Two non-snarky thoughts:

(1) If an internationally trend-setting musician is doing this, the Culture War is now probably poised to eat 'normie' society alive

(2) It's an incredible failure for at least one of the "sides" in this fiasco. https://t.co/Uqq0qC9cRq

— '((Adam (Elkus))) (@Aelkus) April 24, 2018

(the thread continues)

"Given how erratic 'Ye is, this probably doesn't reflect some kind of ulterior motive. His wife has always been the more Machiavellian of the two when it comes to PR. But even she has thrown some breadcrumbs to Very Online people (e.g shouting out anime on Twitter/Instagram). More important are the implications. An internationally recognized hitmaker and tastemaker is co-signing some of the Internet's nuttiest e-celebs. At this point it seems plausible that you will never be able to log off, even when you actually log off Twitter. Even a year ago, it did seem like this was containable. But in 2018 it does seem like the Great Corncobbing is, like acid, eating its way through all of the barriers separating it from day-to-day life."

lotta people trying valiantly to make jokes about or say they knew he was unstable all along, but kanye boosting the lowest-rent right wing mentaloids available just really sucks and i hate it

it fucking blows

to counter a point on another thread i think he's been extremely uninteresting for a long time

he's a hyper-rich narcissist with mental health issues, but sadly he'll probably influence some poor sad sack to become alt-right with his posts

did everyone forget about BILL COSBY INNOCENT!!! though? this feels like the same thing

in other words not a surprising development

no i did not forget that

imo who gives a shit whether it’s surprising or not, giving candace owens attention is fucking horrible

you can go from clueless latecomer gamergate faker to charlie kirk sidekick to superstar guru in just a couple years. who says you can't make it in america anymore.

anyway this 'incel revolt' stuff is horrifying and i don't have a clue what to do about it. peace to toronto.

gonna try to convince the anime wing of 4chan that the ultimate way to own the libs is through the ancient art of seppuku

the fix would be to erase the internet forever xp

horrorism is a good term

this encouraging of people to take it out on others, "chads and stacies" or whatever...it's unspeakably evil. which goes without saying. but it seems like these communities intend to make these "incel" types feel worse, to make them feel discouraged, to make them feel like it's hopeless. it's weird but for all the evils of more trad MRA bullshit there seems to be an attempt to crack a code and break through to being confident. incel communities seem to do the opposite.

Thought our conservative mayor was good yesterday. (Socially, he's more or less left, I think.) Immediately warned against scapegoating and making assumptions. Which turned out to be exactly right.

that's a case of blaming the parent, no? his dad literally gave him back his arsenal

yes and no? I mean, the laws about what happens when you're not allowed to possess guns are really scattershot and unenforceable where they do exist. from what I heard on the radio today, the police basically rely on family members in cases like that and there's no follow-through

as far as I can tell, when his kid moved to a different state he just gave him the guns. there's likely no legal basis for the dad to be required to keep them, and maybe even no penalty for him handing off guns to someone not legally allowed to possess them

i read one story where something was said along the lines of the dad had previously taken the guns from him awhile back when he was having issues, but gave them back when he was acting normal. this i actually don't think is necessarily a symptom of individual stupidity (though it kind of is) but also of america's weird relationship w/guns. this dad was treating them like toys that he took away when his kid was acting up.

the nra's current line is that they support the law's ability to take your guns, but only if the criteria is met for involuntary commitment for psych problems

which is an incredibly high bar

lotta people trying valiantly to make jokes about or say they knew he was unstable all along, but kanye boosting the lowest-rent right wing mentaloids available just really sucks and i hate it

kanye's never exactly been known for his mental stability

The lines between "serial killer" and "mass murderer" are clear; the lines between "mass murderer" and "terrorist" are not clear. I have very little problem calling some mass murdering schmuck with a private agenda a "terrorist" and the law as written (generally speaking) doesn't either -- as enforced, it does, which is bullshit.