Know what's wrong with this country? Mass shootings, sure. BUT. It's that people don't fucking READ.

[ancianita]

With the exception of Ted Kaczynski and his manifesto...

These fucking "American" shooters -- and everyone who thinks like they do -- are such NON-FUCKING-READERS that they don't know that Texas -- TEJAS -- was ALWAYS fucking Hispanic. Always.

Tejas. El norte del estado de Mexico antes de los blanco europeos, or sus esclavos, se movieran hacia el oeste, antes de la guerra civil estadounidense. No leen. No quieren leer.
(Texas. The North of the State of Mexico before white europeans, or slaves, moved to the west, before the United States' civil war. They don't read. They don't want to read.)

They are so fearful because they're so fucking white-stupid and whiteilliterate that they kill people.

North America has always, always, been El Norte.

Carrie Gibson's El Norte(2019) is beautiful truth about America. Hers is as important to American history as is Howard Zinn's A People's History...

It's this piece by NYT that has set me off.

Nineteen minutes before the first 911 call alerted authorities to a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Tex., a hate-filled, anti-immigrant manifesto appeared online.

It spoke of a “Hispanic invasion of Texas.” It detailed a plan to separate America into territories by race. It warned that white people were being replaced by foreigners.

The authorities were scrutinizing the 2,300-word screed on Saturday and attempting to determine whether it was written by the same man who killed 20 people and injured more than two dozen others near the Mexican border.

Police were interviewing the suspected killer, Patrick Crusius, a 21-year-old white man from Allen, Tex., a roughly 10-hour drive to the Walmart. What brought him to a crowded shopping center in El Paso is one of the many questions on the minds of investigators.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/03/us/patrick-crusius-el-paso-shooter-manifesto.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&fbclid=IwAR2fyRpFcdfgIohfFNldLfbHcGkfkLd2DjCyozjnLJpxJ1g7Otv-QAiUp-o

[Ponietz]

1. Truth

🙏

[RockRaven]

2. It is wore than not reading. It is denying-reality-no-matter-what-the-input-route.

Seeing, hearing, reading, Matrix-style download, whatever.

Americans' intimate embrace of cognitive dissonance would make the world's most confident exhibitionists and jaded voyeurs blush.

Any fact that makes them uncomfortable is rejected BECAUSE it makes them uncomfortable.

[Rainbow Droid]

4. This. Exactly this. It's confirmation bias gone absolutely batshit crazy.

Actual facts are not even acknowledged in almost any way whatsoever.

[susanna]

39. OMG yes.

Am I guilty of confirmation bias, on occasion? Yes.

Do I know it when I do it? Mostly yes.

But most people do NOT KNOW THEY ARE DOING IT, or how often they do it.

This cannot continue, but I don't see a way out.

[ancianita]

6. I hear you.BUT.It starts with an unwillingness to read.Reading, decoding, is prior to all media.

Then there's the climate of reading -- the passivity, lack of interest, unwillingness to learn, fear of the new outside what family says.

Illiteracy often comes out of a child's need for the comfort of family mappings of reality.

Those mappings exclude all other openness to any other folks' maps of reality.

It's not 'til I taught high school that I had to teach that the map is never the territory.

Since we can't experience ALL reality, I've learned and taught that reading expands one's map of reality.

Sometimes people learn too late that the best, if not the only, way to survive is to SEE reality.

One never survives by map alone, but looking around to see if it corresponds to what one sees.

That starts with how reading is experienced.

Most have not been led to READING AS AN EXPERIENCE. Doesn't matter if it's early, middle or college, as long as it happens.

So, how could they know about America as an experience, given that their family, or local maps' directions are this: that their maps are NOT allowed to be revisable based on what one sees. That's what's called the hardening of belief. Close-mindedness. Faith in the map.

America defines itself as a WRITTEN. IDEA.

For good or ill, that map was considered an advancement of human history.

But the Founders would be the first to tell America today that times change, and their document doesn't excuse any American -- especially an American -- from reading recovered histories of all its people. Chinese. Japanese. African American. Hispanic. And every one else.

No one kills from discomfort. People kill out of an un-American illiteracy born of a collective fear-based hatred of anything not like them. And for that reason, their forebears never should have left their homelands if they instill in their children that their maps are not revisable.

So send THEM back.

[Beartracks]

38. I think your post wins DU today. n/t

[GulfCoast66]

3. No. They read. A lot. It's what they read that is the problem.

This guy will turn out to be well read. Well read about hate.

[ancianita]

7. "Well read" is an expression of both breadth and depth of reading content, not narrow reading

that confirms feelings or ingrained beliefs.

[Pachamama]

5. Important quote from article:

"The F.B.I. has said that more Americans have died in domestic terror attacks than in international terror attacks since 9/11, and that domestic terrorism is increasingly motivated by white supremacist ideology."

This....

[ancianita]

8. Yes. Ideology spread how.

[pecosbob]

12. Yes, but there's still no law called 'domestic terrorism'

Timothy McVeigh could not be charged with terrorism, nor could the maniac Coast Guard officer planning to murder members of Congress earlier this summer. Our laws against terrorism are so narrowly focused to fight foreign extremist groups and nation-states that they can never be applied to domestic terrorism cases. An oversight or intentional who can say...

*Edit...and now the FBI is even walking back calling it a hate crime! Saw this one coming.

[babylonsister]

19. So surreal we're watching this as if it's inevitable. nt

[ancianita]

28. Sometimes the slow grind of seeing clearly is discouraging. I'm a hoper in human openness.

Last edited Sun Aug 4, 2019, 04:40 AM - Edit history (1)

Sadly, human suffering gets attention. Like babies, one cries and we all cry together. As we should.

More sadly is the inattention to all the daily openness that makes this country actually be a human game changer.

It's familiar to see a kind of "forgive them they know not what they do" level of evil that makes up about 90% of what humans do to each other.

But for surreal, the stealth designs of the powerful are the epitome of apex predators, never seen.

There's an evil not in this kid, but behind this 21 year-old's manifesto, that's so surreal it's like the abyss of spirit. He didn't write it as much as reflect the map he was given, but never took time to revise.

The lowest rung of Dante's Inferno was reserved for those who betrayed their whole country and people, and made them fight against each other.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. It is very true that most people don't read.

And even a lot of those who do read, don't read anything to make them think.

I don't happen to own a TV. Oh, I get to watch plenty of television via the internet, so I'm hardly a luddite who crouches over a candle. This is the third or fourth major time in my life (I honestly can't recall exactly) that I'm without regular TV, and I can't imagine ever going back.

But here's what I want to say here. One of those times, back in the 1970's, a friend and co-worker was genuinely concerned that I wasn't aware of what was going on in the world. So he'd quiz me every so often on current events. To his astonishment, I not only knew what was going on, but sometimes I could fill him in on details he didn't really know. Because he got all his information from TV, and I was not only reading the local newspaper (The Washington Post) but I was also reading books on lots of topics.

I will admit, I do miss certain things. Lots of times someone here will post something and I'll be thinking, "Huh? WTF is that?" I'm not talking the posts that are completely out of context and assume we're watching the same thing on TV the OP is, but those that reference a person or event I'm not up to speed on. But the Google is my friend, and I use it. Of course, here on DU people are posting about lots and lots of random things, not just the topic of the day, which today as we all know is guns.

Back to reading. Books are wonderful and amazing. About half of what I read is non-fiction, and there's hardly a topic I'm not interested in. While they are not as up-to-the-minute as something on TV, they provide a lot of good background on whatever topic is at hand.

It is obvious to the most casual observer that Donald Trump has not read a book since he left school, and possibly never read any of the books he was supposed to in high school or college.

As a very judgemental person, I do judge people by how many books I see in their living space. I don't care if they read stuff I wouldn't. If I visit someone and there are simply no books to be seen, I know we have nothing in common.

Books. They're important. Read one. Then another. Keep it up. You won't regret it.

[ancianita]

10. Amen, brother. Amen.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

11. Thank you.

And since you asked (wait, you didn't, but I'll offer this anyway) if you read, keep a book list. I used to simply note the title, author, and when I finished it. About ten years ago I started writing down my own synopsis of the book. Which is incredibly helpful when I want to recommend a book to someone.

I keep track by month, not by specific date of finish. I also hand write in a notebook. The down side of that is I can't do a proper search for a book, or author, or topic. If I were younger or a bit more tech savvy, I'd be doing this in an excel file. But at least I can't lose my book list if my computer goes belly up.

[ancianita]

14. I appreciate your method. I myself underline as I read, so that I can go back to the best of the

Last edited Sun Aug 4, 2019, 04:04 AM - Edit history (1)

best. Then I small dog-ear stuff, and Big Dog-Ear the Big Stuff.

I'll offer back. Non-fiction is my learning tool, whether it's the latest on economics, climate change, tech security, cyberwar books, indigenous history, history (Jill Lapore is my current favorite historian) in general.

All of it informs my opinions when reading all kinds of journalism which, though fact-based, usually gives short shrift to context and historical lessons.

I love Lapham's Quarterly, The Atlantic, The New Yorker (the best weekly magazine in America), Mother Jones, Rolling Stone (old hippie loves new hippy thinking), Foreign Affairs and countless other magazines. If I thought I could ignore reality I'd be happy to read all day.

Yet I'm feeling so burned out with reality lately that I take breaks with espionage thrillers and sci-fi.

You're right about keeping our books. Because when the electricity goes down, analog doesn't. Even my two sons in the IT business -- one sells firewalls out of Australia; the other sells sustainable community building in New Mexico -- keep extensive libraries.

The future of book burning will be data erasure. Glad I still got my Firefox series.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

22. I tend to think that marking up books is a terrible crime,

although I do understand that if you do it for your own self and own benefit, that's a different thing.

While I appreciate the utility of electronic books, I get very impatient with people who say that regular print books are going to disappear any day now.

For one thing, as formats change, you'll need to repurchase your e-books. How many here are still playing 8 track tapes or video cassettes? Just as I thought. I remember about twenty years ago listening to something on NPR about early audio recording technology, and how there were a lot of old technologies that were currently unplayable, because the technology had changed and no one had any means to play the old recordings. In another instance, someone I know who works for a church was going through a huge problem with old records having been stored on some sort of electronic media that was no longer playable. Meanwhile, real records on actual paper hold up for a very long time.

As for journalism, while I do respect it, there is all too often a total lack of context of history which is truly disturbing to me.

[ancianita]

24. I hear you. But decided a long time ago that it was the best way I could "chew" on a book's content

in order to digest it.

Whatever reading method makes one clearer, is my belief.

E-books. Ugh. You can't even own them. It's the Spotify of information. I know that possession of a thing isn't possession of knowledge, yet I need the material reference, much like courts of law do.

Yes, old technologies. I've pretty much had them all, and when things went electronic, used MP3's and pirated music from file swapping sites that are now closed down, dodged the DMCA. Somehow, iTunes didn't quite notice when that file swapped music got transferred from my iPod to my iPhones. Whatever. Your point is well taken.

Records. Yes, DJ's still luv them. My son does all kinds of EDM mixes via facebook live stream from his maker space once a week, using all kinds of old tech. It's fun to watch him explain old formats right before he plays remixes.

All that old wax stuff is now electronic, happily. I just think that variety of formats is a hedge on keeping communications and culture real, not fake.

[chia]

44. It's fascinating to me to read the markings in a used book,

to see how another mind interacted with the same ideas I'm reading, what the reader thought was important enough to underline, or put an exclamation point next to, or ever better, scribble a response in the margin. The reader gave something of themselves back to the author, and I feel privileged to witness the transaction.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

50. I find that if a book is marked up,

other than perhaps the odd exclamation point or penciled note, it's rendered unreadable to me. Underlinings or worse yet, highlighted passages draw attention to themselves in a way that renders it impossible for me to read the text without distraction.

A week or so ago I went to check out a book from the library, and someone, some incredibly inconsiderate person, had made a LOT of marks in it. It's one thing if it's a book you've purchased, but a library book?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

26. Unfortunately, underlining burns up a book and renders it painful for anyone else to use. . . nt

[ancianita]

31. So I've heard. Then again, I've run into a rare person who doesn't mind. I don't intend to give my

books away.

The ones I pass along are the ones I don't mark.

Or if I love a book, say, Tim Snyder's Twenty Lessons In Tyranny, I'll mark mine and buy a few more to give friends, unmarked.

I like to support publishing.

[912gdm]

13. Wonder how the Apache would view your OP.

Texas was not hispanic before Spanish colonization. It was indigenous.

This need to give one group or another historical ownership of land has never ended well.

Texas is not white, its not Mexican, its not hispanic. It's land.

[kcr]

15. I think, given the context, many would be okay with it.

[912gdm]

17. so, you think they would be ok with one colonization over the other?

I figure they would have wanted to be left alone, but ok.

[kcr]

18. No.

[912gdm]

21. amazing.

[kcr]

32. The shooter is a white supremacist

Radicalized to commit violence. No history lesson was going to enlighten him. I guess I just thought that was pretty obvious but ok.

[ancianita]

36. How was he radicalized?

[ancianita]

16. I saw that! It's a great video.! Thanks for your post. You're right. It IS land. And we who survive

must try to honor ITS story. Just because we claim it, doesn't mean we win. We have yet to all live together as a part of it, not apart from it.

Earth ought to have standing in world courts over its right to survive our destruction through pollution and extraction.

We who stand for stopping climate change stand for our survival as Earthlings, not apex predators.

Your post is a great reminder.

[912gdm]

20. thanks man...

it just gets me when groups try to claim this and that of 'new world land'.. white or hispanic, English or Spanish, we stole it all from the Indigenous nations.

[ancianita]

23. Me, too. And how do you know that for a fact? Likely because you read. Therefore think. And other

people's stories that corroborate your knowledge of the territory are what you yourself added to the official stories we all once received.

It's becoming clearer to us that that's not what goes on with people in the rest of the country.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

25. Actually, N.America has been Le Nord, The North, El Norte, and Akkilokipok, and others

Not only "El Norte". And not always, always.

But your point about reading is good.

French settled a bit of Canada before Jamestown. Indigenous peoples lived in North America for millennia and had many names in many languages for the lands.

[ancianita]

33. Now that we've recovered history of those who might not have recorded theirs as we do. Before the

Spanish and African mosquitoes came and killed most of them off, yes. I'm aware. El Norte was surely called something else, as the NM Anasazi did. Long before the Spanish who came before the French and the rest of us.

Ralph Ellison wrote a short story about that stuff, "Mr. Toussaint," about how non-written cultures preserve their stories for centuries without writing. It was also a story about two little boys who, through play acting, solved a problem.

[Kurt V.]

27. a few days ago i was talking to a trumper. he thought the queen of england governs england.

That's rock bottom ignorant.

[ancianita]

35. Even non-readers know more than he.

[JI7]

29. it's the gun nut culture

[ancianita]

37. Maybe. But I got two guns as gifts, shot them, and still saw gun owners read books like I did.

Just sayin.

I think it's the age of the person that has a lot to do with how they look at the world.

[Aussie105]

30. Got to ask . . .

Who were the first humans in America?

Moving up from the south, or from Asia across the land bridge from Siberia?

Or both?

No one owns the land. No one can claim it is theirs, that it always was, and always will be.

But mass human movements across the globe since Mitochondrial Eve was alive, is worth studying.

[ancianita]

40. If only that poor dumb kid were given a few hours alone with books about the stuff you know.

He'd have spent time looking up some answers instead of writing a manifesto. Which I think is a bit suspicious. The patterns are looking suspiciously scripted. Maybe it's just my paranoia.

A lot of high tech industry parents don't let their kids get near any phones or screens until they're age ten or older, after chapter reading books are solid in their experience and on their shelves.

[malaise]

34. Profound

[secondwind]

41. Gracias por esto, ancianita!

[ancianita]

47. Estoy tan molesto por el crecimiento de este miedo fascista. Personas heridas son la razn de las

personas heridas.

(Hurt people hurt people.)

[GeorgeGist]

42. They read 8Chan and similar trash.

Willful ignorance is powerful stuff.

[ancianita]

46. Unicorn Riot has posted about an online group, Outer Heaven, that posts "discord chats" that promote

not just hatred, but myriad ways that members can use weaponry, logistics and their white supremacist philosophy to start race war.

https://unicornriot.ninja/2019/neo-nazis-use-discord-chats-to-promote-new-zealand-copycat-shootings/?fbclid=IwAR2scSrYaDS6iAOm79vW7eF4S5PC6UovGuHWmHpgoxm5e1f0V8afgvd_nxQ

Outer Heaven also served as a hub for archiving and real-time sharing of the New Zealand gunman’s manifesto, as well as the livestream recording showing the shooting taking place. Discord user ‘GGPL’ encouraged others to make new fake social media accounts in order to “spam the [shooting] video everywhere“.

Copies of the files were shared and archived on various platforms such as Pastebin, LiveLeak, MEGA.nz, and via torrents. (As of this writing, some of the MEGA share links were still active.) PDFs of the manifesto, as well as images and video clips taken from the shooter’s livestream, were also shared via Discord’s CDN (Content Delivery Network) which allows Discord users to upload files directly in the app. All Discord CDN file links we examined with content from the shooting were still active as of the time of writing.

A few days later, ‘Sulferix‘ shared in Outer Heaven that he was deeply moved by the shooter’s manifesto and expressed intent to follow in his footsteps: “Wow. Just finished reading the manifesto. Truly powerful…and I wholeheartedly agree. I will be starting my own contribution to the fight soon, in every way that i can. i will start a group, i will train. i will be part of this if it fucking kills me.”

Others in the Outer Heaven chat shared extensive PDF libraries of manuals on creating explosives, homemade firearms, and chemical weapons in the server’s #pdfs-and-documents channel. (NOTE: Due to the nature of these links, they have been redacted by Unicorn Riot.) The weapons guides were posted alongside PDF copies of Siege, a book by neo-Nazi writer James Mason that calls for white supremacists to carry out random acts of mass terrorism in order to spark a race war.

These participants' reading is used for ends that confirm their fears of the human "other."

[onethatcares]

43. many years ago I heard

"If you don't read, the world is a closed book".

[ancianita]

48. Nice. Thanks for a saying I never heard before.

[Books_Tea_Alone]

45. YES! This is the absolute truth!

We were just discussing this at work the other day (rare workplace where there are multiple book clubs and 99.9% Trump haters). As all of my coworkers are either educators or psychologists and we had a healthy discussion on the lack of books in a household and the fact that kids and adults today are not encouraged to read books anymore. Our town has a "One Book/One Town" initiative where parents/ adults all read a chosen book along with the high school students. The parents of my daughter's friends laugh when asked if they've read the book alongside their child...even though it's a current bestseller.
It is sad- low information existence is prized in today's relative tv showcase.

What gives me hope- Barnes and Noble crowded last Friday night, libraries around here are healthy and used, Goodreads app lists thousands of users who are discussing and keeping track of books, and finally I attended BookCon in NYC this past spring which was a packed, standing room only convention devoted to the love of reading.

[ancianita]

49. When people read, they become a bit more emotionally organized, have a sympathy for intelligent

interactions. Not all, but most. Some hate readings can lead to wider reading, which changes minds.

Thanks for this hopeful story of your town's climate improving from reading activity. Let the kids laugh. On some level they know that reading is thinking.