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Notes -
UK, are you OK?
Labour councillor calls for people to 'cut the throats' of 'Nazis and fascists'
Suspended Labour councillor arrested over video ‘urging people to cut throats’
Probably anyone reading this is familiar with the story so far: three gradeschool children in Southport were knifed to death, and ten others injured, on July 29th at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club. The alleged perpetrator, Axel Rudakubana, is reportedly the son of Rwandan immigrants and was 17 years old at the time of the incident, but has apparently since passed his 18th birthday. The events, allegedly in part as the result of some false reporting concerning Axel's identity, led to a number of protests, which led to a number of counterprotests.
Why would you counterprotest a protest against the knifing of schoolgirls? Well, apparently the original protests were racist. It's pretty important to not be racist. Sufficiently important, I suppose, that people would rather talk about that, than about the dead schoolchildren who, but for recent immigration from Africa, would likely still be alive. Not that Axel is an immigrant, of course. He was born on the magic soil of the UK, so it's apparently racist to notice that his parents weren't. I saw one article suggesting he might be autistic? Good sources are hard to find.
That brings us to the current events! Labour councillor Ricky Jones apparently found some inspiration in Axel's extracurricular activities, as he is very clearly articulating additional knife violence as the proper response to people protesting the murder of little girls. I actually had a surprisingly difficult time finding the original video; most of the articles throwing around the word "alleged" did not judge me fit to judge for myself. I assume Ricky was born tone deaf because throat cutting seems like an especially poor choice of words given the circumstances--though I guess I don't know for certain that Axel managed any literal throat cutting in the process of (EDIT: ALLEGEDLY) butchering schoolchildren. The UK does not have any particularly meaningful or toothy Free Speech legislation, either, though in this particular case I can imagine Mr. Jones facing consequences even here in the United States. Remind me, is it still okay to call for the punching of U.S. Nazis? Was it ever? I seem to have lost track.
Axel's knifework is not being treated as a terrorist attack (yet?), but here's where things get weird.
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT:
Taylor Swift shows in Vienna canceled over alleged planned terrorist attack
Suspects in foiled attack on Taylor Swift shows were inspired by Islamic State group, officials say
Will we hear more about Axel's motivations? I suppose Taylor Swift is just so famous that at this point any plot to kill large numbers of people would, statistically, run into Taylor Swift events eventually. But now I'm wondering if Axel was just, you know, reading the same weird terrorist handbook as the Austrian terrorists. They were even the same age--the two arrested in Vienna are 19 years old and 17 years old. If I had a nickel for every time a 17 year old boy tried to murder Swifties en masse, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice!
I'm sure much smarter and well-connected analysts out there are way ahead of me on this one. And probably it's nothing! And it wouldn't really matter if it was something, beyond maybe bankrupting a handful of Taylor Swift event ticket scalpers in the near future. But it's all very weird.
Especially the part where counterprotesters started literally calling for and cheering on more knifings.
Really? You can't think of any other reason why the counterprotestors might have felt the need to counterprotest?
Saying that there were counterprotests against the knifing of schoolgirls is an extremely disingenuous interpretation of events. The counterprotests were against violence by far-right mobs. These groups pointed to a bad thing that happened, made some mostly vibes-based links to their pet issue, and then committed extreme acts violence about their pet issue claiming justification from the bad thing. Saying that opposing these group is supporting the bad thing is extremely sloppy. I think someone helping run a website with a goal of helping people move past shady thinking should hold themselves to a higher standard.
The headline I linked on that question was "‘More of us than you’: Thousands of anti-racism protesters turn out to counter far-right rallies in UK." It glosses the inciting event as follows:
I personally heard about the counterprotests before I heard anything about the actual stabbing; as far as I can tell, the counterprotests were well underway before the arson attempt, and certainly before the apparent traffic checkpoints (of which I had read nothing until your post). And the links I shared did include mention of the attempted arson. Yes, I condemn the burning down of buildings--but then, I've always condemned the burning down of buildings, even when I was being told it's a totally reasonable and proportionate response. But that isn't what my post was about:
Did you watch the video of Ricky Jones calling to "slit their throats," and the crowd behind him cheering that on? The counterprotesters in that case were clearly and vocally supporting more of exactly the bad activity I was complaining about, right there in the video.
My chosen rhetorical approach here was to bring forward the salient things I felt the news media was glossing over (the murders of the children). Now, I can understand why you would prefer that I make the counterprotests seem more sympathetic, but my rhetorical framing is that I was, and am, amazed at how quickly the actual child murders were buried under a shit-ton of reporting along the lines of "whose 'mostly peaceful' protests produce the most shocking and abhorrent extremes?" That's one of the reasons I chose to focus on Ricky's commentary: because it was so salient, given the nature of the inciting incident.
You can't credibly accuse me of being sloppy when I provide direct video evidence of precisely the thing you're suggesting isn't happening, actually happening.
I think the world would be a better place if people on all sides were more careful to bring forward all salient points and not just the ones that are most useful.
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