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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   27307 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 30, 2024

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New Year, Same Old Culture War

At least 10 killed in New Orleans after driver ‘intentionally’ rams into crowd on Bourbon Street (CNN)

Apparently, "FBI Special Agent Aletha Duncan said the Bourbon Street attack is 'not a terrorist attack' in comments delivered after the mayor spoke." But then, later:

New Orleans mayor declares 'terrorist attack' on Bourbon Street, FBI confirms investigation (Fox)

Coulter's Law appears to be in force. As a reminder:

The longer we go without being told the race of the shooters, the less likely it is to be white men.

And indeed, this was a shooter, who died in a gunfight with cops... but so far it appears the ten deaths and dozens of injuries were vehicular, not firearm-related. Over on 8chankun (warning: images of death) it's claimed that "FBI Director Kash Patel states killer was 'Middle Eastern Descent'" but I don't see a link to direct evidence of that. I will be interested to learn whether it is a disinformation thing, or whether 8chankun is just better at reporting news than multiple multi-million dollar corporate news media outlets. Can a failed shooting preceded by successful vehicular homicide be used as ammunition (hah) in Second Amendment debates? Probably! Apparently at least one "explosive device" was also found?

There is something to be said for "wait and see," and indeed I expect to hear much more about this attack in the near future (unless, of course, we simply don't). Though clearly Special Agent Aletha Duncan did not seem to think there was any reason to "wait and see" when declaring, contra the mayor, that this was not a terrorist attack.

In unrelated news, Stocks just did something they haven’t done in nearly three decades--and in case you are unimpressed with CNN's clickbait headline,

back-to-back gains of over 20% is the best performance for the benchmark index since 1997 and 1998

Everything old is new again.

If the latest news from the past few minutes is accurate, the driver indeed turns out to have a Muslim-sounding name, and online Noticers were correct in identifying the wrapped up flag as an ISIS one:

The suspect accused of plowing a truck through a crowd on Bourbon Street is 42-year-old Shamsud Din Jabbar, according to a law enforcement source.

The source said he was carrying an ISIS flag in the truck.

There’s also at least one photo of the man lying dead in the street, and he does appear brown (or black American convert, as some commenters claim?) and bearded.

Right on cue is a Reddit comment to the tune of “that’s what upsets me most about an Islamic truck-ramming, backlash against peaceful Muslims”:

Damn. My heart to all middle-eastern/south-asian folks today who will bear the racist fall-out of this mad man’s evil move.

Roughly +15 net upvotes. A pesky wrongthinker asks:

I mean shouldn't you heart be with the victims?

Someone else replies:

Some people have enough heart to go around.

I’m not sure I can figuratively roll my eyes any harder.

And, of course, lots of seething about Trump, Vance, racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, MAGA, Fox News, etc. in that thread.

Rather amazing that after supporting jihadism since 2003 the US hasn't been hit harder than it has. The US meddling in Syria and the war in Iraq are directly to blame for ISIS, especially combined with operation timber sycamore with the US arming jihadists.

These terrorist attacks have nothing to do with middle eastern conflicts, although I know leftists are desperate to draw connections between the two in order to say Americans deserve it somehow

Seriously, how does some guy driving a car into a crowd end up being connected to some resistance groups being given guns? If anything the jihadists would be grateful to America, if they weren’t under the influence of a monomaniacal death cult

I mean, the jihadists(or at least their western followers) are clearly batshit crazy, so maybe stop trying to ascribe logical and rational motives.

IIRC their hostility to America started with an Egyptian named Qutb who came to America on scholarship, and basically was an incel who hated that Americans dated and danced and listened to jazz music.

All of these things are arguably or not so arguably literally condemned by Islam, though.

And thus he could have simply concluded that Muslims shouldn’t be in the West and banned his followers from using Western media or visiting the west. I mean a lot of the Woke stuff is anti-Christian as well, and most serious Christians avoid exposure to that kind of media and so on. They don’t drive through crowds.

I mean a lot of the Woke stuff is anti-Christian as well, and most serious Christians avoid exposure to that kind of media and so on. They don’t drive through crowds.

Christianity also gets pissed on and blasphemed in its home countries a million times a day in media and culture, nobly turning the other cheek year after year as it shrinks. I'm not religious myself, I'm just saying it's not totally inscrutable why a fanatical Muslim might not consider it an example to emulate.

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