Patreon Update: Latest Talks Plus First Zoom Q & A Scheduled for June 5

The Patre­on site con­tin­ues to devel­op and take form: The first Zoom Q & A Ses­sion is sched­uled for 6/5 in the late afternoon/early evening. In addi­tion, the lat­est talks devel­op both recent polit­i­cal events and his­tor­i­cal trends. Top­ics of dis­cus­sion include: the mass shoot­ings in Uvalde Texas and Buf­fa­lo, NY; Don­ald Trump’s suc­cess­ful use of polit­i­cal mythol­o­gy to devel­op his cam­paign and Pres­i­den­cy; the unsa­vory polit­i­cal con­nec­tions of Bernie Sanders and Alexan­dria Oca­sio-Cortez; the late Sen­a­tor Eugene McCarthy’s so-called “Peace Can­di­da­cy” in 1968; Mr. Emory’s own expe­ri­ence com­ing of age dur­ing the Viet­nam War. Ukrain­ian tele­vi­sion anchor quotes Adolf Eich­mann ver­ba­tim in this video from UKRAINE 24. This video of Ukraine’s top mil­i­tary med­ical offi­cer dis­cussing an order to cas­trate Russ­ian males is an eye-open­er. WFMU-FM is pod­cast­ing For The Record–You can sub­scribe to the pod­cast HERE. Mr. Emory emphat­i­cal­ly rec­om­mends that listeners/readers get the 32GB flash dri­ve con­tain­ing all of Mr. Emory’s 43 years on the air, plus a library of old anti-fas­cist books on easy-to-down­load PDF files.

“Sovereign Citizen” Accused of Setting Huge Southern California Wildfire

Many of the per­pe­tra­tors of may­hem in our soci­ety have been fol­low­ers of right-wing/­fas­cist ide­olo­gies, a fact that has not received due notice. In FTR #1011, we not­ed that Las Vegas shoot­er Stephen Pad­dock was a “Sov­er­eign Cit­i­zen” and Dim­itrios Pagourtzis (the accused Sante Fe, Texas school shoot­er) was influ­enced by online fas­cist ide­ol­o­gy. Accused Park­land High School shoot­er Niko­las Cruz was also influ­enced by Nazi ide­ol­o­gy, as were Columbine shoot­ers Har­ris and Kle­bold. Damon Pashilk–accused of set­ting the 2016 Clay­ton fire–was also influ­enced by Nazi ide­ol­o­gy. (One of his Face­book posts is pic­tured at right.) In FTR #1016, we learned that Jar­rod Ramos, accused of a mass gun­fire-killing at an Annapo­lis, Mary­land, news­pa­per, was a fol­low­er of the neo-Con­fed­er­ate move­ment. Now we learn that the iron­i­cal­ly-named For­rest Gor­don Clark–accused of set­ting the Holy Fire in South­ern California–is (like Pad­dock) a sov­er­eign cit­i­zen. With Cal­i­for­nia suf­fer­ing the effects of drought and with the Gold­en State in Trump’s polit­i­cal crosshairs, we should be pre­pared for more “lead­er­less resis­tance” wild­fire ter­ror­ism from fas­cists.

FTR #1011 Miscellaneous Articles and Updates

This broad­cast updates and high­lights pre­vi­ous top­ics of dis­cus­sion, focus­ing large­ly on online/Alt-Right/­Nazi fas­cism and some of the malev­o­lent com­mu­ni­ties that coa­lesce around var­i­ous ide­o­log­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tions of that phe­nom­e­non.

There has been lit­tle pub­lic recog­ni­tion that many of the mass shoot­ers whose activ­i­ties have dom­i­nat­ed much of the news cycle in recent years,have been immersed in one form or extrem­ist far right ide­ol­o­gy or anoth­er.

The release of ~1,200 pages of doc­u­ments relat­ed to the Las Vegas shoot­ing reveals that Stephen Pad­dock appears to have been “a sov­er­eign cit­i­zen.” . . . . In the doc­u­ments, those who encoun­tered gun­man Stephen Pad­dock say he expressed con­spir­a­to­r­i­al, anti-gov­ern­ment beliefs char­ac­ter­is­tic of the far right . . . . But tan­ta­liz­ing­ly, peo­ple who encoun­tered Pad­dock before his shoot­ing say that he expressed con­spir­a­to­r­i­al, anti-gov­ern­ment beliefs, which are char­ac­ter­is­tic of the far right. . . .”

Pad­dock­’s actions are not unex­pect­ed for some­one with his ide­o­log­i­cal mind­set: ” . . . . In sur­veys con­duct­ed in 2014 and 2015, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of US law-enforce­ment ranked the risk of ter­ror­ism from the sov­er­eign-cit­i­zen move­ment high­er than the risk from Islam­ic extrem­ism.”

Naz­i/alt-right cul­ture was a pri­ma­ry influ­ence on accused San­ta Fe (Texas) gun­man Dim­itrios Pagourtzis. ” . . . . Dim­itrios Pagourtzis, the sus­pect­ed gun­man who opened fire at a Texas high school on Fri­day morn­ing, appar­ent­ly post­ed pho­tos of neo-Nazi iconog­ra­phy online, accord­ing to social media accounts flagged by class­mates and reviewed by The Dai­ly Beast. . . . Oth­er images on Pagourtzis’ now-delet­ed Face­book page sug­gest a pos­si­ble inter­est in white suprema­cist groups. Pagourtzis uploaded a num­ber of T‑shirts that fea­ture Vapor­wave-style designs. Vapor­wave, a music and design move­ment, has spawned a relat­ed move­ment called Fash­wave, which bor­rows the same aes­thet­ic but applies them to neo-Nazi sub­jects. Pagourtzis’ Face­book head­er image was the cov­er of an album by musi­cian Per­tur­ba­tor. Perturbator’s music has been co-opt­ed by mem­bers of the Fash­wave move­ment, Buz­zFeed pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed. Neo-Nazi web­site The Dai­ly Stormer fre­quent­ly includes Perturbator’s music in “Fash­wave Fri­days” posts. . . . .”

Ini­tial press reports about the San­ta Fe shoot­ing dis­cuss pos­si­ble accom­plices of Pagourtzis. Was he part of a group of some kind? “. . . . On Fri­day, author­i­ties intend­ed to ques­tion two oth­er peo­ple: One was at the scene and had “sus­pi­cious reac­tions,” accord­ing to the gov­er­nor, and anoth­er had drawn the scruti­ny of inves­ti­ga­tors. . . .”

Pagourtzis, as we saw above, had tak­en to wear­ing a trench coat, even in 90 degree weath­er. Press reports have described him as a “copy-cat” killer, hav­ing imi­tat­ed Dylan Kle­bold and Eric Har­ris of Columbine shoot­ing fame. (Pagourtzis was too young to have mem­o­ries of the inci­dent, though he may well have absorbed infor­ma­tion about the Columbine per­pe­tra­tors.)

The media have, for the most part, not men­tioned that Har­ris and Kle­bold were heav­i­ly influ­enced by Nazi cul­ture. “. . . . Nine­teen days before they were to grad­u­ate, Har­ris and Kle­bold seemed insep­a­ra­ble and trou­ble­some. In Columbine’s hall­ways, they spoke bro­ken Ger­man and referred often to ‘4–20,’ Hitler’s birth­day and the day they chose for their assault. . . . Some Columbine stu­dents said the vio­lent side of Har­ris and Kle­bold became more obvi­ous in recent months. They became obses­sive­ly inter­est­ed in World War II, Nazi imagery, Adolf Hitler. John House, 17, a Columbine senior, told reporters that when he went bowl­ing with Kle­bold, ‘when he would do some­thing good, he would shout ‘Heil Hitler’ and throw up his hand. It just made every­one mad.’ . . . .”

In FTR #995, we exam­ined the Atom­waf­fen Neo-Nazi group. Atom­waf­fen mem­ber Andrew Oneschuk was about to join Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov Bat­tal­ion. ” . . . . . . . Andrew, who was one-eighth Ukrain­ian, took to the cause, chat­ting with fight­ers and their allies. He began for­mu­lat­ing a plan to join the Azov Bat­tal­ion, a noto­ri­ous­ly bru­tal band of inter­na­tion­al fight­ers help­ing in the resis­tance against the Rus­sians. . . . Andrew took it fur­ther, even­tu­al­ly adopt­ing the online han­dle “Borovikov,” after a famous Russ­ian neo-Nazi gang leader. That spring, he hung an SS flag in his bed­room as well as a giant swasti­ka. . . .”

Online net­work­ing between resent­ful, sex-deprived men who call them­selves “incels” (a con­trac­tion of  “invol­un­tary celi­bates”) over­lap Naz­i/Alt-Right ele­ments. The ide­o­log­i­cal col­li­sion of the online “incels” and the #MeToo move­ment may well gen­er­ate some tru­ly patho­log­i­cal vio­lence. “. . . . The alt-right, right-wing pop­ulism, men’s rights groups and a renewed white suprema­cist move­ment have cap­i­tal­ized on many white men’s feel­ing of loss in recent years. The groups vary in how they diag­nose society’s ills and whom they blame, but they pro­vide a sense of mean­ing and place for their fol­low­ers. And as dif­fer­ent extrem­ist groups con­nect online, they draw on one another’s mem­ber­ship bases, tac­tics and world­views, allow­ing mem­ber­ship in one group to become a gate­way to oth­er extrem­ist ide­olo­gies as well. Today, for exam­ple, posts on Incel.me, an incel forum, debate join­ing forces with the alt-right and argue that Jews are to blame for incels’ oppres­sion. On one thread, users fan­ta­sized that if they were dic­ta­tors, they would not only cre­ate harems and enslave women, but also ‘gas the Jews.’ . . . . By divid­ing the world into us-ver­sus-them and describ­ing vast injus­tice at the hands of the sup­pos­ed­ly pow­er­ful, these groups, experts say, can prime adher­ents for vio­lence. . . .”

Incel cul­ture is metas­ta­siz­ing into “lone-wolf”/leaderless resis­tance ter­ror­ism. ” . . . . In 2014, a gam­ing award cer­e­mo­ny set to hon­or the fem­i­nist crit­ic Ani­ta Sar­keesian received a bomb threat; an anony­mous harass­er threat­ened to det­o­nate a device unless her award was rescind­ed. Before Milo Yiannopou­los was a well-known alt-right fig­ure, fem­i­nists knew him as one of the pri­ma­ry archi­tects of Gamer­gate, a move­ment of young men who harassed and threat­ened women in the videogam­ing indus­try. Two fans of Mr. Yiannopou­los were charged with shoot­ing a pro­test­er out­side of one of his speech­es. . . .”

Nazi killer Anders Breivik embod­ied the over­lap between Alt-Right white suprema­cy and insti­tu­tion­al­ized misog­y­ny: ” . . . . On July 22, Breivik slaugh­tered 77 of his coun­try­men, most of them teenagers, in Oslo and at a sum­mer camp on the island of Utøya, because he thought they or their par­ents were the kinds of ‘polit­i­cal­ly cor­rect’ lib­er­als who were enabling Mus­lim immi­gra­tion. But Breivik was almost as vol­u­ble on the sub­jects of fem­i­nism, the fam­i­ly, and fathers’ rights as he was on Islam. ‘The most direct threat to the fam­i­ly is ‘divorce on demand,’ ’ he wrote in the man­i­festo he post­ed just before he began his dead­ly spree. ‘The sys­tem must be reformed so that the father will be award­ed cus­tody rights by default.’ The manos­phere lit up. Said one approv­ing poster at The Spear­head, an online men’s rights mag­a­zine for the ‘defense of our­selves, our fam­i­lies and our fel­low men’: ‘What could be more ‘an eye for an eye’ than to kill the chil­dren of those who were so will­ing to destroy men’s fam­i­lies and destroy the home­land of men?’ . . . .”

The “psy­cho-polit­i­cal” polar­iza­tion of the #MeToo move­ment and the “incels” misog­y­nist com­mu­ni­ty holds dev­as­tat­ing poten­tial.

Pro­gram High­lights Include:

1.–Journalist Ronan Far­row’s author­ship of the New York­er arti­cle that took down Har­vey Wein­stein. (For more dis­cus­sion of the #MeToo Move­ment and weaponized fem­i­nism, see FTR #‘s 998, 999, 1000, 1001.)
2.–Farrow’s State Depart­ment work sug­ges­tive of involve­ment with the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty.  “. . . .  Post-law school: Lands a job at the State Depart­ment, as a spe­cial advi­sor focus­ing on con­flict in Afghanistan and Pak­istan. . . .”
3.–Farrow’s co-author­ship of the New York­er arti­cle that took down for­mer New York Attor­ney Gen­er­al Eric Schnei­der­man, a major Trump neme­sis, who was also crit­i­ciz­ing and inves­ti­gat­ing oth­er indi­vid­u­als and insti­tu­tions asso­ci­at­ed with the Trump/GOP pow­er elite.  “. . . . Schnei­der­man had already been declared ‘the man the banks fear most’ by the lib­er­al mag­a­zine ‘The Amer­i­can Prospect.’ . . . . In the days since Novem­ber 9, Schnei­der­man fired off a let­ter warn­ing Trump not to drop White House sup­port of Obama’s Clean Pow­er Plan, intro­duced a bill in the state Leg­is­la­ture to give New York­ers cost-free con­tra­cep­tion if the Afford­able Care Act is dis­man­tled, threat­ened to sue after Trump froze EPA fund­ing of clean air and water pro­grams, and joined a law­suit that argues that Trump’s exec­u­tive order on immi­gra­tion is not just uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and un-Amer­i­can, but it brings pro­found harm to the res­i­dents of New York State. . . . He’s on the oppo­site side of the Clean Pow­er Plan fight from Okla­homa Attor­ney Gen­er­al Scott Pruitt, since named head of the EPA, and who Schnei­der­man labeled a ‘dan­ger­ous and unqual­i­fied choice.’ . . . ”
4.–Schneiderman was also inves­ti­gat­ing the pow­er­ful, well-con­nect­ed NXIVM cult, one of whose asso­ciates was Roger Stone, the long-time Trump/GOP dirty trick­ster who sig­naled the #MeToo take­down of Sen­a­tor Al Franken.

FTR #1003 School Shootings and Fascist Groups, Part 2

Pub­lic schools and pub­lic edu­ca­tion are, and for many years have been, the focal point of right-wing activ­i­ty. From dis­sat­is­fac­tion over man­dat­ed school deseg­re­ga­tion to oppo­si­tion to the judi­cial ban on prayer in pub­lic schools to the present-day dra­con­ian slash­ing of pub­lic edu­ca­tion budges, the right has attacked pub­lic edu­ca­tion. At the same time, the right has pro­mot­ed the use of pub­lic funds for parochial schools and home school­ing as alter­na­tives to pub­lic edu­ca­tion.

The for­ma­tive expe­ri­ence of pub­lic school atten­dance might well be viewed as fun­da­men­tal to young peo­ples’ social­iza­tion process–learning to share, acquir­ing tol­er­ance for those of dif­fer­ent back­grounds and learn­ing the basics of civic life  in Amer­i­ca.

Pub­lic schools have also come under attack–quite literally–from armed fas­cists.

This is the sec­ond pro­gram deal­ing with school shoot­ings and the role fas­cist groups play in the devel­op­ment of such inci­dents. The broad­cast begins with a brief sum­ma­ry and recap of key points of dis­cus­sion from FTR #1002. They include:

1.-Patrick Pur­dy’s appar­ent links to Aryan Nations.
2.-Purdy’s anti-Asian xeno­pho­bia, deem­ing that Amer­i­cans were being edged out in their own home­land.
3.-The Order’s attempts at devel­op­ing mind con­trol tech­niques.
4.-Purdy’s involve­ment with the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church.
5.-The pro­found effect of school shoot­ings on both par­ents and stu­dents of affect­ed insti­tu­tions. School shoot­ings fun­da­men­tal­ly under­mine peo­ples’ sense of com­fort and cre­ate an anx­i­ety con­ducive to the imple­men­ta­tion of total­i­tar­i­an­ism.
6.-The pro­vi­sion of Oliv­er North’s mar­tial law con­tin­gency plans to use para­mil­i­tary right-wingers as fed­er­al deputies.

Dis­cus­sion pro­ceeds to the Flori­da high school shoot­ing. Mort Sahl’s obser­va­tion decades ago that “A lib­er­al’s idea of courage is eat­ing at a restau­rant that has­n’t been reviewed yet” is exem­pli­fied by jour­nal­ists’ retrac­tion of the sto­ry of Park­land, Flori­da shoot­er Niko­las Cruz being affil­i­at­ed with the ROF because of what might be termed “reverse trolling.” A post on a chat group about the Cruz/ROF link was deemed to be false. Jor­dan Jereb told jour­nal­ists that Cruz was a mem­ber of his group, but that he had­n’t seen him in a long time. He has been said to be “walk­ing that back.” Just HOW does one “walk that back?” ” . . . . The ADL said ROF leader Jor­dan Jereb told them Cruz was asso­ci­at­ed with his group. Jereb, who is based in Tal­la­has­see, said Cruz was brought into the group by anoth­er mem­ber and had par­tic­i­pat­ed in one or more ROF train­ing exer­cis­es in the Tal­la­has­see area, the ADL said. . . . Jereb told the ADL that ROF had not ordered Cruz to take any such action. He told ABC News he has not spo­ken to Cruz in ‘some time’ but said ‘he knew he would get­ting this call.’ . . . .” Jereb told the ADL that ROF had not ordered Cruz to take any such action. He told ABC News he has not spo­ken to Cruz in “some time” but said “he knew he would get­ting this call.”

Whether or not Niko­las Cruz was for­mal­ly net­work­ing with the Repub­lic of Flori­da or oth­er neo-Nazi groups, he was indeed a neo-Nazi in spir­it: It turns out that Cruz had swastikas etched onto his ammu­ni­tion mag­a­zines used dur­ing the attack. This reminds us of the jot­tings Patrick Edward Pur­dy had on his weapons and cloth­ing.

Cruz didn’t just sud­den­ly adopt a neo-Nazi world­view. He’s been stew­ing in these juices for years, and clear­ly had addi­tion­al men­tal health issues.

Sev­er­al fac­tors great­ly exac­er­bate the school shoot­ing phe­nom­e­non.

The Steam gam­ing app, a major dis­trib­u­tor for very pop­u­lar video games, has a neo-Nazi problem–neo-Nazis are using its chat room and voice-over-IP options to pro­mote their ide­ol­o­gy. Both the Dai­ly Stormer and Andrew Auern­heimer have Steam chat rooms, as does Atom­Waf­fen.

On these forums, there are 173 dif­fer­ent groups cham­pi­oning school shoot­ers, laud­ing them as heroes and set­ting the stage for future inci­dents. ” . . . . A lead­ing gam­ing app that is pop­u­lar with adher­ents of the neo-Nazi wing of the alt-right move­ment has at least 173 groups ded­i­cat­ed to the glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of school shoot­ings, accord­ing to a report pub­lished last week by Reveal News. . . .”

In addi­tion, Nazi groups are active­ly recruit­ing depressed peo­ple! ” . . . . For years, mem­bers of the alt-right have tak­en advan­tage of the internet’s most vul­ner­a­ble, turn­ing their fear and self-loathing into vit­ri­olic extrem­ism, and thanks to the movement’s recent gal­va­niza­tion, they’re only grow­ing stronger. . . . Accord­ing to Chris­t­ian Pic­ci­oli­ni, a for­mer neo-nazi who co-found­ed the peace advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tion, Life After Hate, these sort of recruit­ing tac­tics aren’t just com­mon, but sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly enforced. ‘[The recruiters] are active­ly look­ing for these kind of bro­ken indi­vid­u­als who they can promise accep­tance, who they can promise iden­ti­ty to,’ Pic­ci­oli­ni said in an inter­view with Sam Seder. . . .”

Although not includ­ed in the audio por­tion of the pro­gram due to the lim­i­ta­tions of time, we note that, in our opin­ion, the pres­ence of lethal, mil­i­tary-style firearms are not, by them­selves, the pri­ma­ry fac­tor in the epi­dem­ic of school shoot­ings and oth­er mass casu­al­ty firearms attacks. A would-be school shoot­er can always pur­chase a pump-action, 12-gauge shot­gun, saw it off and pre­cip­i­tate con­sid­er­able may­hem.

Many of the school shoot­ings have been per­formed by fas­cists of one stripe or anoth­er, man­i­fest­ing the type of actions advo­cat­ed by the likes of Michael Moy­ni­a­han, James Mason and their fel­low trav­el­ers. Mason and his role mod­el Charles Man­son are now viewed favor­ably by a seg­ment of the Nazi move­ment. The role of nihilist/fascist ide­ol­o­gy in moti­vat­ing some of the school shoot­ers should be fac­tored into the dis­cus­sion.

The role of the media in con­di­tion­ing young peo­ple to kill is a major focal point of the book On Killing by Lieu­tenant Colonel Dave Gross­man, who taught psy­chol­o­gy at West Point. From Ama­zon’s pro­mo­tion­al text for Gross­man­’s book: “The good news is that most sol­diers are loath to kill. But armies have devel­oped sophis­ti­cat­ed ways of over­com­ing this instinc­tive aver­sion. And con­tem­po­rary civil­ian soci­ety, par­tic­u­lar­ly the media, repli­cates the army’s con­di­tion­ing tech­niques, and, accord­ing to Lt. Col. Dave Gross­man­’s the­sis, is respon­si­ble for our ris­ing rate of mur­der among the young. Upon its ini­tial pub­li­ca­tion, ON KILLING was hailed as a land­mark study of the tech­niques the mil­i­tary uses to over­come the pow­er­ful reluc­tance to kill, of how killing affects sol­diers, and of the soci­etal impli­ca­tions of esca­lat­ing vio­lence. Now, Gross­man has updat­ed this clas­sic work to include infor­ma­tion on 21st-cen­tu­ry mil­i­tary con­flicts, recent trends in crime, sui­cide bomb­ings, school shoot­ings, and more. The result is a work cer­tain to be rel­e­vant and impor­tant for decades to come.”

Our high body-count movies and TV pro­grams, as well as point-and-shoot video games, accord­ing to Gross­man, repli­cate to a con­sid­er­able degree the audio-visu­al desen­si­ti­za­tion tech­niques used by con­tem­po­rary armies to help recruits over­came their inhi­bi­tions about killing. We sug­gest Gross­man­’s the­sis as a fac­tor in the school mas­sacres.

Pro­gram High­lights Include:

1.-The para­mil­i­tary right-wing Oath Keep­ers deploy­ment of heav­i­ly armed cadre out­side of schools.
2.-Discussion of how the likes of Stew­art Rhodes and his Oath Keep­ers are the type of para­mil­i­tary right-wingers who would be dep­u­tized in the event of an acti­va­tion of mar­tial law con­tin­gency plans.
3.-The online dis­par­age­ment of Park­land high school stu­dents by the “Alt-Right.”
4.-The use of the C14 mili­tias in Ukraine to enforce pub­lic order in Kiev (the cap­i­tal) and 21 oth­er cities. The orga­ni­za­tion takes its name from the 14 words of David Lane, a mem­ber of the Order. One of that group’s founders was high­light­ed at the begin­ning of FTR #1002, not­ing his quest to obtain sophis­ti­cat­ed weapon­ry and to devel­op mind-con­trol tech­niques.

FTR #1002 School Shootings and Fascist Groups, Part 1: Purdy’s Last Stand Redux

Pub­lic schools and pub­lic edu­ca­tion are, and for many years have been, the focal point of right-wing activ­i­ty. From dis­sat­is­fac­tion over man­dat­ed school deseg­re­ga­tion to oppo­si­tion to the judi­cial ban on prayer in pub­lic schools to the present-day dra­con­ian slash­ing of pub­lic edu­ca­tion budges, the right has attacked pub­lic edu­ca­tion. At the same time, the right has pro­mot­ed the use of pub­lic funds for parochial schools and home school­ing as alter­na­tives to pub­lic edu­ca­tion.

The for­ma­tive expe­ri­ence of pub­lic school atten­dance might well be viewed as fun­da­men­tal to young peo­ples’ social­iza­tion process–learning to share, acquir­ing tol­er­ance for those of dif­fer­ent back­grounds and learn­ing the basics of civic life  in Amer­i­ca.

Pub­lic schools have also come under attack–quite literally–from armed fas­cists.

The first of a two-part series, this pro­gram con­sists almost entire­ly of a recap of mate­r­i­al from Mis­cel­la­neous Archive Show M55: Pur­dy’s Last Stand: The Stock­ton (CA) School­yard Mas­sacre of 1989.

Although Mr. Emory would have engaged in a more nuanced dis­cus­sion of school shoot­ings and their polit­i­cal and psy­cho-social impli­ca­tions had the pro­gram been record­ed today, there are some essen­tial ele­ments to be con­sid­ered in con­nec­tion with the event.

The syn­op­tic writ­ten descrip­tion for the pro­gram reads as fol­lows:

“Advances the work­ing hypoth­e­sis that the Stock­ton school­yard mas­sacre of Jan­u­ary 1989 may have been delib­er­ate­ly pre­cip­i­tat­ed by ele­ments of the U.S. nation­al secu­ri­ty estab­lish­ment act­ing in com­bi­na­tion with ele­ments of the ultra-right. Patrick Edward Pur­dy mur­dered five Asian-Amer­i­can school­child­ren and then com­mit­ted sui­cide, spurring leg­is­la­tion for gun con­trol and cre­at­ing pub­lic fear and sen­ti­ment for police state tac­tics. Pur­dy had asso­ci­a­tions with Aryan Nations and the Moon orga­ni­za­tion, and may have been a covert intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty pat­sy and vic­tim of mind con­trol. The broad­cast ana­lyzes a pos­si­ble intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty con­nec­tion to the gun con­trol move­ment with­in the larg­er back­ground of the mar­tial law con­tin­gency plans devel­oped by the Rea­gan and Bush admin­is­tra­tions.”

Again, Mr. Emory would have pre­sent­ed a more nuanced analy­sis of this event had it occurred today–almost 30 years later–critical ele­ments of the dis­sec­tion of Pur­dy’s last stand bear repeat­ing and more intense scruti­ny:

1.-Purdy’s xeno­pho­bic view of Asian-Amer­i­cans  and “immigrants”–a point of view that is held by a large por­tion of the Trump con­stituen­cy, the so-called “Alt-Right” in this coun­try and abroad, as well. Exac­er­bat­ed great­ly by eco­nom­ic depri­va­tion stem­ming from glob­al­iza­tion and the finan­cial col­lapse of 2008 and aus­ter­i­ty eco­nom­ics insti­tut­ed in the EU at the insti­ga­tion of Ger­many and the U.S. by the obstruc­tion­ist GOP Con­gres­sion­al  major­i­ty that took pow­er after the 2010 mid-term elec­tions, the fear of immi­grants is a major aspect of fas­cist ide­ol­o­gy.
2.-The gal­va­niz­ing effect on both par­ents and their chil­dren of the school shoot­ings is vital to con­sid­er. Ter­ror­ized by these events, a pop­u­lace is far more will­ing to  accept police-state tactics–creeping mar­tial law, if you will.
3.-The mar­tial law con­tin­gency plans for­mal­ized by Oliv­er North and com­pa­ny and out­ed dur­ing the Iran-Con­tra scan­dal involved the fed­er­al dep­u­ti­za­tion of para­mil­i­tary right-wing groups such as the Oath Keep­ers and Nazi and fas­cist ele­ments. Iron­i­cal­ly, much of the so-called “Alt-Right” now incor­po­rate anti-gun con­trol ide­ol­o­gy and mar­tial law plans into their world view. In Lec­ture M3, we high­light­ed how ele­ments of what are now called “Alt-Right” are play­ing into the var­i­ous sce­nar­ios they inveigh against.
4.-It is iron­ic that much of the so-called “Alt-Right” cite gun con­trol as a step toward mar­tial law. Although they are cor­rect, up to a point, they fail to real­ize that they, them­selves, will be both insti­ga­tors of, and in some cas­es, the enforcers for, that very same mar­tial law!
5.-Public edu­ca­tion has long been a tar­get of the far-right, which attacked school inte­gra­tion in the 1950’s, 60’s and ’70s, the ban­ning of prayer in pub­lic schools and, in lat­er years attempts at intro­duc­ing pro­grams like sex edu­ca­tion and pro­grams pro­mot­ing a more tol­er­ant atti­tude toward oth­ers. In cal­en­dar year 2018, we should note that pub­lic schools are under attack from the far right, and not just in the per­son of school shoot­ers. Bet­sy De Vos, Trump’s Sec­re­tary of Edu­ca­tion, is push­ing for fed­er­al fund­ing of parochial schools, enabling of for-prof­it col­leges. The GOP and far right are push­ing home school­ing as an alter­na­tive to pub­lic edu­ca­tion and the fur­ther slash­ing of fed­er­al and state bud­gets, which inevitably harms pub­lic edu­ca­tion. We note that pub­lic schools are a major font of social aware­ness. Students–ideally–encounter and devel­op a greater under­stand­ing and tol­er­ance for oth­ers in pub­lic schools. Pub­lic edu­ca­tion is a major fea­ture of social cohe­sion, and its dis­so­lu­tion a major step toward the imple­men­ta­tion of fas­cism.

School Shootings Are Technologically Obsolete

In past pro­grams, we have cov­ered school shoot­ings, one of the most high pro­file forms of may­hem in our benight­ed soci­ety. With the growth of high-tech, they have now become tech­no­log­i­cal­ly obsolete–school ter­ror­ism may become increas­ingly pop­u­lar as anony­mous com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies and anony­mous pay­ment sys­tems like Bit­coin con­tinue to roll out. The psy­cho­log­i­cal effect of hav­ing chil­dren ter­ror­ized in this man­ner should not be under­es­ti­mat­ed. It will dri­ve peo­ple into the arms of fas­cism, as they cry out for “some­one to do SOMETHING! All of the con­tents of this web­site as of 12/19/2014–Dave Emory’s 35+ years of research and broadcasting–as well as hours of video­taped lec­tures are avail­able on a 32GB flash dri­ve. Dave offers his pro­grams and arti­cles for free–your sup­port is very much appre­ci­at­ed.

Now, About those School Yard Shootings . . .

With the nation and much of the world focused on the grue­some shoot­ings in New­town, Con­nect­cut, we revis­it the top­ic of the school­yard shoot­ings. In past pro­grams, we have not­ed that a num­ber of the [alleged] per­pe­tra­tors of the school shoot­ings have links to Nazi and white suprema­cist groups. A form of ter­ror­ism, these mas­sacres desta­bi­lize soci­ety, lead­ing to the pop­u­lar sen­ti­ment for “order.” Endorsed by some ele­ments of pop­u­lar cul­ture, the school­yard shoot­ings are func­tion­ing in a man­ner anal­o­gous to the Fritz Haar­mann inci­dent in Weimar Ger­many. That ser­i­al mur­der of more than a hun­dred juve­niles, whose corpses were butchered and baked into meat pies, dis­cred­it­ed the author­i­ties of Weimar Ger­many, help­ing to sow sen­ti­ment that would ben­e­fit the Nazis.

Miscellaneous Archive Shows M31-M62

Pro­gram details and audio links.

FTR #158 The Life and Times of Senator Thomas Dodd

Gun con­trol issue and inter­na­tion­al fas­cist intrigue, con­nec­tions between the assas­si­na­tion of JFK and the world of Sen­a­tor Thomas Dodd of Con­necti­cut.

FTR #150 The Littleton, Colorado School Massacre

Eric Har­ris and Dylan Kle­bold real­ized a long-held plan to mur­der school­mates on April 20 (Hitler’s Birth­day). They spoke Ger­man to each oth­er, greet­ed each oth­er with the “heil” salute and rehearsed their plan on video months in advance of the slaugh­ter.