The Sikh Temple shooting (updated)

I had hoped to keep the previous post (about the identity of Harry Reid's informant) at the top of this site a bit longer. But for obvious reasons, everyone wants to talk about about the Sikh Temple mass murder in Wisconsin.

The shooter has been identified as Wade Michael Page. It seems impossible to deny that he had political motives: He was a neo-Nazi and a member of various skinhead musical groups.

In 2010, Page, then the leader of the band End Apathy, gave an interview to the white supremacist website Label 56. He said that when he started the band in 2005, its name reflected his wish to “figure out how to end people’s apathetic ways” and start “moving forward.” “I was willing to point out some of my faults on how I was holding myself back,” Page said. Later, he added, “The inspiration was based on frustration that we have the potential to accomplish so much more as individuals and a society in whole.” He did not discuss violence in the interview.

Page told the website that he had been a part of the white power music scene since 2000, when he left his native Colorado on a motorcycle. He attended white power concerts in Georgia, North Carolina, West Virginia and Colorado.  At various times, he said, he also played in the hate rock bands Youngland (2001-2003), Celtic Warrior, Radikahl, Max Resist, Intimidation One, Aggressive Force and Blue Eyed Devils. End Apathy, he said, included “Brent” on bass and “Ozzie” on drums; the men were former members of Definite Hate and another band, 13 Knots.

In 2000, the Southern Poverty Law Center has found that Page also attempted to purchase goods from the neo-Nazi National Alliance, then America’s most important hate group.

The Anders Breivik pattern re-emerges. Although the National Alliance remains viciously anti-Semitic, the current crop of neo-Nazis seems to be more energized by anti-Muslim hatred than by rage against the Jews. The Sikhs are not Muslims, of course, but their distinctive dress would no doubt make them appear so to a jackass like Page.

Two points worth noting:

1. The cops are seeking a second "person of interest." Apparently, this person videotaped the killing spree.

2. Page served in the military in the 1990s as a psy-ops officer. He was last stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

One report says that Page lived near Fort Bragg until fairly recently. CBS says that Page lived in his current apartment in Wisconsin for only two weeks. His band's MySpace page gives his location as North Carolina (last login: February 21 of this year). If we combine these reports with the allegations of a second person taping the scene, then provisionally -- provisionally -- I would say that it is starting to look as though some group in WI recruited Page to come to town and take action.

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Update: At least one witness reports that there were "multiple shooters of Caucasian descent." This witness speaks of "four white males dressed in all black clothing." I must admit, it's pretty difficult to imagine a scenario in which one shooter is mistaken for four. Looks to me as if we may be dealing not with a white supremacist but a white supremacist group.

Of course, the right-wing conspiracy crowd will take the multiple-shooter witness reports as "proof" that the Evil Gummint is behind this tragedy. Mark my words: Right-wingers are going to take that "black clothing" comment as an excuse to blame Occupy Wall Street. Watch it happen.

And now we return to our original post...

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I am sure that conspiracy-minded commentators will use the military connection as their excuse to shout vague accusations of mind control. No doubt we will all be hearing a lot about Fort Bragg's parapolitical history -- about the Jeffrey MacDonald murders, the shipment of heroin along with G.I. corpses coming in from Vietnam, the inexplicable series of infant deaths, and more.

But I don't think that anyone connected with that base "brainwashed" Page.

The real brainwashers, in my view, probably have nothing to do with the military or "the gummint." The true mind-warpers are the fanatical haters who have thrived on the internet.

Other predictions:

1. The conspiracists will claim that Page did what he did as part of a plot to engineer the mythical Great Gun Round-Up. I'm old enough to recall when right-wingers said the same thing about Sirhan Sirhan. Yawn.

2. The right's normal knee-jerk response -- "The victims should have been packing heat!" -- will be muted in this case. Many rightists won't like the mental image of brown-skinned "towel heads" carrying guns in American towns.

You want co-conspirators? Here they are... The comments on this CBS News site offer a view of American madness that is almost as frightening as the massacre itself:

So because the shooter is a white Army Vet, there is no problem calling this an act of "Domestic Terrorism" but when Major Nidal Hassan guns down unarmed Soldiers in the name of Allah or when an OWS protester kills 12 innocent people in a crowded theater those are random acts of insanity. Got it.

The last reference goes, of course, to the rumor that James Holmes was an OWS "black bloc" protestor. He was no such thing; this rumor was started by a right-wing maniac in Florida who admits that he has no evidence. But in the sick alternative universe of the conservative media, this baseless allegation will never die.

Incidentally, the cops labeled the Sikh Temple massacre a likely act of terrorism even before they knew Page's background. They made that presumption based on his tattoos. (It's easy to guess what sort of tats a racist skinhead might sport.) Their deduction had nothing to do with his being a "white Army vet."

Let us return to the comments on that CBS site. Again and again, right-wing psychos try to pin this incident on OWS or liberalism -- with no evidence whatsoever.

Any second now we will learn that he was another left wing nut. At that exact second the lame stream media will lose interest.

He is kkk - that means that his politics are old school Democratc

AT THIS POINT LIBERALS ARE ANARCHISTS.

I wonder if he was another "Occupy" type that went haywire. That seems to be happening a lot these days with the very tolerant folks on the left.

Obama wouldn't want to kill his own. Since this is a DNC frame-up, it makes sense that they would use an ethnic group that has always wholeheartedly supported the U.S.

white supremacists, like new black panthers, are leftists.

Someone needs to start suing minorities for hate crimes against whites and see how they like it.

CBS & all the alphabet channels are white haters!

My favorite:

Your'e reply is incomprehensiveable...typical libretard

There are times when right-wing illiterates churn out garbled prose that reminds me of page one of Finnegan's Wake.

If you want to know who Page's co-conspirators are, look to the writers of the above comments. Psychologically -- spiritually -- Page marched alongside every "conservative" who fills our political discourse with fear-addled inanity. These creeps all bear a degree of responsibility, although they never will confess their culpability.

Right-wing conspiracy mongers have created a bizarre subculture which has driven our nation mad. Reason itself has come under assault. Inchoate rage and paranoia are a kind of smack, and the extremists keep injecting heavier and heavier doses into our body politic. With that kind of junk in our system, acts of obscene violence should come as no surprise.

Update: The Alex Jonesians are saying that "the narrative is already being manufactured to blame the tragedy on conservatives and libertarians." Horseshit. The narrative developing in the news blames white supremacist ideology. If the Alex Jones crew thinks that Nazism and libertarianism are the same thing -- well, they said it, not me.

Naturally, they are also saying that Obama engineered the massacre. Evidence? None. They don't need no stinkin' evidence. Yet these same people got pluperfectly pissed off when ABC's Brian Ross, as a result of mistaken identity, suggested that the Batman killer might belong to the Tea Party.

Speaking only for myself, I blame (in a very general sense) the pervasive culture of American unreason and paranoia. In that regard, the nutjobs who listen to Alex Jones share culpability. No-one can deny that Alex has made millions from selling dope to fear-addicts.