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BBC - Owen Jones

I reckon his wife's words, someone who suffered at his hands, might be a better starting point than what's been said on this thread by some people before, and certainly more of a concern than yours for crossing every t and dotting every I at this point for the sake of...what exactly? I don't think your worry about me supposedly miscasting every bipolar person as a potential terrorist, which I'm certainly not doing, kinda outweighs these events in any way whatsoever. You are free to disagree.

Your post is hard to follow, but I'll attempt a response:

His wife has insight into his mindset, yes. But her describing him as 'bipolar' isn't, on its own, reason to believe he suffered from said condition, nor that such condition played a part in his actions. I'm not sure what your getting in terms of 'concern' and 'crossing t's' etc.

I'm not worried about you 'miscasting every BP person as terrorist'; you have made an assertion, I think that assertion isn't reasonable, I'm challenging it.

Why are you being aggressive?

ETA: I'm not taking issue with eg 'mentally disturbed bipolar' being offered as an explanation, just wanna know why you believe, in lieu of anything substantial, why you think it is an explanation.
 
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He would have been 'right' and his outrage understandable only if at the time of broadcast it had been thought to be the action of an entirely random attacker. But this was not the case. As a 'soldier' of Isis, hatred of gays is unlikely to have been the only or even primary motivation of the attacker. Isis do throw gay men from tall buildings, but they also behead Christians, as well as fellow Muslims, English tourists, seek out Jews as well as burning Yazidi girls in cages and so on. This time it was the gay community in Orlando. Today, tomorrow, someone else, somewhere else. Against a background of a general slaughter his stomping off was ill-judged at best. "This isn't about me' he says now. But he did appear to think it all about himself on the night.
Terrorists abroad who claim allegiance to Daesh are not necessarily one organised force. In many cases they are lone psychopaths/bigots/evil cunts who justify their mass murder by honouring some religious and political belief system and this is what happened here. The killer's father's report pretty much confirmed this. This is primarily a homophobic crime and the presenters failed to understand that and their response towards Owen Jones was condescending and ignorant.

I'm at least relieved that pretty much all of the reporting I've seen today focuses on this as an attack on the LGBT community. This doesn't mean that the LGBT community or Jones claim that this is worse than other recent atrocities, but it has to be acknowledged within the wider context of homophobia so to doesn't get chalked up merely as a result of Daesh terrorism. All homophobes who spread their hatred are complicit in this and this wasn't just an attack on "people wanting to have fun".
 
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You've got a nice phrase there, I'll nab it for use myself. Have a like for it. Fascinating is by contrast very much a cliché.

Got anything to add re the discussion or are you just going to flatter me with attention all evening? Am I going to get another hug and a comment on the frequency of my sexual encounters (which you'll then delete again after I make reference to said comment)?
 
Got anything to add re the discussion or are you just going to flatter me with attention all evening? Am I going to get another hug and a comment on the frequency of my sexual encounters (which you'll then delete again after I make reference to said comment)?
I have to the best of my recollection never commented on your sex life. But rest assured you won't get a hug.

E2a: having looked back though your posts I don't believe this allegation has any substance.
 
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Terrorists abroad who claim allegiance to Daesh are not one organised force. In many cases they are lone psychopaths/bigots/evil cunts who justify their mass murder by honouring some religious and political belief system and this is what happened here.

He was an Islamist. The lone wolf attack is a tactic approved by Isis. The unique kill ratio may suggest some sort of weapons training. Plus the attack happened during Ramadam when fundamentalists are asked to make a special effort
. So he may not be as disconnected as he is being presented.


The killer's father's report pretty much confirmed this.

He also said 'he was a very good boy'. And that 'God should punish gays' not people like his son.


This is primarily a homophobic crime and the presenters failed to understand that and their response towards Owen Jones was condescending and ignorant.

Jones treated the attack as entirely unique, without either context or precedent. This is what the presenter and panellist objected to. He also invoked the Holocaust which might have been considered an over-reach in other circumstances but was not picked up on. Not only that, but it seemed he felt as a gay man he ought to be treated with more deference, almost as if he was sort of a survivor himself. When that wasn't forthcoming he stalked off.


I'm at least relieved that pretty much all of the reporting I've seen today focuses on this as an attack on the LGBT community. This doesn't mean that the LGBT community or Jones claim that this is worse than other recent atrocities, but it has to be acknowledged within the wider context of homophobia so to doesn't get chalked up merely as a result of Daesh terrorism. All homophobes who breed hatred are complicit in something like this and this wasn't just an attack on "people wanting to have fun"
 
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Coming home, all the papers that I saw mentioning this at all were talking about ISIS. The Times had it on their front page this morning. You'd be excused thinking that it had anything to do with someone wanting to kill gay people from just reading the headlines.
 
I made the vigil.... Julie Hesmondhalgh and Antony Cotton did some words and there was some poetry... And our choir sang All You Need Is Love....the rain pissed down but it didn't put our candles out.

I really needed to do that. I'm now heading home with a heavy heart, but I feel better for touching base with my community.

Love to everyone.

X
 
It's obviously unlikely the call was meant to be a warning but equally it seems really clear to me that his primary motive is far more likely to be extreme homophobia - possibly related to concerns about his own sexuality (or at least concerns over how his sexuality was perceived in macho USA culture where his own family cultural behavioural norms were likely to be seen as effeminate and sexually suspect by many men).

A typical macho response to feelings of humiliation or shame - maybe the archetypical one - is violence. Hating homosexuals and seeking to kill them is the purest way of representing your own gender status as unimpeachably masculine.

Do you seriously think that this guy's obsessive machismo, his narcissism, his gun-fetishing, his history of violence to women, that these are epi-phenomenal here? That the *real* reason for murdering 50 random probably-gay strangers was that he suddenly got into islam?

You've got the cart before the horse.

Who said he suddenly got into Islam? He was born into the Muslim faith. He wasn't a convert. As such his homophobia etc was already in-built.
 
christian nutters were quite quick out the block to call eagles of death metal satanist rather than an ironically named and I'm sure the attackers made the same mislabelling

You think? I'm more inclined to believe that it was an attack on western values - people out at night, enjoying a rock gig in this instance. And I wouldn't be surprised if the attack on Pulse was inspired by that. I don't see these two attacks as existing separately. I hope I'm proven wrong, but I think we'll see more lone wolf attacks on entertainment venues, clubs and bars, gay or straight, now that idea is out there.
 
You think? I'm more inclined to believe that it was an attack on western values - people out at night, enjoying a rock gig in this instance. And I wouldn't be surprised if the attack on Pulse was inspired by that. I don't see these two attacks as existing separately. I hope I'm proven wrong, but I think we'll see more lone wolf attacks on entertainment venues, clubs and bars, gay or straight, now that idea is out there.
His own father seems to think this atrocity was motivated by homophobia. Usually family and spouses notice when someone becomes radicalised, but both his father and his ex-wife seem to think that there were other reasons and they don't look to me like they have a good reason to lie.

The Bataclan massacre was a coordinated attack by an ISIL terror cell.
 
You think? I'm more inclined to believe that it was an attack on western values - people out at night, enjoying a rock gig in this instance. And I wouldn't be surprised if the attack on Pulse was inspired by that. I don't see these two attacks as existing separately. I hope I'm proven wrong, but I think we'll see more lone wolf attacks on entertainment venues, clubs and bars, gay or straight, now that idea is out there.
I don't think it was this lot need attacking more we need a target... Nice choice
 
You think? I'm more inclined to believe that it was an attack on western values - people out at night, enjoying a rock gig in this instance. And I wouldn't be surprised if the attack on Pulse was inspired by that. I don't see these two attacks as existing separately. I hope I'm proven wrong, but I think we'll see more lone wolf attacks on entertainment venues, clubs and bars, gay or straight, now that idea is out there.
Now the idea is out there...

...like it's a new idea tho I can think of examples going back to the nineteenth century.

It's like Carlos the jackal never chucked a grenade into a Paris restaurant
 
Well it's obviously missing out a few nuances about the availability of guns in the USA and probably a few facts neither of us know yet but I reckon it's a better start than Joe Reilly is offering, yes.

Really...just a few nuances? How about some actual confirmation of the diagnosis, a verified history of trauma, evidence of comorbidity and history of substance misuse (all characteristics which increase the chances of impulsive rather than premeditated violence), that's before we move away from your preferred 'medical' explanation to look at the potential impacts of factors such as weapons availability, ideological commitment, religious belief or homophobia (in this instance there seems to be some emerging evidence of possible self loathing).

So rather than hanging the deaths of 49 people on the convenient peg of bi-polar disorder (and thus avoiding all of the stigmatizing baggage and easy assumptions that go with such a superficial comment), why not step back and take a little longer to see how things develop?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice
 
It's obviously unlikely the call was meant to be a warning but equally it seems really clear to me that his primary motive is far more likely to be extreme homophobia...

Inconvenient then according to his current wife that he considered Disneyland first.
 
Inconvenient then according to his current wife that he considered Disneyland first.

Considered and didn't do it. Isn't a bit inconvenient for your muslim thesis that it turns out he had attended this club quite regularly? That issues surrounding his own masculinity and how he believed this was perceived may have been the key here? If we're quoting his wife remember she says he didn't care about religion; if that's true and you really follow your line then what? It's a genetic muslim thing?
 
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