A terrible horrible no good very bad label for hate crimes

Stonewall Inn, a gay bar on Christopher Street in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. A 1969 police raid here led to the Stonewall riots, one of the most important events in the history of LGBT rights (and the history of the United States). This picture was taken on pride weekend in 2016, the day after President Obama announced the Stonewall National Monument, and less than two weeks after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. Author: Rhododendrites. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

The term “terrorism” can be a deceptive, misleading, power-mongering, unjust way of describing a hate crime.  Such mislabeling pays off for some—like self-serving politicians, the corporate media, and the gun lobby.  It does not help the victims of the hate crimes, whether they be people of a particular color, a particular gender, a particular religion, or a particular sexual orientation.

18 U.S.C. § 2331 defines “domestic terrorism” for purposes of Chapter 113B of the FBI Code  in the following ways:

“‘Domestic terrorism’ means activities with the following three characteristics:

  • Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law;
  • Appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination. or kidnapping  (emphasis added); and
  • Occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S.”

And here’s the FBI’s definition of “hate crime”:

“a traditional offense like murder, arson, or vandalism with an added element of bias. For the purposes of collecting statistics, the FBI has defined a hate crime as a ‘criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.’” (emphasis added)

So, let’s think about what happened in Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on June 12,  2016, and consider the extent to which it meets the criteria for terrorism or looks more like a hate crime.  On that date, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, an American citizen born in Queens, New York, shot more than 100 people with an assault rifle and hand gun. Fifty of the victims died, making it the deadliest mass murder in US—more than twice the carnage inflicted when Adam Lanza shot 20 first graders and six adults to death at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on  December 14, 2012.

When, sounding calm and collected, Mateen called 911 in the middle of his murderous spree, he claimed allegiance to the Islamic State and suggested he was revenging the killing of innocent civilians by American and Russian aircraft. He also claimed, falsely, to have explosives that he would strap to hostages and set off around the nightclub.  (Maybe we shouldn’t believe every word he says.)

What do we know about Mr. Omar Mateen besides his having a Middle Eastern sounding name and being the son of immigrants from Afghanistan? From recent media stories, we learn he was an abusive husband often showing erratic behavior, he used racial, ethnic and sexist slurs, and talked about killing people; he expressed intolerance of homosexuals and had recently expressed disgust at seeing two men publicly kissing each other.

From a wikimedia article, we get a fuller psychological picture: As early as third grade, Mateen was verbally abusive, aggressive, and talked endlessly of violence and sex, a pattern that continued through elementary and secondary school, and beyond.  He was put in special classes because of behavioral problems and conflicts with other students. He claimed to be the nephew of Osama bin Laden, and asserted that bin Laden had personally taught him to fire AK-47s. He was suspended from vocational school for fighting with other students, and later kicked out of a corrections officer training class because he threatened to bring a gun to class in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings in April of 2007.

And what do we know about mass murderers?  According to Dr James Knoll, a leading forensic psychiatrist with special expertise in mass murderers:

“The mass murderer is an injustice collector who spends a great deal of time feeling resentful about real or imagined rejections and ruminating on past humiliations. He has a paranoid worldview with chronic feelings of social persecution, envy, and grudge holding…. The paranoia exists on a spectrum of severity. Some clearly do not meet criteria for any mental disorder and often may justify their acts on political or religious grounds.”

Only very recently, the FBI had thoroughly investigated Omar based on co-worker complaints concerning his behavior, and had found no evidence of terrorist connections despite his occasional rants about such connections. Perhaps, then, despite his lofty claims of terrorist connections, he is, like the vast majority of American mass murderers, not a domestic terrorist but another very angry, disturbed, and paranoid young man with a hatred for a particular group—in this case, homosexuals.

Why, then, call him a terrorist?   In my view, it feeds the voracious hunger of the corporate media for  stories that sell, gives unscrupulous politicians ammunition to fire at rivals who support nonviolent approaches to world problems, and helps expand the budget of the FBI .

Members of the LGBT community have increasingly been the victims of hate crimes in recent years.

Does labeling a hate crime as a terrorist attack and looking for connections with ISIS/ISIL lead to greater protection for and understanding of their community? Who benefits from equating hate crimes with terrorist attacks when there are any elements to the story that facilitate such links?  What do you think?

 

 

 

Seeking War No More

By Edward Agro

Given that an antiwar movement in the U.S., where rampant militarism is the norm, must cast its nets impossibly wide, it’s no wonder that the nonviolent struggle to build a world without war draws proponents from every class and predisposition of American Life.  But what glues together all of us who resist?  Is there a tradition which can give us strength?

Professor Lawrence Rosenwald’s ambitious book ”War No More” helps us find that tradition. It’s not your standard history, focused on well-recognized heroes – usually military – who purportedly single-handedly “make peace” – usually by military means.  Instead it’s a picaresque ramble through three centuries of efforts by individuals, in many cases unknown to history, to celebrate in writing, song, and graphics and often putting their peace and quiet, if not more, on the line to defeat The Juggernaut of militarism that affects and stains all that is good in the American experiment.  Reading these stories will be a great encouragement to modern day activists in the antiwar cause.  And, somewhat like Howard Zinn’s “People’s History of the United States,” it will encourage citizens just awakening to their need to resist.

But if the cause is ponderous, the book is not; I found these 800-plus pages a joy to read.  The thing is so rich that gulping it down all at once is not the only way to extract its treasures.  Rosenwald’s prefatory notes to the selections are a great read in themselves;  they give a good deal of the historical contexts, and though the author refrains from haranguing the reader, they give a  sense of his own passionate conviction.

The selections themselves bring many surprises. Reading the selection “Wailing Shall Be in All Streets” shows the early attempt that finally after many years gave birth to “Slaughterhouse-Five.” There are a number of such discoveries; I’ll let the reader of “War No More” have the pleasure of discovering others.

Even the unknown indexer of this book deserves credit: one can profitably read the index to get another overview of the history of antiwar and nonviolent action.

Of course, no one volume can encompass the totality of the antiwar tradition of America – there’s just too much, and it comes from too many directions, conservative as well as liberal, radically passionate as well as logically argued.

Which brings up the question “War No More” begs us to answer: there has been so much effort and attention given to the struggle against militarism throughout American history, yet where is a generally recognized tradition within which we can find our home?  Perhaps reading “War No More” will be one of the ways conscientious citizens can find or build such a tradition; maybe the tradition will come to be what we celebrate the 4th of July.  One can only hope, and work.

The foregoing is a condensation of a longer review of “War No More,” which appears on Amazon.com

Walt Whitman Returns . . .

This is what you shall do: by Anthony J. Marsella, channeling Walt Whitman

 

This is what you shall do:

Love the earth and sun and the animals,

Despise riches,

Give alms to everyone that asks.“

 

 I.

 Again! Again!

Hate’s fiery cauldron overflows?

No lessons learned.

Battlefield tolls unheeded:

Gettysburg, Manassas, Chancellorsville, Vicksburg?

More than places!

Sacred lands, defiled!

Unshaven old men, pimpled-scarred youth,

Blue or grey, now red!

Bodies lying in heaps . . . or alone,

Limbless, moaning, seared souls,

Dead!

Posterity captured:

Rifles in hand, pistols gripped, swords unsheathed,

Bloodstained rocks, smoldering earth, shattered trees.

Flies gathering to feast,

Buzzing amid charnel,

Reflexively choosing choice sites!

 

II.

 Brave soldiers march to cadenced drums.

Flags wave,

Artillery towed,

Medaled-generals salute,

Parades!

“Charades” . . . I say!

Battles forgotten,

Triumph’s costs denied.

Music and verse:

“Mine eyes have seen the glory . . .”

 “Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton …

                     “Onward Christian soldiers . . .”

      

And in the background,

Still in shadows,

Time unchanged:

“Steal away, steal away; Steal away to . . .

                    “Deeeppp river, Lawd! My home is over Jordan.

 “Illusions . . . delusions,” I say!

Podium, stage, pulpit,

Platforms for death and destruction;

Foundations for domination!

How inadequate Periclean words,

Unfit for all times.

Preserving lies!

Inspiring myths!

Nurturing cultures of war,

Cults of nations,

Food for empire!

 

III.

 Did you not see what I saw?

Endless rows of blood-stained sheets,

Gaunt nurses placating life,

Tears streaming from bedside widows,

Hollow-eyed children begging for bread!

Charred houses,

Broken bridges,

Shattered trees,

Smoldering carcasses,

Stench like no other!

Damn the cannon makers!

Damn the smelters making them!

Damn the voices cheering their firing!

Guiltless;

Blind to their sullied metal fruit,

Deaf to cries,

Distant from shot to crater,

Buffering conscience!

Make them walk brimstone,

Breathe fumes of seared flesh,

Beg for mercy,

Ask respite from hot metal,

Seek relief from scorched earth.

Make them know pain, suffering, death –

Avoided – escaped – denied

Hidden amidst comforts of

Gilded rooms,

Leather chairs,

Polished tables,

Sycophants:

“Sir!”

“No, Sir!”

“Yes, Sir!”

“More, Sir?”

Sherry, Sir?

 

IV.

 What use conscience?

What value brain?

What function heart?

What glory courage . . .

If ignored, denied, separated

From a silent human face.

A face, once admired and prized,

Bursting forth from a mother urging

Her swollen womb;

Grunting . . . screaming

Unfathomable mysteries,

Birthing life!

A face emerges!

Its future inscribed.

 Tear down your crosses, crescents, and angled stars.

You ignore their precepts.

Excuses for madness,

Salve for betrayal,

Gloves for stained hands

Veils for truth!

                          

Fall upon your knees,

Beg forgiveness,

Judas!

Failed prophets!

Flawed angels!

God pretenders!

Stainers of time!

 Mortal art thou, Man!

Blood, bone, sinew!

Seeker!

Mind!

Spirit essence!

V.

Sing the song of life!

Cast seeds upon the land,

Plant trees in barren hills,

Water fallow fields!

 Look to mountains,

Forested woods,

Desert sands,

Mirrored lakes,

Gaze in wonder!

 Inhale air,

Sip water,

Break bread,

Behold skies;

All else is vanity!

                  

Go now!

Walk tortoise paths,

Follow hare tracks,

Eat berries,

Urinate,

Create streams – droplets!

Erase scars of war!

 

All is sacred!

Behold grandeur,

Fill senses with awe –

Failing this,

Know you never lived!

 

At end of day,

Earth will accept your

Crumbled remains,

And . . . try again!

And you will have no choice!

 

and here are the words from Walt Whitman’s Preface to Leaves of Grass (1855):

 “This is what you shall do:

 Stand up for the stupid and crazy,

Devote your income and labor to others,

Hate tyrants, argue not concerning god,

Have patience and indulgence toward the people,

 

Re-examine all you have been told

At school or church or in any book,

Dismiss whatever insults your own soul;

And your very flesh shall be a great poem.”   

 

Comment by Anthony Marsella:

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) is my favorite poet – and in many ways, my favorite humanist. He witnessed the horrors of the American Civil War — its sights, sounds, and smells inspired his commitment to peace. But long before the War, his special senses gave voice and word to the changing world about him.  He captured time and times!

I find life in his every word — each line and verse, a sacred-clarion call to life!  In his words – their pace, stridency, boldness – spring passionate observations, accusations, and visions of hope revealing uncommon and uncompromising courage and wisdom.

I wonder what Walt Whitman would say if he appeared in our time?  I know he would recognize the betrayal of history’s lessons – humanity’s continued infatuation with violence and war.  He would scold us!  Reprimand us!  Remind us solutions are to be found in compassion and connection — not metal.

I wrote a draft of this poem in hours the next morning and early day.  I waited a few days, overwhelmed by my efforts to hear his voice, to channel his presence.  It is best to rest when you awaken the dead.  My words lack the power and grace of Walt Whitman; but I am consoled by the fact, my intention is his!

 

Anthony Marsella, Ph.D., a  member of the TRANSCEND Network, is a past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii, and past director of the World Health Organization Psychiatric Research Center in Honolulu. He is known nationally and internationally as a pioneer figure in the study of culture and psychopathology who challenged the ethnocentrism and racial biases of many assumptions, theories, and practices in psychology and psychiatry. In more recent years, he has been writing and lecturing on peace and social justice. He has published 15 edited books, and more than 250 articles, chapters, book reviews, and popular pieces. He can be reached at marsella@hawaii.edu.