As a computer-impaired, aging foreigner living abroad, I still follow U.S. news through CNN as I used to do in the 1990s, and I learned of the latest mass shooting in the U.S. through CNN, as well. The very fist CNN report I stumbled on, disappeared since but still to be found in aggregator sites, for instance here or here, presented the massacre thusly (emphasis mine): "Police scouring the scenes where a couple shouting “revolution” gunned down two police officers and a civilian before killing themselves have found a possible “manifesto” among their belongings, a law enforcement official told CNN on Monday. The official didn’t disclose what’s in the writings found at one of the scenes, and authorities have yet to publicly discuss a motive for Sunday’s shootings at a Las Vegas pizza restaurant and outside a Walmart store. But a police source told CNN on Sunday that the couple held extremist views toward law enforcement. In addition to the writings, investigators also found flags or insignias with markings on them and two backpacks at the scene. It’s not known what, if anything, was found in the backpacks, the source said."
This was just one in a series of CNN stories, almost all sporting the same type of misleading headline; "Two Las Vegas police officers were shot and killed along with a civilian bystander late Sunday morning by a gun-toting duo declaring "revolution," authorities say". "The names of the suspects have not been released, and a motive is not known, but witnesses told police that the shooters said "this is a revolution."" Soon more details emerged: "Killer Las Vegas couple shouted about revolution, posted rants online." At this point, maintained CNN, the motives of the couple was still unclear. One possible reason for the killing? ""They equate government and law enforcement ... with Nazis," Second Assistant Sheriff Kevin McMahill told reporters Monday". "In other words, they believe that law enforcement is the oppressor." This same helpful law enforcement officer hastened to point out that "We don't necessarily believe that the killers are white supremacists or associated with the Nazi movement. We believe that they equate government and law enforcement with Nazis".
My point? For two full days, CNN called a cat, a dog (no offense meant to either animal); for all intents and purposes, the Las Vegas pair were presented as possible communist radical leftist terrorists, whether they would have liked it or not. Now CNN is not Daily Kos —but how about HuffPost (try here, or here)? And then Greg Sargent over at WaPo, definitely a liberal, took the plunge and asked the following: How much does right-wing rhetoric contribute to right-wing terrorism? Mm, that's a difficult question. How much did Marxist thinkers contribute to the Communist movement? How much did Adam Smith and David Ricardo contribute to classical economics? How much did Dale Carnegie contribute to the spread of dumb self-help manuals? Hard to say, Mr. Sargent, hard to say. Thanks for asking.
The killings took place on Sunday, June 8. I write this on Wednesday, June 11, and the Las Vegas killings have left the headlines. It's wrong —and it's our fault (by "our" I mean the U.S. center left and left, to which I feel some proximity through several of my in-laws). Let me explain — after the squiggle.
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