At what point do we stop pretending that extreme right-wing ideology does not lead to death?
The killers of the Queensland police officers and the helpful in recent hours shocked us all. But even more shocking is to watch the media try to shift the blame.
From job dissatisfaction to a love triangle to drug consumption to mental illness, all have been canvassed as a reason for the murders.
Reports of the perpetrator being a member of numerous extremist rightwing online groups, involved in conspiracy theories of the kind perpetuated by extremist right-wing commentators in the mainstream media and held as normal even by some politicians, seem to be ignored in the plethora of excuses. We are being led to believe this was a good citizen reacting violently to social pressures while suffering mental illness.
People with mental illness, in my opinion, have a right to be outraged by this media assumption.
In fact, those most at risk of harm from people with mental health issues are THEMSELVES!!!! They are more likely to self-harm or kill themselves than hurt other people. Read that sentence again and imbed it into your mind. Recall it every damned time some media person or other lowlife tries to use mental illness as an out for white domestic terrorists.
We ask for fair and accurate reporting, We are not getting that.
I also ask; When will we accept the inevitable conclusion to years of broadcasting and sharing hate, social division, white self-pity and demonisation of social progress and to perpetrating the extreme rightwing ideology which justifies and gives permission for murder? When will these issues be seriously discussed by our media? When was the last time you turned on your media device to see the MSM tackling this issue.
What politicians, whom we cannot name because Australia’s libel laws protect them, trade division for votes? Who goes on tv sitting next to white extremists, or coddles hate-merchants or offers comfort to racist, sexist bigots? They have the ‘freedom of speech’ to do it, after all. But eventually, someone with a social gripe enters a mosque and kills worshippers, they go to a school and kill children, They spree kill people at a concert, they storm a political building to overthrow an election result, they go to an island where the leftwing Labour Party is having a youth camp where they hunt down and shoot teenagers, and they ambush cops.
We have a lesson to learn and a society to repair.
Merry Christmas, but not for some.
Links c/o Pubsters. For any suitable articles on this topic, in the comments, I will link here.