“Love that, “purported” radical Islam. How many attacks will it take?”
We don’t know this had anything to do with radical Islamic terrorism, so yes, purported.
We have had 133 mass shootings in the first 164 days of 2016. How many attacks will it take to do something?
I think that as more info comes out , it is important not to rush to judgement . There seems to be many factors at play here, and the only fact I see is that there was a mass shooting at a LGBT club resulting in the death of 50 people, and an equal number of injuries. It was a terrible , reprehensible awful event . I understand that everyone is trying to figure out what would cause an event like this to occur to attempt to prevent other events from occurring. Everyone has their perception and beliefs regarding motive, but being quick to judge emphatically what the cause was when info continues to come in, does not help solve the problem.
I finally went to my Facebook feed to see what kind of comments there were about his incident. Only TWO people commented at all, and that was to link to Jimmy Fallon’s and Steve Colbertson’s comments about the event. When the Paris massacres happened, it was all over my feed. This time…crickets. I will say that I posted about neither, but I never post on Facebook.
There is, and has been, a huge out pouring of love and support financially and emotionally here in Orlando and I will give the media credit they are covering it 24/7. The local media, like the radio people, I think are going to collapse because they haven’t gone home or played their normal music. Orlando is the City Beautiful and is coming together in a big way. It makes a huge difference that people across the world, including the Eiffel Tower, has commemorated the event in a healing way. I think people here, especially GLBTQ folks, are feeling the love from the vast majority of the population including lots and lots of people that they might have thought didn’t care.
That’s very sad, nrdsb4. My newsfeed is pretty much nothing but comments about Orlando.
Some of the most moving comments I’ve seen have been from my queer friends who have been to Pulse and shared their memories of just how much it meant to them and to their identity.
I now know of at least 5 victims that I have second hand connections to. I’ve seen tributes to these victims popping up in my newsfeed over and over. Each time I feel very sad. I’m not crying anymore… I think I’ve run out of tears. I didn’t know these people but seeing their pictures and stories from their friends and family makes them very, very real.
Did anyone see the Matt Lauer interview with Pulse’s owner ? She is devastated. She opened that club as a legacy to her brother who died from AIDS . Very sad interview.
@carolinamom2boys yes. What will haunt me from that is that she said she will forever imagine the deaths of those people.
I just can’t even imagine…
Regarding the question of why the FBI didn’t keep him on the watch list: a former FBI guy on tv today said there are strict protocols laid out by law that puts parameters about what the FBI can do and for how long. For instance, he said that they can’t keep people on a watch list indefinitely, and there is a specific time frame when they either must charge the person, or take him off the list. He also said that they can act if they hear direct threats or see evidence of it. But they can’t do anything if someone only expresses hate. (The Second Amendment is not the only right in the Bill of Rights.). He said these aren’t FBI rules, but come from Congress.
Perhaps Congress should take a look at these parameters and update if necessary.
Creating psychological profile of killers - whether it’s terrorists or mass murderers, or your average-garden-variety-armed-robbery-killer – has been a staple of law enforcement for decades.
I understand the Israelis are masters of this, and have been quietly hugely important to recent European anti-terrorist efforts.
This case is not different. The very first person who I heard question whether the Orlando killings had been strongly linked to extreme Islamic terrorism was a woman on NPR who’d been studying politically-motivated terrorism for the past 27 years. She wasn’t convinced; the man’s actions, his MO, the statements he made, the way he made them – none of it fit. She thought something else may have been in play. Fast forward two days, and it appears his own sexual identity may have played a role, and his ISIS comments were an attempt to hide that fact.
I can’t find the specific story I was referring to earlier but here is one survivor’s brief story:
A longer story about LGBTQ+ Latino/a/x communities more broadly: http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-06-13/lot-our-families-having-son-or-daughter-who-gay-maybe-was-secret-until-weekend
(A good read- I recommend)
"finally went to my Facebook feed to see what kind of comments there were about his incident. Only TWO people commented at all, and that was to link to Jimmy Fallon’s and Steve Colbertson’s comments about the event. When the Paris massacres happened, it was all over my feed. This time…crickets. "
It’s all over my newsfeed, with continued support for gun control and reminders not to become anti-Muslim as a result. Nonstop on my feed.
"The wife of the Orlando nightclub shooter knew of her husband’s deadly plans and did nothing to stop him, a federal law enforcement source confirmed to Fox News.
FBI agents have interviewed Omar Mateen’s wife, Noor Salman, in the days since Sunday’s massacre that killed 49 and wounded 53 more.
Now FoxNews.com has learned from an FBI source that federal prosecutors have convened a grand jury against Salman, seeking to charge her as an accessory to 49 counts of murder and 53 counts of attempted murder as well as with failure to notify law enforcement about the pending terrorist attack and lying to federal agents."
“federal prosecutors have convened a grand jury against Salman, seeking to charge her as an accessory to 49 counts of murder and 53 counts of attempted murder”
As well they should. If in fact what’s being reported about her knowledge is true, Salman has blood on her hands.
It’s on my newsfeed through commercial sites, but only three individuals; after Paris, I’ll bet at least 25-30 of my Facebook friends changed their profile picture to reflect solidarity with the people of France. And the link that someone above provided for me to place a filter over my profile shot required me to log on to their site through Facebook, which would mean they’d have my email/contact information and other stuff in my profile. I don’t want to do that, so I didn’t register with them. The profile pictures I’ve seen show a “We Are Orlando” tagline, with a gay pride flag icon over their profile picture.
It’s disheartening, on my Facebook feed very little is said about the victims or how the LGBT community feel, my field is filled with meme’s with guns and arguing over what color flags or bridges should be.
As the mother of a gay child I feel until we are treated equally by the law in every state and we are no longer a targeted marginalized group we should continue to wave our rainbow flag and light our bridges in rainbow colors. I would love to think we were all equal and were represented by the USA flag and colors.
OK… so I used one from the GLADD website. In addition, I changed my profile picture to a picture of a rainbow I took last month, so I feel it’s more meaningful for me.
Almost everyone on my FB has changed their cover photo to one of these.
I am using the More Love Less Hate one.
@sly123 a list of the names and ages of the victims is now floating around FB. And the Anderson Cooper segment about them as well.
@mom2twogirls Thank you for thinking of me, I’ve watched the Anderson Cooper segment it was very well done and I cried all through it. I also found a FB page that is profiling the victims lives individually. Called Love What matters.
I need this and more, then on the flip side one politician said in a statement that it wasn’t a gay bar, it was a bar were young people frequented to dance… Really.
Okay, I just want to respond to something someone upthread said ( I think @musicprnt) :
This is gonna shock some people coming from me but here goes : ofcourse it is. “Islam” is currently in the hands of the elite i.e concentrated in poor countries with rich leaders. The poor populaces get Islam fed to them instead of learning it themselves, or getting taught how to learn it themselves. Most Muslims in America are not converts, but descended from immigrants, therefore teach their kids the religion as they know it.
Also, most LGBT supporting scholars are in the West. Why? Well mainly due to freedom of speech (something mentioned up thread).
How are people supposed to support LGBT rights if the subject is taboo? Challenging an “official” interpertation of grey areas of the Quran (which, despite popular belief, does NOT say gay people go to hell nor prescribes any punishment for them) in the mideast - especially in regards to this issue - will lead to you being labeled a “gay sympathizer”. And since people can’t argue that being gay is not something wrong in the first place, they’re stuck nodding their heads to the “official” stance on homosexuality. Well, if you nod long enough, you will stop questioning and start supporting.
Point I’m trying to make is : it isn’t that Islam is inherently homophobic (and no, those “narrations” by the Prophet aren’t of verified authenticity), but those who people rely on to explain the scripture (which is a problem in and of itself) are homophobic. Remember, theological interpretations are usually filtered through personal opinions and biases, so unless outright stated in the Quran, there is no 100% right answer.
Culture also plays a big role. In this case, Afghani culture is not very tolerant of gay people. This guy would’ve been taught that gay people are “unnatural” creatures (which in a way is impugning Allah, who created them) and so self hatred must’ve festered.
Just thought I’d offer a Muslim perspective since it pretains to the issue. I also think this is a conversation that needs to be had (not on CC though).
P.s. Please dont put me in jail 