Great reporting as always, but I also always appreciate the level-headed analysis of the facts laid out in front of us. It's important that these incidents aren't viewed as simply the actions of crazed, perhaps "mentally unwell", individuals, but as the actions of people who have been pushed to the brink by a system that's failing people at best and actively murdering them at worst.
He does seem to have a lot in common with Luigi. I don’t think he’ll be the last. Between Gaza, the Epstein Files and now the Iran war — people feel like their government just doesn’t represent them, or even care what they think — and people are fed up.
Change through the system feels impossible. When that’s the case, you see extremism develop in the population. You see political violence start to happen more and more. That seems to be where we are at.
“When you read his manifesto, he hates “Christians,” Trump told Fox News. “He hates Christians, a hatred.” A blizzard of unnamed “administration officials” echoed this Trump claim in major media outlets.”
Brilliant investigative journalism! I had read earlier that he attended CalTech and was a devout Christian at some point in his life—social media posts, but not the extensive history and analysis you just provided in the manifesto itself and through your research and analysis: Bravo 👏
And as for Trump stating that the guy hates Christians? Was anyone expecting a different result? It’s a classic move; getting ahead of the story, and we’ve seen this movie before and it’s getting old; Barr—Mueller Report, for one and Kirk’s assassination for two!
“The only question is if anyone will ask why increasingly normal people feel the political system is so unresponsive to their concerns that they resort to violence.”
Brilliant question, and perhaps a follow up should be whether we will start to see an epidemic of these type of assassination attempts—if this chaos continues in the long-term?
Bottom line, we are entering uncharted territory.: Wars no one wants or this country can afford. A grift by our president and his cronies so grand; it makes Nixon, The Teapot Dome scandal and every other scandal in US history—pale in comparison.
Not to mention, the AI disruption that is starting to affect millions of high paying jobs and will eventually be more destructive to white collar workers, than automation and robotics did to blue collar jobs.
In addition, we live in a mixed economy, in which 10% of this nation is accounting for more than 50% of all the consumer spending; while the rest of the country, including veterans, are losing Medicare and Medicaid benefits—with social security on the chopping block—soon. Moreover, 20 million Americans just lost their ACA subsidies and can no longer pay for affordable insurance.
Bottom line, when people’s finances and employment opportunities dry up—life is going to get increasingly hard and become desperate for many—especially affecting our nations youth; all at a time when the government is spending more on Immigration enforcement, inflation on the rise, and the military and tax cuts for the rich, while simultaneously reducing government services for the most needy.
Neoliberalism. Named after the late 20th century economic theory that the rich should exercise total control over all aspects of society, and lie about it.
When the Neoliberals conquered the Earth, it wasn’t in face-to-face military battles like the ancient Romans or British used. Instead, the Neoliberals won by destabilizing and corrupting all competing power structures. Conquest is expensive. Tearing down is easy. To invade and occupy a nation-state would require planning, resources, and intelligence. To disrupt it? That only requires the technological high ground and a total lack of scruples. Destroy the power stations and water pumps. Sabotage their data networks, use your vast financial wealth to bribe political parties to betray their nation, block them from the international financial system, ensure that the mainstream media 24/7 slander and belittle and ignore the patriots.
The primary strength of the Neoliberals was their total lack of shame. You could catch them in lies, or contradictions, they could screw up totally, or rob you blind, and they wouldn’t care. They would just go on saying whatever they wanted to say and doing whatever they wanted to do. Neoliberalism is the application of power without moral restraint. You cannot debate them, you cannot reason with them. You can suck up to them and hope to be rewarded. You can do nothing and they will crush you into abject slavery. Oppose them in the slightest way, and they will destroy you by any means possible. Appeals to conscience are as useful as fighting cancer by asking for sympathy. Ultimately, the only winning strategy for dealing with Neoliberalism is to kill it
Our political system is so unresponsive to our concerns, normal people of some amount are certain to turn to violence, as did this young man. The system, two parties controlled by essentially the same elites, is not only unresponsive (60% or more of us do not support U.S. wars on Iran/Cuba/Venezuela/Gaza/Lebanon). The U.S. empire is the number one purveyor of instability and terror outside our borders; a hegemonic, predatory rogue state.
It is soul crushing to see images day after day of death, buildings in rubble and lives ruined. Processing all this suffering requires controlling feelings of powerlessness, sadness and anger combined. Thus it requires a massive amount of stamina to not act outside legal, conventional parameters and somehow remain sane.
moving past the suspicion that one's nation might actually be the baddies to the true realization can really trigger some existential crises - soul crushing is right
true, but unfortunately this doesn't resolve the crisis for people who refuse to just look away from what the institutions they support, even involuntarily, are engaged in
I wager it is your Marxism that is crushing your soul, if your soul is actually at all crushed (I am skeptical of any Marxist making that claim) more than the U.S. government itself. The Revolution will-not-go-on even with your head in the sand for a day not looking at dead bodies under rubble on your social media feed.
And Im pretty sure this young man's act has ruled him as actually not "normal" despite his haircut.
I suppose we could ask the billions of souls that have been buried under the rubble of futile communist revolutions over the past 100 years. Do you do seances?
Sad that the shooter reached the conclusion he did. Unfortunately, in a society that too often believes punishment and violence are solutions, there may be more people reaching the same conclusion. I have not yet read Malcolm X on the topic, but I believe as he got older he realized that violence would not work and thought more favorably about MLK''s approach.
The last major life change Malcolm X had was to move past racism and towards a class/financial based understanding of repression, after meeting light skinned Muslims and being accepted by them during his Haj. Kind of like MLK?
Shortly after Malcolm stopped accepting a doctrine based on divisive racism (and started opposing the various sexual escapades, unethical & irreligious activities of the prophet Elijah X) he was assassinated.
Them crazy Christian terrorists again causing mischief.
What is perhaps the most perplexing element of this story to me is that some guy with a Mechanical Engineering degree from Cal Tech decided that the best plan for his assassination fantasy was to run past armed guards at an indoor crowded dinner. No matter how much a persons' intelligence is compartmentalized, I never fail to be bewildered when I am presented with another egregious case.
(And, of course, Trump lies. And lies and lies and lies . . . like a kid breathlessly telling the folks about the size of the fish he caught in the drainage ditch.)
So Allen could justify not liking Trump, and therefore violence was his proposed solution? Clearly a very “spiritual” person. Human beings can find infinite self justification. But as Robert Frost wrote, “ I am a liberal. I do not take my own side in an argument.” Trump is a severe stress on people’s well-being. Many have succumbed to his attacks. This incident will end up being a distraction, or possibly even helping Trump and his supporters. Allen unfortunately did not think that through.
There was a shooting in DC. How was your day?
Envisioning our way past violence and the "High Drama-Low Buddha" American Psyche
I’m not sure what the point of this exchange is. You have essentially stated you believe violence is acceptable in some situations. That’s fine for you - but I don’t find for me in this time especially very useful. But please continue exploring your topics! Life is a journey. Have a great week.
I’m not sure what the point of you posting your essays on your convictions was. If you want to have a conversation with me, then I’d be glad to, but I’m not interested in being sermonized. I don’t suspect that would be very useful for me in this time.
“But please continue exploring your topics! Life is a journey. Have a great week.”
More sarcasm or dishonesty. Did you learn that from one of your spiritually tyrannical gurus? Maybe, “the Buddha”?
But since we are sharing essays, here is one of mine:
I skimmed your article. Thanks for posting it. A lot has been written about love and hate, and I’ve read pretty extensively. When I wrote
“But please continue exploring your topics! Life is a journey. Have a great week.”
I was being genuine. But I see that in a few cases you have misinterpreted my genuine remarks as some kind of veiled critique or sarcasm. Please feel free to read or not read my writing. One essay is about how different cultures view dialogue and debate. The other is about Buddhism and psychology.
Yes, Ive skimmed yours too. A lot has been written about social media, Buddhism, and cultural differences. And I’ve read pretty extensively.
“I was being genuine. But I see that in a few cases you have misinterpreted my genuine remarks as some kind of veiled critique or sarcasm. “
I suspect that you may tell yourself that you are being genuine but you are not. Once you actually read my article, not skim it, and actually try to understand it rather than dismissing it due to your prejudices based on other things you have read, maybe I’ll begin to think you have started to actually have a genuine dialogue with me. Otherwise until then, my hypothesis is that you are operating in a delusional trance. Buddhism often has that affect on personalities.
I’m a bit fascinated by how Buddhism has so effectively embedded itself within modern academia and frames itself as scientific and “enlightened” when it is an ancient pernicious superstitious cult.
"spiritual" was in quotes because Allen apparently grounded himself in Biblical interpretation, and used it to justify his actions, allegedly. I'm wary of sanctioning violence as somehow "divinely ordained" or justified. It doesn't seem healthy or enlightened to me to externalize and enact your distress by harming another. We need to slap some frontal lobe on that bad boy, not give it a pathway. We all have to deal with aggressive impulses and drives. Reason, compassion, and relationship - including relationship to teachers and guides - help us cultivate more creative ways to resist tyranny. Violence is ultimately not very creative, I think.
I believe in some circumstances violence is more "healthy" and "enlightened" than pacifistic submission. The drives for social approval and praise, which largely governs judgements about "healthy" and "enlightened", or in your case "creative", behavior are often the greatest sources of tyranny, of the "spiritual" sort. The "buddha" is a spiritually tyrannical character himself. The best, and only way, to deal with a spiritual tyrant is sometimes through spiritual aggression. And the best, and only (nevermind "creative"), way to deal with a physically violent tyrant is sometimes through violence. That is what Common Sense and the Declaration of Independence was largely about.
Pacifism is not usually creative, it is usually just servile; I think.
The bible though is not pacifistic at all, at its foundation; the Torah was written by genocidal slavers and rapists. Using the bible as a moral authority at all I believe is immoral, just as I believe using mein kampf as a moral authority is immoral. That immoral violence could be "justified" via interpreting the bible is no surprise. People should stop trying to interpret the bible at all for moral justification, I think.
as usual, ahead of the pack. this is terrific reporting, Ken.
thank you! and thanks for subscribing :)
Great reporting as always, but I also always appreciate the level-headed analysis of the facts laid out in front of us. It's important that these incidents aren't viewed as simply the actions of crazed, perhaps "mentally unwell", individuals, but as the actions of people who have been pushed to the brink by a system that's failing people at best and actively murdering them at worst.
He does seem to have a lot in common with Luigi. I don’t think he’ll be the last. Between Gaza, the Epstein Files and now the Iran war — people feel like their government just doesn’t represent them, or even care what they think — and people are fed up.
Change through the system feels impossible. When that’s the case, you see extremism develop in the population. You see political violence start to happen more and more. That seems to be where we are at.
“When you read his manifesto, he hates “Christians,” Trump told Fox News. “He hates Christians, a hatred.” A blizzard of unnamed “administration officials” echoed this Trump claim in major media outlets.”
Brilliant investigative journalism! I had read earlier that he attended CalTech and was a devout Christian at some point in his life—social media posts, but not the extensive history and analysis you just provided in the manifesto itself and through your research and analysis: Bravo 👏
And as for Trump stating that the guy hates Christians? Was anyone expecting a different result? It’s a classic move; getting ahead of the story, and we’ve seen this movie before and it’s getting old; Barr—Mueller Report, for one and Kirk’s assassination for two!
“The only question is if anyone will ask why increasingly normal people feel the political system is so unresponsive to their concerns that they resort to violence.”
Brilliant question, and perhaps a follow up should be whether we will start to see an epidemic of these type of assassination attempts—if this chaos continues in the long-term?
Bottom line, we are entering uncharted territory.: Wars no one wants or this country can afford. A grift by our president and his cronies so grand; it makes Nixon, The Teapot Dome scandal and every other scandal in US history—pale in comparison.
Not to mention, the AI disruption that is starting to affect millions of high paying jobs and will eventually be more destructive to white collar workers, than automation and robotics did to blue collar jobs.
In addition, we live in a mixed economy, in which 10% of this nation is accounting for more than 50% of all the consumer spending; while the rest of the country, including veterans, are losing Medicare and Medicaid benefits—with social security on the chopping block—soon. Moreover, 20 million Americans just lost their ACA subsidies and can no longer pay for affordable insurance.
Bottom line, when people’s finances and employment opportunities dry up—life is going to get increasingly hard and become desperate for many—especially affecting our nations youth; all at a time when the government is spending more on Immigration enforcement, inflation on the rise, and the military and tax cuts for the rich, while simultaneously reducing government services for the most needy.
In my opinion, it’s a recipe for disaster!..:)
Neoliberalism. Named after the late 20th century economic theory that the rich should exercise total control over all aspects of society, and lie about it.
When the Neoliberals conquered the Earth, it wasn’t in face-to-face military battles like the ancient Romans or British used. Instead, the Neoliberals won by destabilizing and corrupting all competing power structures. Conquest is expensive. Tearing down is easy. To invade and occupy a nation-state would require planning, resources, and intelligence. To disrupt it? That only requires the technological high ground and a total lack of scruples. Destroy the power stations and water pumps. Sabotage their data networks, use your vast financial wealth to bribe political parties to betray their nation, block them from the international financial system, ensure that the mainstream media 24/7 slander and belittle and ignore the patriots.
The primary strength of the Neoliberals was their total lack of shame. You could catch them in lies, or contradictions, they could screw up totally, or rob you blind, and they wouldn’t care. They would just go on saying whatever they wanted to say and doing whatever they wanted to do. Neoliberalism is the application of power without moral restraint. You cannot debate them, you cannot reason with them. You can suck up to them and hope to be rewarded. You can do nothing and they will crush you into abject slavery. Oppose them in the slightest way, and they will destroy you by any means possible. Appeals to conscience are as useful as fighting cancer by asking for sympathy. Ultimately, the only winning strategy for dealing with Neoliberalism is to kill it
I have been reading and watching the news all day and your essay is the first to give background AND the truth!
Our political system is so unresponsive to our concerns, normal people of some amount are certain to turn to violence, as did this young man. The system, two parties controlled by essentially the same elites, is not only unresponsive (60% or more of us do not support U.S. wars on Iran/Cuba/Venezuela/Gaza/Lebanon). The U.S. empire is the number one purveyor of instability and terror outside our borders; a hegemonic, predatory rogue state.
It is soul crushing to see images day after day of death, buildings in rubble and lives ruined. Processing all this suffering requires controlling feelings of powerlessness, sadness and anger combined. Thus it requires a massive amount of stamina to not act outside legal, conventional parameters and somehow remain sane.
moving past the suspicion that one's nation might actually be the baddies to the true realization can really trigger some existential crises - soul crushing is right
People should not identify with their governments or "nations"; it is generally bad for the soul.
true, but unfortunately this doesn't resolve the crisis for people who refuse to just look away from what the institutions they support, even involuntarily, are engaged in
I wager it is your Marxism that is crushing your soul, if your soul is actually at all crushed (I am skeptical of any Marxist making that claim) more than the U.S. government itself. The Revolution will-not-go-on even with your head in the sand for a day not looking at dead bodies under rubble on your social media feed.
And Im pretty sure this young man's act has ruled him as actually not "normal" despite his haircut.
How is Marxism "soul crushing"?
I suppose we could ask the billions of souls that have been buried under the rubble of futile communist revolutions over the past 100 years. Do you do seances?
Capitalism has killed more people than Communism, even if you count failed attempts at "Communism"
Much less has "Marxism" (which is a body of economic and social analysis) killed "billions"
Nice head full of capitalist propaganda.
Trump's manifesto:
I am great
Greed is good
Punishment is my prerogative
If I receive a good idea, it is my idea
Responsibility is for others
Everything looks better with gold
The government is of by and for me
The law takes a back seat to my sense of morality
What I say today erases what I said yesterday
I cannot be wrong.
Sad that the shooter reached the conclusion he did. Unfortunately, in a society that too often believes punishment and violence are solutions, there may be more people reaching the same conclusion. I have not yet read Malcolm X on the topic, but I believe as he got older he realized that violence would not work and thought more favorably about MLK''s approach.
Agreed
The last major life change Malcolm X had was to move past racism and towards a class/financial based understanding of repression, after meeting light skinned Muslims and being accepted by them during his Haj. Kind of like MLK?
Shortly after Malcolm stopped accepting a doctrine based on divisive racism (and started opposing the various sexual escapades, unethical & irreligious activities of the prophet Elijah X) he was assassinated.
The good die young, that they be not corrupted.
Excellent reporting, Ken. I am not hopeful MSM will report the truth.
Them crazy Christian terrorists again causing mischief.
What is perhaps the most perplexing element of this story to me is that some guy with a Mechanical Engineering degree from Cal Tech decided that the best plan for his assassination fantasy was to run past armed guards at an indoor crowded dinner. No matter how much a persons' intelligence is compartmentalized, I never fail to be bewildered when I am presented with another egregious case.
totally, having a real hard time not noticing the stank of dead fish on this
Hope this gets picked up, Ken—great job.
Hasan was covering Ken's reporting yesterday
Helpful and interesting. Nicely done.
(And, of course, Trump lies. And lies and lies and lies . . . like a kid breathlessly telling the folks about the size of the fish he caught in the drainage ditch.)
So Allen could justify not liking Trump, and therefore violence was his proposed solution? Clearly a very “spiritual” person. Human beings can find infinite self justification. But as Robert Frost wrote, “ I am a liberal. I do not take my own side in an argument.” Trump is a severe stress on people’s well-being. Many have succumbed to his attacks. This incident will end up being a distraction, or possibly even helping Trump and his supporters. Allen unfortunately did not think that through.
There was a shooting in DC. How was your day?
Envisioning our way past violence and the "High Drama-Low Buddha" American Psyche
https://sunmoonlight.substack.com/p/there-was-a-shooting-in-dc-how-was
I’m not sure what the point of this exchange is. You have essentially stated you believe violence is acceptable in some situations. That’s fine for you - but I don’t find for me in this time especially very useful. But please continue exploring your topics! Life is a journey. Have a great week.
Culture Clash: Debate and Emotional Expression | Psychology Today https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-pacific-heart/202502/culture-clash-debate-and-emotional-expression
Take the Red Pill: Why Buddhism Is True, and Needed | Psychology Today https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-pacific-heart/202501/take-the-red-pill-why-buddhism-is-true-and-needed
I’m not sure what the point of you posting your essays on your convictions was. If you want to have a conversation with me, then I’d be glad to, but I’m not interested in being sermonized. I don’t suspect that would be very useful for me in this time.
“But please continue exploring your topics! Life is a journey. Have a great week.”
More sarcasm or dishonesty. Did you learn that from one of your spiritually tyrannical gurus? Maybe, “the Buddha”?
But since we are sharing essays, here is one of mine:
https://www.wetheblacksheep.com/p/a-loving-defense-of-hate
Maybe I’ll read one of yours if you genuinely read mine.
I skimmed your article. Thanks for posting it. A lot has been written about love and hate, and I’ve read pretty extensively. When I wrote
“But please continue exploring your topics! Life is a journey. Have a great week.”
I was being genuine. But I see that in a few cases you have misinterpreted my genuine remarks as some kind of veiled critique or sarcasm. Please feel free to read or not read my writing. One essay is about how different cultures view dialogue and debate. The other is about Buddhism and psychology.
Yes, Ive skimmed yours too. A lot has been written about social media, Buddhism, and cultural differences. And I’ve read pretty extensively.
“I was being genuine. But I see that in a few cases you have misinterpreted my genuine remarks as some kind of veiled critique or sarcasm. “
I suspect that you may tell yourself that you are being genuine but you are not. Once you actually read my article, not skim it, and actually try to understand it rather than dismissing it due to your prejudices based on other things you have read, maybe I’ll begin to think you have started to actually have a genuine dialogue with me. Otherwise until then, my hypothesis is that you are operating in a delusional trance. Buddhism often has that affect on personalities.
I’m a bit fascinated by how Buddhism has so effectively embedded itself within modern academia and frames itself as scientific and “enlightened” when it is an ancient pernicious superstitious cult.
Do you believe all violence "unspiritual?"
"spiritual" was in quotes because Allen apparently grounded himself in Biblical interpretation, and used it to justify his actions, allegedly. I'm wary of sanctioning violence as somehow "divinely ordained" or justified. It doesn't seem healthy or enlightened to me to externalize and enact your distress by harming another. We need to slap some frontal lobe on that bad boy, not give it a pathway. We all have to deal with aggressive impulses and drives. Reason, compassion, and relationship - including relationship to teachers and guides - help us cultivate more creative ways to resist tyranny. Violence is ultimately not very creative, I think.
I think the Trojan Horse was quite creative.
I believe in some circumstances violence is more "healthy" and "enlightened" than pacifistic submission. The drives for social approval and praise, which largely governs judgements about "healthy" and "enlightened", or in your case "creative", behavior are often the greatest sources of tyranny, of the "spiritual" sort. The "buddha" is a spiritually tyrannical character himself. The best, and only way, to deal with a spiritual tyrant is sometimes through spiritual aggression. And the best, and only (nevermind "creative"), way to deal with a physically violent tyrant is sometimes through violence. That is what Common Sense and the Declaration of Independence was largely about.
Pacifism is not usually creative, it is usually just servile; I think.
The bible though is not pacifistic at all, at its foundation; the Torah was written by genocidal slavers and rapists. Using the bible as a moral authority at all I believe is immoral, just as I believe using mein kampf as a moral authority is immoral. That immoral violence could be "justified" via interpreting the bible is no surprise. People should stop trying to interpret the bible at all for moral justification, I think.
“The "buddha" is a spiritually tyrannical character himself”
Ok. You seem to have some convictions.
Please do you.
If you take the founding of America as your sole North Star, that’s great. But please remember the tyrannies that erected and did not at all displace.
Creativity is in the eye of the beholder.
Kings, Queens, Rulers, Rules
Poetry outlasts them all.
Build your Basho Hut.
I am not surprised. The evils we witness are stunning,
Guess the idf sweater photos were as bullshitty as they felt. Though it would have been hilarious to hear the spin.
Cole's manifesto as quoted here is giving strong Aaron Bushnell vibes.