The term “Stochastic Terrorism” has been making the rounds again this past weekend. What does the term “ stochastic terrorism” mean? Stochastic terrorism is officially defined as, “the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted.”
I, too, admire Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and all other humans who do not find the intense pressure to succumb to the racist ultra MAGA Republican creed enough to compromise their integrity. Integrity is not a political strategy. It rises far above that. And at the start and end of the day, it is what we are left with that matters.
Thanks for this essay, TC. I had seen the usage of "Stochastic Terrorism" pop up this week, and I had a general idea of what it meant. This is gold.
As someone who is not male, I do not understand a lot of the dominant thought processes about being male, one of which seems to be a need to "belong with others of like mind". I know that my Dad's friends/co-workers were all members of the Elks, the Eagles, were Masons, or other (in that day) exclusionary groups. I asked my Dad (with the innocence of a 10 year old who was learning the hard way about being "different") why he didn't belong to any of those groups. His reply "I didn't need a clubhouse when I was 10, and I don't need one when I'm 50." He was a WWII AAC Veteran who was a meteorologist. He spent 3 years stateside in San Francisco, and the last part of his service in the China-Burma Theatre setting up the stations that enabled the planes to fly "over the hump." He said the Army taught him a lot, and one of them was that "clubs" were not for him.
TC, I appreciated your definition of 'Stochastic Terrorism'. It was clear; I could feel its programmatic strength and understand why it works. How to instill fear, charge it up, so that the fear not only occupies your brain and lies in bed with you. No, no, no! Put fear into action, make it yours from weak to strong.
replace, supplant, supersede
In human terms, The Fear is powerized - automatized and atomized.
My mind flipped to Buffalo. The price of power over humanity. The dead, the wounded, their connections, the police, and the armored eighteen year-old programmed to kill human beings darker than himself. He killed their smiles, their thoughts and the goals they had. Look at him. What did he replace?
I don’t mean to be silly here, but as I read this post, TC, all I could think of was the movie, The Lion King. The parallels are not perfect; we don’t have a king, yet at least. However, in the Lion King, the leader was replaced by violent means ( stampede) set off by “foreign henchman (hyenas) of an aggrieved wannabe leader (Scar). Under Scar’s “leadership”, the Prideland goes to hell in a hand basket, and life becomes miserable for all.
There is no little Simba in waiting to save us today. We have to save ourselves and do the hard work necessary to get democracy voters out in the midterms.
Today’s post paints a scary picture of our current reality. The Claremont fellow you mentioned is peddling racist bs. We did not arrive at this place overnight, but we have very little time to get it together to save democracy.
This edition of "Fine Mess" deserves wide distribution. I will share it with my modest crew.
I have been listening to Kayyem for years. Her explanation is excellent. It assigns responsibility very well.
Anyone poo pooing the idea that fascism has a grip on the White Mind should read your letter of today.
But I fear that there will be many more Buffaloes. The GRT promoters have figured out a formula to ensnare the ignorant, the angry and disenfranchised. Of course, it is the uber rich that are using them as tools to retain their power and money. Peter Thiel being a poster boy.
again, Tom, you hit one out of the ballpark. as I read, I do what I usually do when I'm reading horrible things written by horrible people, which is to start an argument with each of what are laughably referred to as "talking points." but these quotes you've provided have defeated me utterly. every single one of them is so toxic ON TOP of being so absolutely moronic that if I took on every one of them in any kind of systematic way, 1) it would take all day and 2) it would ruin the day. and you've done more than an excellent job of showing just how foul they are. every time I read one of these hate screeds, it changes my physiology in a really horrible way and also makes me want to embrace the heinous things I'm (as one of these leftie jews) being accused of. yes, I'd like THEM to be replaced (by just about anything else). I could go on, but I 'm sure everybody gets the picture.
My question to the Replacement assholes is "how do you define indigenous people? Your replacement of them is fine."
Those scared, stupid, gullible, willfully stupid and casually cruel fuckwits are low hanging fruit for the oligarchs in this country who really run things ( no, not a Jewish cabal lie), but a country owned and operated by mega corporations who decide everything from media to meals that the highest court in the land defines as people ( see Citizens United and yesterday little blow job to Ted Cruz).
Politicians bought and paid for, K Street a revolving door.
Poll after poll after poll show the vast majority of Americans want pro choice, gun control, etc.
Anybody with a brain knows not one fucking thing will change after all the mass shootings in this country this past weekend with Buffalo as the latest in domestic terrorism.
For the Hell of it, I would love Democratic leadership in both houses to put to a vote and condemn white supremacy and the Buffalo massacre. Each one of those 535 members go on record.
Then the Democrats seize that and hammer it home 24/7. Of course I'm high. That will never happen.
While digesting this piece I was distracted by my subconscious salivating over some schadenfreude with an aftertaste of irony, triggered by today's reality of white supremacists agitating against a "Great Replacement" using terms such as "native born Americans" when they are standing on the dust and bones of "replaced" Native Americans.
The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons. (I'm not a god-botherer, but some truisms are universal.)
The Claremont clown’s rant displays almost no knowledge of the country he purports to reform. The notion that immigrants don’t use the American language is utterly untrue and the best proof is the disappearance of dozens of foreign language newspapers in cities like New York with large immigrant populations. They began to disappear before the Second World War and had completely folded by the Sixties for the most (The Forward stopped publishing its Yiddish edition in the 1990s) and all for the same reason - the next generation spoke English exclusively.
As for culture, I remember seeing Sikh guys at Shea Stadium in the Seventies. The turbans made them easy to spot. American art, including music, movies and television is still our biggest export. Long exposed to Louis Armstrong, Elvis, Paul Newman, Dolly Parton and “Friends” 21st Century immigrants arrive far more Americanized than their predecessors of the 19th Century. And they bring tandoori chicken and pad Thai with them.
TC, without a doubt, this is one of your best. I have posted it on both FB and Twitter and now I think I'll back to Twitter and amplify it by sending it to MSNBC. I KNOW someone over there reads you (there are no coincidences and sometimes your ideas - maybe even your words - crop up in their analysis of various and sundry.) This one needs to be discussed widely.
Had not heard the term before. You have me thinking. Could become tgf defense if he comes to trial or the prosecution's case. Stochastic Guilt, the acts and rhetoric of deceitful manipilation that culminate in violence perpetrated by secondary actors. Sentence guidelines: 10% of prison time to be served consecuitively with each accused perpetrator convicted of violence.
TY, TC. Exponential increase in this since 1170, (HenryII &Becket) due to realtime, ubiquitous social media. It seems to me that in our day of weaponized, coded communication the "act" of terrorism cannot be confined to the "acolyte soldier" receivers but also to the speakers ....both become terrorists, don't they?? Free Speech collisions ahead!! Thank you.
Interesting stochastic reflection. Found this quote by following links in the Kathleen Belew, NYT article re " great replacement" theory to Renaud Camus. He lives in a 14th century castle in France and his early writing used the phrase ( also followed by Marine Le Pen, et al).....
“He [Renaud Camus] should become aware that in our universe, where everything happens in real time, what you say from the position of an aesthete or a writer, can instantly be transformed into a gun and bullets,” said the expert [Jean Ives Camus], who is not related to Renaud Camus."
And appropos of Beau, he mentions that the gun crowd, which he blames entirely for the gun control mess we find ourselves in at the moment, insists on buying the AR15 because it is very close to the gun the military uses today (the M16 rifle or M4 carbine). But the army has just picked a new rifle to replace the M16 and M4 for our front line combat troops, and he is concerned that the gun nuts will start buying the civilian version of that weapon, which is already being offered to civilians years ahead of the army's getting them. Here's the thing - the new rifle, the XM5, uses an enhanced new type of ammunition that causes far more damage to victims than the existing 5.56mm AR round. Use of this new rifle in crimes will change the gun control debate when people see what the new powerful bullets will do. The new ammunition, known as the .277 SIG 'Fury', is actually more powerful down-range than the old 7.62mm NATO M14 battle rifle..... It was designed to penetrate military body armor at extended ranges, and domestically the police will be hopelessly outmatched once these hit the market..... Welcome to West World.
I, too, admire Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and all other humans who do not find the intense pressure to succumb to the racist ultra MAGA Republican creed enough to compromise their integrity. Integrity is not a political strategy. It rises far above that. And at the start and end of the day, it is what we are left with that matters.
Salud, TC. Excellent analysis as always.
Thanks for this essay, TC. I had seen the usage of "Stochastic Terrorism" pop up this week, and I had a general idea of what it meant. This is gold.
As someone who is not male, I do not understand a lot of the dominant thought processes about being male, one of which seems to be a need to "belong with others of like mind". I know that my Dad's friends/co-workers were all members of the Elks, the Eagles, were Masons, or other (in that day) exclusionary groups. I asked my Dad (with the innocence of a 10 year old who was learning the hard way about being "different") why he didn't belong to any of those groups. His reply "I didn't need a clubhouse when I was 10, and I don't need one when I'm 50." He was a WWII AAC Veteran who was a meteorologist. He spent 3 years stateside in San Francisco, and the last part of his service in the China-Burma Theatre setting up the stations that enabled the planes to fly "over the hump." He said the Army taught him a lot, and one of them was that "clubs" were not for him.
TC, I appreciated your definition of 'Stochastic Terrorism'. It was clear; I could feel its programmatic strength and understand why it works. How to instill fear, charge it up, so that the fear not only occupies your brain and lies in bed with you. No, no, no! Put fear into action, make it yours from weak to strong.
replace, supplant, supersede
In human terms, The Fear is powerized - automatized and atomized.
My mind flipped to Buffalo. The price of power over humanity. The dead, the wounded, their connections, the police, and the armored eighteen year-old programmed to kill human beings darker than himself. He killed their smiles, their thoughts and the goals they had. Look at him. What did he replace?
I don’t mean to be silly here, but as I read this post, TC, all I could think of was the movie, The Lion King. The parallels are not perfect; we don’t have a king, yet at least. However, in the Lion King, the leader was replaced by violent means ( stampede) set off by “foreign henchman (hyenas) of an aggrieved wannabe leader (Scar). Under Scar’s “leadership”, the Prideland goes to hell in a hand basket, and life becomes miserable for all.
There is no little Simba in waiting to save us today. We have to save ourselves and do the hard work necessary to get democracy voters out in the midterms.
Today’s post paints a scary picture of our current reality. The Claremont fellow you mentioned is peddling racist bs. We did not arrive at this place overnight, but we have very little time to get it together to save democracy.
This edition of "Fine Mess" deserves wide distribution. I will share it with my modest crew.
I have been listening to Kayyem for years. Her explanation is excellent. It assigns responsibility very well.
Anyone poo pooing the idea that fascism has a grip on the White Mind should read your letter of today.
But I fear that there will be many more Buffaloes. The GRT promoters have figured out a formula to ensnare the ignorant, the angry and disenfranchised. Of course, it is the uber rich that are using them as tools to retain their power and money. Peter Thiel being a poster boy.
again, Tom, you hit one out of the ballpark. as I read, I do what I usually do when I'm reading horrible things written by horrible people, which is to start an argument with each of what are laughably referred to as "talking points." but these quotes you've provided have defeated me utterly. every single one of them is so toxic ON TOP of being so absolutely moronic that if I took on every one of them in any kind of systematic way, 1) it would take all day and 2) it would ruin the day. and you've done more than an excellent job of showing just how foul they are. every time I read one of these hate screeds, it changes my physiology in a really horrible way and also makes me want to embrace the heinous things I'm (as one of these leftie jews) being accused of. yes, I'd like THEM to be replaced (by just about anything else). I could go on, but I 'm sure everybody gets the picture.
Terrific piece, Tom. You nailed it.
My question to the Replacement assholes is "how do you define indigenous people? Your replacement of them is fine."
Those scared, stupid, gullible, willfully stupid and casually cruel fuckwits are low hanging fruit for the oligarchs in this country who really run things ( no, not a Jewish cabal lie), but a country owned and operated by mega corporations who decide everything from media to meals that the highest court in the land defines as people ( see Citizens United and yesterday little blow job to Ted Cruz).
Politicians bought and paid for, K Street a revolving door.
Poll after poll after poll show the vast majority of Americans want pro choice, gun control, etc.
Anybody with a brain knows not one fucking thing will change after all the mass shootings in this country this past weekend with Buffalo as the latest in domestic terrorism.
For the Hell of it, I would love Democratic leadership in both houses to put to a vote and condemn white supremacy and the Buffalo massacre. Each one of those 535 members go on record.
Then the Democrats seize that and hammer it home 24/7. Of course I'm high. That will never happen.
Fuck Amerikkka
Thanks for this essay, TC. It is an important piece that should be broadcast far and wide.
Nail. Head. Hit.
While digesting this piece I was distracted by my subconscious salivating over some schadenfreude with an aftertaste of irony, triggered by today's reality of white supremacists agitating against a "Great Replacement" using terms such as "native born Americans" when they are standing on the dust and bones of "replaced" Native Americans.
The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons. (I'm not a god-botherer, but some truisms are universal.)
The Claremont clown’s rant displays almost no knowledge of the country he purports to reform. The notion that immigrants don’t use the American language is utterly untrue and the best proof is the disappearance of dozens of foreign language newspapers in cities like New York with large immigrant populations. They began to disappear before the Second World War and had completely folded by the Sixties for the most (The Forward stopped publishing its Yiddish edition in the 1990s) and all for the same reason - the next generation spoke English exclusively.
As for culture, I remember seeing Sikh guys at Shea Stadium in the Seventies. The turbans made them easy to spot. American art, including music, movies and television is still our biggest export. Long exposed to Louis Armstrong, Elvis, Paul Newman, Dolly Parton and “Friends” 21st Century immigrants arrive far more Americanized than their predecessors of the 19th Century. And they bring tandoori chicken and pad Thai with them.
TC, without a doubt, this is one of your best. I have posted it on both FB and Twitter and now I think I'll back to Twitter and amplify it by sending it to MSNBC. I KNOW someone over there reads you (there are no coincidences and sometimes your ideas - maybe even your words - crop up in their analysis of various and sundry.) This one needs to be discussed widely.
Had not heard the term before. You have me thinking. Could become tgf defense if he comes to trial or the prosecution's case. Stochastic Guilt, the acts and rhetoric of deceitful manipilation that culminate in violence perpetrated by secondary actors. Sentence guidelines: 10% of prison time to be served consecuitively with each accused perpetrator convicted of violence.
TY, TC. Exponential increase in this since 1170, (HenryII &Becket) due to realtime, ubiquitous social media. It seems to me that in our day of weaponized, coded communication the "act" of terrorism cannot be confined to the "acolyte soldier" receivers but also to the speakers ....both become terrorists, don't they?? Free Speech collisions ahead!! Thank you.
Wow! This explains so much. Thank you for this excellent informative piece!!
Interesting stochastic reflection. Found this quote by following links in the Kathleen Belew, NYT article re " great replacement" theory to Renaud Camus. He lives in a 14th century castle in France and his early writing used the phrase ( also followed by Marine Le Pen, et al).....
“He [Renaud Camus] should become aware that in our universe, where everything happens in real time, what you say from the position of an aesthete or a writer, can instantly be transformed into a gun and bullets,” said the expert [Jean Ives Camus], who is not related to Renaud Camus."
Lots of Camus running around in France!!!!
And appropos of Beau, he mentions that the gun crowd, which he blames entirely for the gun control mess we find ourselves in at the moment, insists on buying the AR15 because it is very close to the gun the military uses today (the M16 rifle or M4 carbine). But the army has just picked a new rifle to replace the M16 and M4 for our front line combat troops, and he is concerned that the gun nuts will start buying the civilian version of that weapon, which is already being offered to civilians years ahead of the army's getting them. Here's the thing - the new rifle, the XM5, uses an enhanced new type of ammunition that causes far more damage to victims than the existing 5.56mm AR round. Use of this new rifle in crimes will change the gun control debate when people see what the new powerful bullets will do. The new ammunition, known as the .277 SIG 'Fury', is actually more powerful down-range than the old 7.62mm NATO M14 battle rifle..... It was designed to penetrate military body armor at extended ranges, and domestically the police will be hopelessly outmatched once these hit the market..... Welcome to West World.