dimensionallava
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While everyone is rushing to blame one thing or another for the recent Orlando shooting, most are ignoring the social roots of the problem.
The social roots of the mass shooting in Orlando - World Socialist Web Site
It took barely 48 hours for the initial official narrative about the massacre in Orlando, Florida—that it was an ISIS-directed attack on the US homeland—to unravel. Whatever role Omar Mateen’s sympathies for Islamic terrorism may have played in his decision to carry out a mass killing at the Pulse gay bar with a military-style assault rifle, it is now acknowledged by the government that there is no evidence that his actions were directed by ISIS or any similar organization.
Moreover, it has emerged that Mateen was largely driven by a combination of personal emotional and psychological demons, including a conflicted sexual identity, and backward, reactionary and racist views that have much in common with home-grown right-wing and white supremacist groups.
These revelations have not prevented the president of the United States, the presumptive presidential nominees of both major political parties and the corporate-controlled media from continuing to exploit the deaths of 49 victims, the injuries, some life-threatening, of another 53, and the grieving of thousands of family members and friends to push a preexisting agenda of war abroad and repression within the US.
Without seriously attempting to align their prescriptions with the facts that have thus far emerged about the killer and his crime, they continue to seize on this latest in an endless series of mass shootings in America to push the so-called “war on terror,” which has played such a sinister role in creating the social environment that breeds these types of horrific events.
It is now known that Mateen’s evident homophobia coexisted with frequent visits to the Pulse bar and an active presence on social media used by homosexuals. Former coworkers have come forward to describe the killer’s far-right and racist views. Daniel Gilroy, who worked alongside Mateen between March 2014 and March 2015, can been seen in an interview posted on the New York Times web site describing his encounter with the future mass murderer.
Gilroy stated that he was “not surprised” when he heard that Mateen had carried out the Orlando massacre. “He was very racist, very sexist, anti-Jew, anti-homosexual and he made it known by derogatory statements as much as he could.” Gilroy has added that Mateen often talked about killing blacks. When his employer failed to heed his complaints about Mateen, Gilroy quit the firm.
The homicidal eruption of Omar Mateen, while the worst mass shooting in modern American history, is anything but an aberration. Thus far in June, according to the Gun Violence Archive web site, there have been 18 mass shootings in the US. Gunshot homicides totaled 8,124 in 2014, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The social roots of the mass shooting in Orlando - World Socialist Web Site