legaldinho wrote:

But no, Islam is a death cult innit.

But how else will the government terrify the population into submission if not by describing Islam as an existential threat to western life?

They won't be able to control us all if we're not fearful and submissive. A few vulnerable people with mental health issues just won't cut it I'm afraid.

Sad times we live in.

Decades of crap all coming to the boil.

djchump wrote:

tin_robot wrote:

Yeah, Radio 4 this morning was interesting.  Suddenly they were adopting the rhetoric that they should adopt with all these things.  Labouring the point that this guy was probably just acting alone, ...

Reports I saw was that 3 guys were in the van, wasn't it?
2 ran off after, but the locals managed to grab and pin the 3rd til the police arrived.

Or has it been confirmed as a single attacker now?

PS - and, yes, grab and pin and show "considerable restraint" by not kicking his fucking head in.

That appears to have taken a backseat.

There’s an interesting bit of chat kicking around on Twitter about paying attention to the difference in press reporting on this incident, as opposed to one where the perpetrators commit suicide. 

The attacker this time is alive. He’s in custody. He has to go to trial. So the reporting is different. Journalists can’t apportion blame. You’ll probably see it referred to as an ‘incident’ rather than an attack, just in case it was accidental. In case he fell asleep at the wheel. Or had a heart attack. 

If the press blame him, call it deliberate, say he’s a terrorist … then his defence could argue that the jury was biased against him from the off, and claim lack of fair trial.

Of course, the natural reaction to seeing this different style of reporting will be to think that it’s different because he’s a white guy attacking the Muslim community. And it probably is, in part – but there’s this second very real difference to consider as well, before we automatically assume the worst of our journalists.

Fuck me, this is a messed up situation.

Aye, nor do I.

I do think it’s an interesting point though.

Yeah but Finsbury park mosque isnt what he attacked, and anyway was closed and taken over by a new trust. The whole area has had a rebrand after extremism and credit card fraud had been a blight on the Muslim folks' reputation.

And anyway, your friend should realise that such a "revenge" attack is a blunt rationalisation of agreeing with terrorism as a tool for action.

legaldinho wrote:

And anyway, your friend should realise that such a "revenge" attack is a blunt rationalisation of agreeing with terrorism as a tool for action.

Good point, although I didnt really think down this line as I was a bit taken aback he was all of a sudden supportive of a vehicle attack on innocent pedestrians (given his comments when similar types of incidents happened in Melbourne, London and France - and we know the Melbourne one wasn't due to extremism). 

On the topic of revenge specifically, I don't like it. I don't even like that people like bin Laden, Saddam and Gaddafi were dealt with via executions. Personally I'd prefer to see them in front of a jury and their crimes dealt with that way.

Liveinadive wrote:

I can't help feeling more anger at this guy than the Jihadi attackers. Maybe because I feel lumped in with him being white, maybe because I can't rationalise it through indoctrination or desperation, or religion (all be it a small part of a religion). Part of it is that he attacked a city already mourning the death of many. Middle aged white male, peak privilege, old enough to know better, to not be taken advantage of and radicalised. No promise of paradise. Just seems to be pure hate.

Shows how strong the right wing rhetoric has become in England. Of course this guy is still probably ill and particularly susceptible to it because of that, but it's the prominence given to these ideas by UKIP, some Tories and tabloids that have made it seem so accessible and even normal. 

(Probably turn out he was just drunk or something now.)

Liveinadive wrote:

I can't help feeling more anger at this guy than the Jihadi attackers.

Maybe because I feel lumped in with him being white, maybe because I can't rationalise it through indoctrination or desperation, or religion (all be it a small part of a religion).
Part of it is that he attacked a city already mourning the death of many.

Middle aged white male, peak privilege, old enough to know better, to not be taken advantage of and radicalised. No promise of paradise.
Just seems to be pure hate.

I doubt this guy was privileged and in his right mind. Anyway, this stuff isn't on you, white people commit crimes all the time, do you feel bad about those because the criminals are white? That's crazy.

Shit, the crowd was really angry. The attacker got lucky he didn't get lynched.

Feeling upset to be lumped in with white loonies is probably a tiny taste of how a lot of the Muslim community feel all the time these days.

It's odd that they haven't defined him by which party leader he 'supports'.

If there's one thing I hate it's a scruffy terrorist. 

Just relieved that our brave British terrorists have a higher standard of grooming and a much healthier level of self respect than those we see elsewhere in the world. Yeah, you're busy killing people, but that doesn't give you an excuse to slack off on your grooming standards.

Clean shaven... 

He's not homeless, very likely self possessed. Quite likely to have a job that requires him to face clients/customers. Failing that, he may have expected to face a camera to advertise his act. In other words, he may be attracting attention to some kind of fringe cause, like that stupid National Defence bag of shits.

But yeah, just keep putting stuff into buckets, just like the Mail and the Sun does...