Update [2008-7-28 11:48:36 by Steven D]: According to Knoxville police, the shooter at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church wrote a 4 page letter in which he blamed the “liberal movement” for his problems and which stated he targeted the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church because of recent publicity the church had received about its liberal stance on issues. Other reports indicate that he also choose to attack the church because of its support for gays.
SECOND Update [2008-7-28 12:49:44 by Steven D]: Wanker Glenn Reynolds spins story as an anti-Christian attack, conveniently omitting the facts that the shooter hated liberals and gays, described himself as a “Confederate” and a “believer in the Old South”, and choose the church for his shooting spree based on its “liberal stance.”
(Original story text below the fold)
One in Istanbul, Turkey has been clearly labeled as a terror attack:
ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Thirteen people died and up to 100 were wounded on Sunday when two bombs exploded in a busy shopping district in Istanbul, officials said.
“It is certain that this is a terror attack,” city governor Muammer Guler told reporters at the scene.
And the other one, a shooting in Knoxville Tennessee at a Unitarian Universalist Church, no one has yet called a terrorist attack, but it sure sounds like one to me:
A gunman opened fire at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church this morning, shooting eight people with a shotgun, killing two, according to police sources. […]
Church member Greg McKendry, 60, was shot and killed when he confronted the gunman during a children’s presentation of the musical, “Annie Jr!” […]
Asked about the children who were performing, Owen said the shooting was “in sight of them and all the people shot were in the line of fire.”
McKendry’s foster son Taylor was a member of the cast, getting ready to take the stage and said the shooter was carrying a guitar case. […]
Kemper said the gunman walked into the side of the sanctuary after firing one shot from a hallway.
She said the gunman was yelling “hateful things” and was wearing a red, white and blue T-shirt.
The shooter wore a red, white and blue t-shirt? Why would anyone wear a shirt with colors clearly associated with patriotic feelings and devotion to America, and then walk into a known “liberal” church and open fire with a shotgun on innocent people, including children, unless they were trying to make a political statement through the commission of a terrorist act? If this occurred in a Middle Eastern country it would be called what it clearly is — terrorism. Just as the burnings of black churches, and the desecration of Jewish Synagogues are also terrorist acts. Just as Eric Rudolph’s bombings of abortion clinics and a gay nightclub were terrorist acts.
But you and I know that this shooting at a Unitarian church won’t be labeled an act of terrorism. Funny how that works, isn’t it?
Never fear, if the shooter had been a Muslim, or an Arab or “of Middle Eastern background”, it would be by definition terrorism.
“Terrorist attacks” do not happen in the US. They happen in other countries.
Random, tragic shootings with no explainable or even discernible reason happen instead. There’s no logical motivation, not political, religious, ethnic, or socioeconomic. These things just happen, like errant lightning bolts or accidents or bridge collapses.
Unless, as has been pointed out, the person committing these acts is a Muslim or hails from outside the US.
Steven,
Thank you for hitting the nail on the head on this one.
I’m still in a bit of shock as I just learned about this a half hour ago, and my family attended TVUUC for a few years as we were transitioning from Catholicism to agnosticism. In fact, we only stopped attending because my wife started veterinary school and Sunday morning was the one time all week we could actually have a little family time together. There but for the grace of God…
You would never want to meet a more wonderful group of people.
From your link above:
PS – The “red, white, and blue shirt” had the Tennessee state flag on it (photo of shooter at the News-Sentinel link above).
PPS – Steve Drevik, a member of the congregation that gave an extended statement to the media at the News-Sentinel link, is a Democratic candidate for county commissioner. I’ve worked with him in a professional capacity and hope he manages to succeed in his uphill fight (Any Democrat running in Knoxville is in an uphill fight: Comes with the territory.).
So glad you checked in as you were the first person I thought of reading the BBC news about the shooting.
First place I checked in after contacting [biological] family members. 🙂
I’m happy that you did. So sorry to hear this horrible news.
This is just awful…awful. I am so sorry this has touched your community, or that it touches anyone’s community.
To the extent you feel comfortable, please let us know how people are doing (OK, that sounds insane–how the #$%*! do I think they’re doing, right? But that’s all I could come up with, because words fail me right now) and how we might be able to help.
It reminds me of Bill O’Reilly’s calling for violence in San Francisco. It’s only terrorism if wingnuts are the victims. Otherwise it’s akin to a public service.
Yeah, here in Oregon about the only “terrorism” white people can be convicted of is torching SUVs or indeed any protest of governmental environmental (that is, anti-environmental) policy. Something like this church attack would undoubtedly be defined as just somebody who flipped out.
We are unitarian. We attended 1st UU of Cleveland for 6 years, and have been members of 1st UU of St Louis for 10 years.
Although we have not been subject to any sort of personal attack, there are two reasons why UUs are sometimes attacked:
I would bet that there will be some homophobia involved.
In a letter written in 1822, Thomas Jefferson predicted that Unitarianism “would become the general religion of the United States within a generation”. He took it to be the truly rational form of Christianity.
Sounds like an MKULTRA test, to me, as do many of these unexplained mass shootings.
MKULTRA?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mk_ultra
The gunman at the UU church may have prepared a manifesto of some sort, according to the news this morning:
So what are the odds that this letter will be made public, without being censored?
Knoxville Police held a press conference this am:
That damn liberal movement! They’re worse than the Illuminati!
That scum bucket went into a CHURCH, with a gun–and before CHILDREN shot and killed people, all because he was mad that his backward ass couldn’t get a job?
Loser entitlement means he thinks he gets to shoot people?
But I’m sure our million dollar wingnut blowhards will be strangely mute about this one…except perhaps to blame the church itself.
CNN reports that the shooter “was motivated by frustration over being unable to obtain a job and hatred for the liberal movement, police said Monday.”
What is this “liberal movement”? That’s the first time I’ve heard of it. Are they referring to Western history? That’s the only thing I can think of that can be described as “the liberal movement”.
Clearly, what’s going on is that right-wingers are used to referring to themselves as members of the “conservative movement”, and they think their “enemies” must have a “movement”, too.
The sad thing is this guy bought into the hate speech line pushed by conservative talk radio that liberals are to blame for everything. Hell, he wouldn’t have even had food stamps if “liberals” hadn’t passed legislation to make them available.
perhaps you know it by it’s more universally accepted name; the age of enlightenment, or age of reason and rationalism.
too many “conservatives” are still trapped in an early 17th century mindset.
More like an early 16th Century mindset.
put them in white robes and hoods and you’ve got the mindset down.
So let me get this straight.
A person with a clear and demonstrably premeditated motive to cause harm to a particular religious group, a particular political group, and a particular sexual orientation goes into a place of worship and kills two people with a firearm, and injures several more.
In any other country, in any other reality, this would be an act of terror. It would be condemned in the strongest possible terms. We would look for the similarities to other such acts, also motivated by the same hatred, and conclude that there are elements in the country that resort to physical acts of brutality in order to shock the public and affect political discourse.
We would conclude that there is a vocal source of hatred, broadcast in that country, that helps influence and give rise to these acts of terror. We would then conclude that these purveyors of angry, divisive rhetoric would be part of the problem. it would be dealt with, and the people who foment this hatred would be prosecuted.
But in America, the right wing noise machine is never, ever blamed for attacks like these.
My review of a few right wing blogs indicate they are mostly ignoring the story. Not one word have I found outside Glenn Reynolds brief mention of it. Compare that with how they covered the shootings of evangelical churches in Colorado (which had no political motive whatsoever).
Actually, the way you defined it, it was not an act of terrorism, but hate crime. The accepted definition of terrorism is violence or threats against a civilian population for political purposes. In particular it refers to attempts to use violence against civilians to affect government policies and actions. Causing harm to a particular religious, political, or sexual orientation group is not per se terrorism.
It is really important, I think, not to loss the real meaning of terrorism by defining it too broadly.
I’m glad you pointed that out. I’d thought of doing the same thing.
I think that part of the problem is that, the way “terrorism” has been employed in the US since 9/11, the word can be glossed as “senseless violence”, “killing us for the sake of killing, because they hate us, simply because they love to hate”. Part of the function of the word “terrorism” in America today is to evoke the idea of violence that can have no rational motive behind it, so that there is no point asking what the motive is. In actually, as you point out, terrorism is usually politics carried out by extra-political means.
on Kos about KOA radio host laughing at a caller’s desire for Civil War if Obama wins.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/28/122742/832/157/558194
The McVeigh’s of the world are still out there.