Yesterday’s post got many readers angry with me. I’ve been down that road before. Unfortunately, the truth hurts. […]

The El Paso Police Department received first call about an active shooter at the Walmart near Cielo Vista Mall at 10:39 a.m. Within six minutes, first responders from around the city arrived on scene. Later, the police would determine there were no shots fired at the mall and the attack was only at the Walmart.

Soon after learning of the shooting, former congressman Beto O’Rourke announced he was suspending his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination to return to his hometown of El Paso.

The El Paso Fire Department shares a tweet confirming that the family reunification center for families looking for their loved ones is at MacArthur Middle School near Cielo Vista Mall.

 

At 2:10 p.m. Saturday, President Donald Trump tweeted about the shooting.

El Paso reporter Keenan Willard says water and ice are needed at MacArthur Middle School and the Pebble Hills police station.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott confirms 20 people are dead and over two dozen have been injured following the shooting at the Cielo Vista Walmart in El Paso, making it the eighth-deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

Three hours after emphasizing the need for donations, the El Paso Fire Department announces blood donation centers are at capacity.

Texas Governor Abbott, first responders and city officials conduct a briefing for the media. El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen says “right now we have a manifesto that indicates a nexus to hate crimes.”

U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar emphasizes that the suspect in custody “is someone who came from outside our community to do us harm. A community that has shown nothing but generosity and kindness to the least among us – those people arriving at America’s front door.”

 

El Paso Mayor Dee Margo reiterates on social media that the El Paso gunman was not a local and thanks El Paso’s first responders for their efforts throughout the day.

O’Rourke tweets that anyone concerned about contacting El Paso authorities to reach out to the Hope Border Institute in the wake of the shooting.

The El Paso Fire Department announces that MacArthur Middle School is at capacity for item donations.

Residents of Ciudad Juárez gather for a vigil to honor victims of the El Paso shooting.

A line of donation-laden vehicles arrived at Del Sol Medical Center, where several of the shooting victims were taken.

The gunman in the El Paso shooting is identified as a 21-year-old man from Allen, Texas, named Patrick Crusius. He is booked at the downtown El Paso jail for capital murder.

Community members continue to line up to donate blood, time, and supplies the morning after the El Paso shooting.

El Paso County District Attorney Jaime Esparza announces prosecutors will seek the death penalty for Crusius.

El Paso community members take to social media with #ElPasoStrong in response to Saturday’s deadly mass shooting.

The next days see the Borderland community coming together to process the tragedy and begin trying to heal.

 

Click hear to read Social media reflects community response as news of attack at El Paso Walmart unfolds

...at least until they don't. Remember, right now a lot of you are pissed because the President uses inflammatory language and stuff. So what happens if somebody else uses "inflammatory language"? What if somebody happens to be a Republican and uses sexist and homophobic language to describe fellow members? Well,... Max Powers

This is an example of why the voters should not approve massive multi-year bond issues:

The slide shows that EPISD has been selling bonds and putting the money into interest bearing accounts.

This is money that they don’t need at the moment but they sold them early to milk some interest money out of us.  Once they sell the bonds we start having to service the debt (principal and interest).

They then park the money in an account and get a lesser interest rate then what we are having to pay on the bonds.

The result?

According to the slide they have generated 8.6 million dollars using this technique.

Other EPISD documents indicate that they intend to use the money to cover cost overruns.

If the voters decide to approve the almost half a billion  dollars in bonds that the city is contemplating they should realize that even the city will need several years to spend the money.

The city could do precisely the same thing as EPISD.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

 

I have always been a target for being Mexican. Everyone is a target for being something. Bullying, racism, […]

The city seems to have decided to only include police and fire requests in the upcoming bond election.

It looks like the issue will be put on the ballot as a single item (take it or leave it) totaling $413 million.

The item will be on the November ballot.

We deserve better

Brutus

This is America under Donald Trump.

It seemed incomprehensible at first to understand or express my thoughts and emotions after last week’s mass shooting at the Walmart new Cielo Vista Mall. Now that a few days have passed and we can reflect on what’s happened.

 I was washing dishes in my Austin home the morning of Aug. 3 when my boyfriend texted me. He sent me a screen shot from Twitter, soon followed by a CNN alert: “Police … El Paso… Cielo Vista Mall … active shooter … lockdown.”

He asked me if my family lived in that area – they don’t. I immediately sent a group text to my loved ones to make sure they were safe. None of them were in the area and all were safely at home. However, my relief quickly turned to horror as details emerged.

The next few hours were nothing short of a nightmare as I anxiously scrolled through social media and watched the national news outlets.

Pain set in as additional details unfolded —a lone white gunman, 20 Hispanic victims, six from nearby Ciudad Juarez; about two dozen injured men, women and children at the busy Walmart near the city’s largest mall; an anti-immigrant manifesto released by the suspect on a social media web site.

 I muted the TV and sobbed into my hands. I felt as if I had been violated; as if my hometown and all my Hispanic brothers and sisters across the nation had been violated. I was angry and I felt helpless. I wasn’t just watching breaking news anymore; I was watching terror unfold in my hometown.

 

Grief Comes in Waves

Day two after the shooting was the hardest. The victims’ names were being released, photos were appearing on news channels and social media, and interviews with the victims’ families were airing. The faces of the innocent people who lost their lives flashed through my head like jump cuts in a film. I didn’t know any of them personally, but they might as well have been my abuelo, my tia, my prima, mi hermano. Tears welled up and rolled down my cheeks in waves. I would regain my composure for a minute or two. Then my chest would begin to heave as I wept again, asking myself “Why hurt my people? Why El Paso?”

I later watched CNN’s Anderson Cooper interview Octavio Lizarde, a victim shot while inside the bank at the retailer. His nephew, Javier Amir Rodriguez, was killed. Lizarde said he was opening an account to cash his paycheck, and went to the to buy clothes and shoes. As he stood in line, the gunman walked in and opened fire. The power of that image brought me to my knees – the injustice. I then prayed for some sort of hope to emerge from these ashes of hatred.

 

El Paso is United

Since the shooting, the news has been filled with more gruesome, horrendous details of the mass shooting at the hands of a young white man from Allen, Texas, who posted a white supremacist diatribe shortly before opening fire. I’ve seen the political articles flood my news feeds since the shooting, but they pale in comparison to the many stories I’ve heard and read centering around how El Pasoans are uniting to care of one another. El Pasoans watch over each other; it’s what we do and who we are. 

Blood donation centers were packed. People brought water bottles to those waiting in line to give blood. Crosses were placed along the fence of Walmart as the names of the now 22 victims were released. Vigils were held with hundreds of people gathering to mourn and remember those who lost their lives. GoFundMe accounts surpassed their goals by thousands of dollars to take care of the expenses for victims’ families Over and over, the resounding message was something like, “This is my El Paso. This is what we do. We are united. We’re familia.” It is true.

 

What Makes Us Strong

The thread I’ve seen woven throughout each interview and story is forgiveness. Some family members of the victims have said: “We forgive (the shooter). We don’t hate him.”

Or, in Lizarde’s words: “If God was able to forgive. . . then I forgive as well.” This is what makes the people of El Paso unique—they do not repay evil for evil. Instead, they forgive. Even as they mourn, they forgive.

What happened that Saturday morning was atrocious — there are no words to describe the evil that took place. I’m still heartbroken, angry and confused. But we are not without hope and we are not without strength. I think the way forward has already been shown to us by these brave men, women, and families who are still grieving. To me, they are an example of resilience, love, and all that is good in the face of adversity. 

This is what I believe, El Paso — the shooting is not what makes you. Your love, unity, forgiveness, bravery, and strength are what you are and will continue to be known for. Let’s press on to find hope. Let’s grieve together. Let’s heal together. Let’s be #ElPasoStrong. 

Click hear to read El Paso native reflects on mass shooting from Austin

What should we be talking about today?

We deserve better

Brutus

Mr. Joe Moody passed up a chance to become DA in order to do bigger and better things in Austin. But man how much his world has changed since then. His boss, the current Republican Speaker of the House, is in some serious hot water. There is the allegation about... Max Powers

Next year’s city tax rate looks like it will be 90.73 cents per hundred dollars of valuation.

That works out to just about 1% of the value of your property.

Of the 90.73 cents 61 cents will go to maintenance and operations.

The amount that we will have to pay to cover past bond issues and other debt will be 29.7 cents.

That means that 32.7 percent of the money we pay in property taxes will go to debt service.

These numbers don’t include the cost of the multi-purpose performing arts center or the cultural center which we have already approved.

I wonder how many of us spend 32.7 percent of our income on our home mortgages.

We deserve better

Brutus

Walmart has a choice to make. It needs to decide what to do with the store where 22 […]

The proposed 2020 city budget includes $61.5 million dollars for principal payments on bonds that were sold in the past.

Can you imagine what it will be if the voters pass the almost one billion dollars in bond money that the city wants?

We deserve better

Brutus

The individual – who has no right to be referred by their name – personifies the very definition […]

I didn't want to say anything about this at all. I especially didn't want to say anything in the immediate hours and days after a terrorist gunned down innocent people in an act of cowardice driven by idiotic racist beliefs.... Brad Kanus

Up until Saturday around noon, things seemed hopeless for Beto. But a tragedy occurred. And once again, it is the Beto show. Is that right? Is that wrong? I do not know. It what it is. But do not kid yourself. Any person that became president had to do things... Max Powers

Item 27.3 on the Tuesday, August 6, 2019 city council agenda is:

Discussion and action on directing the City Manager to conduct training on Ethics, the Code of Conduct, and Robert’s Rules of Order.

The item was placed on the agenda by our mayor.

I wonder if he will receive any of the training.

We deserve better

Brutus

(I edited this post on 07aug19 at 10:46ET to correct a term I should not have used.) So, […]

By Arie Perliger, University of Massachusetts Lowell

The recent shooting attack in which a young white man is accused of killing 22 people in a Walmart in El Paso fits a new trend among perpetrators of far-right violence: They want the world to know why they did it.

So they provide a comprehensive ideological manifesto that aims to explain the reasoning behind their actions as well as to encourage others to follow in their steps.

In the past, only leaders of far-right groups did this. Now, it’s common among lone-wolf perpetrators, such as the alleged perpetrator in El Paso.

In the past decade, the language of white supremacists has transformed in important ways. It crossed national borders, broadened its focus and has been influenced by current mainstream political discourse.

I study political violence and extremism. In my recent research, I have identified these changes and believe that they can provide important insights into the current landscape of the American and European violent far-right.

The changes also allow us to understand how the violent far-right mobilizes support, shapes political perceptions and eventually advances their objectives.

Vigil on Sunday, Aug. 4, 2019, for the fallen in the El Paso Walmart shooting on Saturday. Photo by Kate Gannon, Borderzine.com

New identity crosses borders

Since the early stages of the American white supremacy movement in the mid-19th century, the movement has always emphasized the superiority of Western culture and the need for segregation between racial groups in order to maintain the purity and dominance of the white race.

For example, in the 1980s, a Ku Klux Klan affiliate published a map allocating specific parts of the U.S. to specific ethnic communities. The map makers imagined Jews limited to the New York area, while Hispanics were to live in Florida.

But recently, a growing number of far-right activists have preferred to focus on cultural and social differences between communities, rather than on attributes such as race and ethnic origin.

They justify their violence as a way to preserve certain cultural-religious practices, rather than relying on their old justification – maintaining the genetic purity of the white race. In these activists’ view, the battle has moved from genes to culture.

For example, a member of the National Socialist Movement, an American neo-Nazi organization, wrote in a 2018 online post that white American is an identity like African American or Jewish American. In a statement that probably wouldn’t have been made by previous generations of neo-Nazis, the member wrote that all whites should come together, using their knowledge and weapons, to stop non-Europeans from pushing their secular agenda via government and media power.

Countering liberal left’s cultural influence

Another traditional theme of the far-right discourse – preserving the patriarchal order from attacks from the left – has grown in prominence.

Andres Breivik, who killed 77 people and injured more than 300 in July 2011 in Europe’s most lethal act of white supremacism, issued a manifesto shortly before his rampage.

In it, he stated that the politically correct terminology which is becoming more prevalent in the West intends to “deny the intrinsic worth of native Christian European heterosexual males” who were reduced to an “emasculate[d]… touchy-feely subspecies.”

Such sentiments are becoming more prevalent in the white supremacist forums, and reflect another component of what they perceived as an ongoing cultural war to preserve the white Christian way of life.

New transnational culture

The declining emphasis by the far-right on nationalism has led to the adoption of a transnational identity based on race, culture and religion.

Simply put, they feel closer to whites in other countries than non-whites who live in their neighborhood.

This explains why we have seen a global spread of violent white nationalism in recent years as the far-right finds kinship with like-minded nationalists in other countries.

Racial identity was always a prime component in the identity of far-right activists, but it was usually framed by local politics. In the past, racist British skinheads focused mainly on what they perceived as the interests of the British white working class. Today the rhetoric of most skinheads focuses on international geopolitics, although local issues haven’t been abandoned.

The attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which an Australian white supremacist killed 51 Muslim worshippers in a mosque on March 15, 2019, reflects that far-right activists seem to increasingly embrace a regional, if not global, perspective in the way they define their constituencies and the threats they are facing.

The Christchurch attacker’s manifesto was clearly inspired by far-right rhetoric from European and American groups, such as notions of “white genocide.” He specifically mentions Norway’s Breivik as a role model.

Legitimizing far-right ideology in the US

In the U.S., what’s different about the current rhetoric of the far-right is that they are now using terminology that can also be found in some mainstream political parties and movements, aiding their efforts to gain popular legitimacy.

For example, the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan released a new set of organizational goals a couple of years ago. Beyond their longstanding, bedrock belief – the protection of the white race – they also declare support for restricting immigration and free trade and ending or limiting foreign aid. They want government to provide protection to small businesses, agricultural workers and gun owners.

This broad ideological shift also spilled over to some far-right skinhead organizations. Volksfront, for example, declares in its online mission statement that beyond white nationalism, the organization will fight for economic issues, states’ rights, crime repression and labor rights.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s language about the need to restore order to the streets of America, as expressed in his inaugural address, is also evident in the language of American white supremacists. In a poster produced by the skinhead group Keystone United, they call for harsher punishments for drug dealers.

The demand for stricter punishment of criminals is echoed in many racist group platforms. These include support of death penalty expansion, an important point of discussion mainly in skinhead message boards, and levying harsher punishments for sexual offenses.

Since minorities are overrepresented among American incarcerated population, far-right activists see these criminal justice policies as a more “legitimate” way to “punish” members of minority groups.

Two future trends

These changes in the discourse of the far-right suggest two important trends.

The first is the growth in the international nature of far-right violence, posing a challenge to law enforcement across borders.

Second, the growing overlap between the language of the far-right and the rhetoric of elected officials illustrates how the current polarization in the political system, and delegitimization of minorities by political leaders, can provide legitimacy for radical practices and violence and broader acceptance of ideas, concepts and statements that in the past were the domain of the far-right.

I fear these dynamics are likely to encourage additional far-right activists to express their views via violence. The emerging evidence that the El Paso shooter was inspired by popular theories in the far-right rhetorical universe, such as that of the “great replacement,” is a clear warning sign.

[ Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter. ]

Arie Perliger, Director of Security Studies and Professor, University of Massachusetts Lowell

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Click hear to read From across the globe to El Paso, changes in the language of the far-right explain its current violence

Employees @FtBlissExchange told me today they’ve seen a steady stream of people purchasing guns and/or ammo over the past 2 days in wake of Saturday morning’s massacre at an El Paso Walmart. One longtime gun department employee said he’s never seen anything like it @epheraldpost pic.twitter.com/BRxa3HQ2Ly — Darren Hunt (@dhuntreporter)... Max Powers