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applegrove

(118,774 posts) Wed Feb 1, 2017, 09:01 PM Feb 2017

Canadas "Alt-Right" Mosque Shooter, And What He Means For Right-Wing Media

by Eric Boehlert at Media Matters

https://mediamatters.org/blog/2017/02/01/canada-s-alt-right-mosque-shooter-and-what-he-means-right-wing-media/215207

SNIP.........

The accused killer’s connection to the far right is not a tangential one. Bissonnette is a white nationalist who, according to Canadian press accounts, has been described by friends and acquaintances as:

*“an online troll”;
inspired by “extreme right-wing” politics;
*“a xenophobe” who’s “against immigration,” “especially by Muslims”;
*“enthralled by a borderline racist nationalist movement”;
*“very right and (an) ultra nationalist white supremacist”;
*“sharing anti-immigration sentiment, especially toward Muslim refugees;
having “right-wing political ideas”; and
*“obviously pro-Trump.”
And then there was this description, from a Canadian refugee activist (emphasis added):

"He was someone who made frequent extreme comments in social media denigrating refugees and feminism. It wasn’t outright hate, rather part of this new nationalist conservative identity movement that is more intolerant than hateful.”

In other words, he’s not a “lone wolf” gunman. He’s an "alt-right" assassin who seemingly became deeply immersed in a radical movement in search of cultural and ethnic purity. (One family member thinks Bissonnette “fell under the influence” of someone who radicalized him.)

In the wake of the deadly attack, Fox News viewers were told virtually none of that about the gunman. In fact, they were fed misinformation about the identity of the shooter, thanks to the network's claim on Twitter that a second gunman on the scene was “of Moroccan origin.” (Though police initially arrested two suspects, including one who is of Moroccan descent, they quickly realized he was a witness to the attack and that there was only one shooter, the Canadian native Bissonnette. Fox did not correct its tweet for more than 24 hours, until a spokesperson for the Canadian prime minister called on the network to "either retract or update" its false claim.) "Alt-right" outlet Breitbart.com did the same thing, hyping the Morocco angle, and then limply updating the incorrect report.
..........SNIP