Cho "manifesto" cites "Democratic Terrorists". Hate/talk radio fan?

[elehhhhna]

Copy here..."Dem Terrorists" mentioned halfway down.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=694618&mesg_id=694618

[Ganja Ninja]

1. I doubt it.

He's a nut job but none of his room mates have mentioned he was a ditto head.

[theboss]

2. I think he means "democratic" with a small d

He also hates "Christian Nazis," "Rich kids" and everyone else he thinks has persecuted him. Let's not make this political.

[jobycom]

12. He uses a capital D. He is an English major. Still, not sure what he means.

I have a feeling he was just grabbing phrases out of the air. He may have picked up that phrase from talk radio. Heck, maybe he was pissed off about Imus, amongst everything else.

I don't think he's sane enough to analyze for meaning. The overall message I get is that he was mentally ill, he blamed every pain he felt internally on external sources, and he upped the violence in his prose to match the pain he was feeling. Even if he picked up the phrase "Democratic Terrorist" from talk radio, there's no political manifesto here. He just grabbed a phrase that made sense to his senseless mind. He attached some pain to his concept of "Democratic," whatever that concept was. If he'd associated it with Barney, he'd have screamed about "Barney Terrorism." If his true beef was with the Democratic Party or even democracy, he'd have railed more about it.

Of course, maybe he did. This is only one page. I have no idea what's in the rest of them, and they may clearly lay out a political belief. I'm mainly saying this page doesn't prove anything political by itself.

I do think it's important. If he had a political theme going, that tells us a lot about him. Not about the political parties, but about how his mind saw things. I'm of the belief that the more we can understand his mind, the better chance we have of stopping some of these massacres in time. And maybe even helping someone like this find some peace before he becomes a monster.

[theboss]

15. He was a lousy English major

I wrote better plays with better grammar in 8th Grade. (Granted, they were all rip-offs of Dallas episodes but still).

[jobycom]

18. His plays were lousy, but he knew basic grammar and punctuation.

He was a senior, so one assumes he passed a few courses.

[Ian David]

3. Can you please re-post part of that post here? I have the author on my ignore list.

Thanks!

[salin]

4. sadly

that is one of the costs of the ignore function.

[elehhhhna]

8. here:

[blondeatlast]

5. Desperate, enraged, and ill people don't have the Chicago Manual

at hand when they write their manifestos.

If you read what's possbible of the entire thing, the context seems to indicate he is talking about little "d" democracy. I've never known any standard English stylebook that says that "terrorist" is a proper noun requiring capitalization, either.

You know, like we are "spreading democracy" throughout the world.

He seems to have hated EVERYBODY...

[Rydz777]

13. Probably right

I think your explanation is probably the right one. In any case, we are now told that this English major got A's because his teachers were afraid of him. No model of syntax and style here.

[KurtNYC]

6. Seems clear he was a big fan of NBC (and they are sickly loving him

right back).

[blondeatlast]

10. Of course they are. He's the best thing to happen to them since "Friends." nt

[WinkyDink]

7. Nah; he'd have written "Democrat Terrorists".

[elehhhhna]

9. lol

[Ganja Ninja]

11. No mention of "filthy liberals" or "dirty communists" either. n/t

[jobycom]

14. Something else occured to me after I posted above.

The phrase "Democratic Terrorists" could mean be a reaction to the US actions in the world to spread "democracy" while invading innocent nations. He rails against rich kids a lot, and there's an overall theme of wanting to start a revolution and bring down the powerful. He calls himself Jesus in several of his videos. He also had the words "Ismael Ax" written on his arm, and the name "A Ismael" on the package he mailed out. Ismael is the son of Abraham, and Muslims see Ismael as the proper son, and Isaac as the usurper. They beleive that God's true Covenant went through Ismael, and Muslims in the Middle Ages were aften called "Ismaelites."

Since I haven't heard him claim to be Muslim or compare himself to Muhammad, I assume he wasn't trying to be religious. His words indicate that he saw himself as a champion for the oppressed and weak, of the victims of the powerful. I wonder if that all ties together. He saw Americans and our ideal of democracy as one of the oppressor forces he is fighting, along with rich people and everything else he hated. So he railed against "Democratic Terrorists" (meaning people trying to spread democracy through violent means" and "Christian Nazis" as oppressors of people across the world, especially Muslims. Maybe that's why he scrawled "Ismael" on his arm, to show a bond to what he viewed as all oppressed and powerless people.

I'm not trying to make a political ideologue out of his ramblings. There wasn't that much coherence to them, and mostly he was just looking for external causes of his internal pain. I'm just trying to guess what he meant by that one phrase, since some are speculating, based on two words on one page of his writings, that he listened to right wing radio. I don't see that. If anything, his theme is against those in power, not for or against any ideology.

[theboss]

16. That is probably closer to the truth than anything else

I still think it was just a grab-bag of phrases and cliches in a search for justification.

[RaleighNCDUer]

17. The ting to remember about the insane is that to themselves it

all makes sense. Just because we can't follow his logic doesn't mean there is no logic to it.

[jobycom]

19. I agree. But he had a basic mindset he drew from for those phrases.

And I think it's unlikely that it was right wing hate radio. I think, and I'm going to get slapped for this, he had a more leftist mindset. Not to say "Democratic" or liberal in the sense of around here. Just more leftist in the sense of Marxist in general, seeing everything as about class and power. That's why I don't like the posts trying to assign blame to hate radio or the right wing for inspiring him. What happens if we find out he hung around liberal web sites? Do we feel the blame we are trying to impose on right wingers? Or do we then say "No, he was just sick, he didn't represent either side?"

That's my conclusion, either way. No matter what his politics or lack of them, he was mentally ill, and needed help. Everyone let him down. And he made everyone pay for it. That's the lesson I get from it all.

[theboss]

20. I have a hard time believing a right-winger hates rich kids, rich people, "Christian Nazis," etc

If there is any political tone in that...thing...it's of a wannabe left-wing revolutionary. I can't wait until we find out he had a poster of Che Guevera in his room.

But, really, it's all nonsensical ramblings. The guy grew up in a townhouse in Centerville. His sister went to Princeton. I am sure his parents worked themselves to a nub in their dry cleaning business, but that is the story of pretty much every immigrant who comes to this country. I don't think he was exactly a serf in an economic machine beyound his control.