Usually when I reference the “You Can’t Make This Shit Up” file, it’s with respect to something so ludicrously funny, that you would expect to find it on the front page of The Onion. That is not the case today. This is something you can’t make up because it’s so perverse and sick, that it defies imagination.
Connor Betts, the Dayton shooter, who murdered nine people and put twenty-seven others in the hospital, used to be a singer in a rock and roll band. And not just any band, a “pornogrind” band, which performed naked with an executioner’s hood, or naked with Santa Claus hats and beards. Vice News:
Over the past year, the 24-year-old shooter occasionally performed live vocals in the band Menstrual Munchies, which released albums titled “6 Ways of Female Butchery” and “Preeteen Daughter Pu$$y Slaughter,” with cover art showing the rape and massacre of female bodies. He also performed with a group called Putrid Liquid. […]
Menstrual Munchies often performed with other regional acts like Necro Cannibal Ass Grinder, Bill Nye da Nazi Spy, and Cunt Torch, playing festivals like the Pornfieldz of Illinoise Grindfest or a former venue in Columbia, Missouri, called UPS — Under the Porn Shop, named for its location beneath the Venus Adult Megastore, owned by the mother of fellow scenester Zach Walton, of the band Groin Mallet.
One of Betts’ bandmates, Jesse Creekbaum, is taking all of the band’s recordings off the internet right now, because he doesn’t want Betts to become, in his words, “some cult hero.” And, incredibly, Creekbaum and his compatriots are arguing that singing violent, misogynistic lyrics did not provoke Betts’ actions this weekend.
Creekbaum says he feels conflicted: On the one hand, he believes music and art do not cause people to commit murder, but on the other hand, he feels guilty for having associated with someone who carried out violence similar to the kind he portrayed in his songs. […]
Creekbaum said Betts once brought a handgun on a tour to Iowa and suggested to others that they rob some gas stations — something Creekbaum said he chewed Betts out for but didn’t take seriously. […]
He said Betts had also told them about a previously reported incident in which he was suspended from his high school for keeping a “hit list” and a “rape list” of classmates he wanted to commit violence against. And Betts had mentioned to Creekbaum that he was depressed. Still, Creekbaum said he did not think Betts was capable of this kind of slaughter.
“I think he decided that he was going to kill himself, and he was like, ‘I don’t have the balls to do it’ and he drew a gun,” Creekbaum speculated.
Suicide by cop. The only problem with that, is that he involved an awful lot of other people in his personal drama, people who had nothing whatsoever to do with his angst, but they paid the ultimate price for it, nevertheless.
Now, if you’re disgusted, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Look at what Mitch McConnell thinks is cute. He tweeted out this photo, taken at the Fancy Farm political forum in Kentucky August 3. Among the names on the cardboard tombstones are “Socialism” “Merrick Garland Nomination” and “Amy McGrath,” McConnell’s political opponent. Apparently, he thinks it’s comical.
The Grim Reaper of Socialism at #FancyFarm today. #FancyFarm139 pic.twitter.com/KMKJifu3b5
— Team Mitch (@Team_Mitch) August 3, 2019
Here’s another image from Fancy Farm, and it will put you in mind of Betts and misogynistic lyrics he sang. Here are young McConnell supporters pretending to strangle a cardboard cutout of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
i guess mitch is ok with a bunch of his white boys symbolically attacking a cutout of aoc pic.twitter.com/pcPT7YfsVr
— gg ??? (@gina_goldberg) August 5, 2019
White supremacy, much? Misogyny much? Violence against women, much? You all remember Trump’s allusion to the “second amendment people” having a solution to Hillary, right? And you remember Republican Greg Gianforte beating up the reporter he didn’t like, in Montana? And do you recall Rick Perry saying that the head of Federal Reserve should be beat up because of his interest rate policy? These comments all come from white supremacist males with a sense of entitlement to rule. These comments, these tweets, these song lyrics, are the seeds of violent white terrorist attack. Make no mistake: there are more Americans dead from white supremacist terrorism than from Islamic terrorism.
The rot from within the USA.
But it’s so much easier for Dimwit Donny to scapegoat people from ‘over the border’ than to face the truth of the cancer within. The cancer he nurtures.
Nothing I can say describes the depth of my revulsion for what is happening right now.
It’s ALWAYS rightwing politics or contempt for women — or both. It’s so predictable, these mass shootings.
As you know, I am no fan of the overrated “AOC” but don’t those boys just have the most punchable faces? Not that I would punch anyone but they look like they’d be the best buddies of that kid from Covington who thought he was going to make tens of millions of dollars suing media outlets for reporting on his being an asshole during a march in D.C. Boo fuckin’ hoo.
And if any of these shootings had been a Muslim, people on the right would be demanding the incarceration of every Muslim in America.
To your last point, you’re so right.
And there wouldn’t have been any sort of “cooling off” period from the politicians on the right. They would’ve been demanding IMMEDIATE hearings on the “best way” to stop “the terrorists” without even once giving any concern to the millions of innocents (well, they *would* have likely just said “They brought it on themselves for not reporting the killers in the first place”).
And, of course, the guns wouldn’t have ever been brought up in the hearings. (I can just imagine a Democrat in the hearings suggesting additional ways to keep guns out of the hands of “terrorists” and being shouted down by the GOPers.)
I have not the strength, stamina, nor skills to go around punching faces, but I feel tempted to every time I hear someone say “Music is ennobling.” BS. Richard Wagner, to name just one, was a conman in the Trump mold, and a racist and misogynist with it, and I personally recommend listening to his gorgeous music in wordless versions. Of course there were others, though he may be the most egregious.
Music is just music. It can be used therapeutically, but that’s not what it’s about. It can be used to stir up negative emotions, but that’s not what it’s about. And the genre doesn’t really matter. Even this dude Creekbaum, who also makes this kind of music, has some decency, or he wouldn’t have taken his stuff off the net. He is dumb as a rock and lacking in empathy and imagination, but he still has some decency, and some responsibility.
The one thing that has been shown to reduce gun violence world wide is to reduce access to guns. This shouldn’t be a surprise. All other dangerous toys (automobiles, drugs, thrill rides) are regulated.
Sorry this comment is somewhat incoherent. I am feeling pretty incoherent right now.
Lexington Christian Academy. They *have* posted apologies, but how sincere they are is still open to question.
I wonder, what’s the difference, hanging someone in effigy, or strangling them in imagery?
The intent, coming from someone supporting the dumb ass in the WH or the Moscow Mitch, could be a signal to an embedded core of marginal mental midgets, willing to actually drive 600 miles to kill himself some Mexicans …
There is another photo, in which one of the boys has his hand on her neck, and is mimicking kissing her on the mouth. So, rape/sexual assault , is okay too.
This entire topic is disgusting. I can’t say I’m surprised the Dayton shooter was involved in this awful hate-music, and I can’t say I’m surprised at the young McConnell supporter twerps. It’s just an ugly look at the underbelly of America and it’s incredibly sad. Or, maybe I’m just naive and think people are actually better than they are.
I know, I think we are feeling the same. I went blithely along in my life for a long time, somehow not knowing the depth of hatred some men have for women. I am embarrassed to say so.
Don’t be. I always thought that when some guy started treating me badly, it was because it was something wrong with me personally. It’s only in recent years that I’ve come to understand that it was misogyny, pure and simple, and had nothing to do with me.
Like many women, I have excellent reasons for disliking men, I don’t though. I have had very bad things happen to me, it doesn’t make me judge all men the same way.
Background checks won’t do it anymore. Only making military rifles, ammo and large (greater than 10) clips a felony to own or possess will have a chance to stem the tide.