![]() The earliest version of “accelerationism” was, ironically enough, in some ways a celebration of the status quo. “It’s an ideology that has actually manifested in real-world violence.” “It’s not an ideology that exists in a theoretical sense,” says Joanna Mendelson, a senior investigative researcher at the Anti-Defamation League. But as strange as the racist movement’s intellectual history may be, experts believe it has played a significant and under-appreciated role in the current wave of extremist violence. The ultimate goal is to collapse the government itself they hope for a white-dominated future after that.Īccelerationism has bizarre roots in academia. Their preferred tactic for heightening these contradictions, however, is not voting, but violence - attacking racial minorities and Jews as a way of bringing us closer to a race war, and using firearms to spark divisive fights over gun control. If one votes, one should vote for the most extreme candidate, left or right, to intensify points of political and social conflict within Western societies. Accelerationist ideas have been cited in mass shooters’ manifestos - explicitly, in the case of the New Zealand killer - and are frequently referenced in white supremacist web forums and chat rooms.Īccelerationists reject any effort to seize political power through the ballot box, dismissing the alt-right’s attempts to engage in mass politics as pointless. As a result, the best thing white supremacists can do is accelerate their demise by sowing chaos and creating political tension. It’s called “accelerationism,” and it rests on the idea that Western governments are irreparably corrupt. But many of these suspected killers, from Atomwaffen thugs to the New Zealand mosque shooter to the Poway synagogue attacker, are more tightly connected to a newer and more radical white supremacist ideology, one that dismisses the alt-right as cowards unwilling to take matters into their own hands. These killings were often linked to the alt-right, described as an outgrowth of the movement’s rise in the Trump era. In late July, FBI Director Christopher Wray reported that the FBI had made as many domestic terrorism arrests in 2019 as it did in all of 2018 - and further, that “a majority of the domestic terrorism cases that we’ve investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence.” ![]() It was followed in April by another attack on an American synagogue (this time in Poway, California), and an August 2019 shooting at an El Paso Walmart that was one of the most brutal attacks targeting Hispanics in US history. ![]() The March 2019 Islamophobic attack on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, was the deadliest mass shooting in the country’s history. The October 2018 shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue was the deadliest act of anti-Semitic violence in American history. Atomwaffen celebrated Woodward by making T-shirts emblazoned with his mugshot.īernstein’s 2018 slaying marked the beginning of an extraordinary period of white supremacist violence - a spate of murders and mass shootings that has continued through this year. The local Jewish community center celebrated Bernstein’s memory by naming its cooking school in his honor. He was arrested he pleaded not guilty and is still awaiting trial. They learned that Woodward was a member of Atomwaffen Division - one of the most extreme neo-Nazi groups in the country. He had been stabbed 19 times in the neck.Īuthorities quickly identified Woodward as a suspect and found Bernstein’s blood in his car and on a knife in his possession. Less than a week later, investigators discovered Bernstein’s body in the park, hidden by a tree branch and a mound of dirt. The two had planned to hang out at a local park.īernstein, who was gay and Jewish, texted friends that he and Woodward were meeting for a sexual encounter. ![]() When he didn’t respond, they checked his Snapchat account and found messages between their son and Sam Woodward, a former high school classmate. On the morning of January 2, his parents noticed that he’d left their house in the Orange County community of Foothill Ranch and tried to contact him. It’s a position he ended up never filling. Blaze Bernstein, age 19 at the time of his murder, loved to cook.īefore he traveled back to his home in California for the 2017-’18 winter break, the University of Pennsylvania sophomore had been elected managing editor of a campus cooking publication called Penn Appétit.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |