"Crusaders."

“'When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.”

~Leviticus 19:33-34 (NIV)

Last night (my time) there was a terrorist attack in New Zealand. Right-wing terrorists shot up two Mosques in the city of Christchurch on New Zealand's South Island.

It was on the news pretty much all night.

Among other things that have come out, apparently the shooters were inspired by Donald Trump, and one hell of a lot of American and European far-right anti-Islam nuts, assorted "Shit-posters" and Youtube racists.

Fucking seriously?

The fact that we're still dealing with this shit in 2019 pisses me off.

I mean, I know the internet is a fucking cesspool most days, but for fuck's sake this shit is starting to seem like some kind of a jackpot for terrorist radicalization. I'm not talking about Al Qaeda or Daesh here, although they do the same shit. I'm talking about angry white assholes who sit behind a computer all day, mad because they can't find a girlfriend or they aren't famous or rich despite the fact that they don't leave the house or have the personality or the skills to get that way but somehow that's everybody else's fault.

Oh yeah, sure, they're toxic little assholes who for the most part don't do much more than spew nihilistic bullshit and talk about dumb shit and video games on social media all day. But they think they should get rich doing it...and of course a very few do.

But you have to leave the house, and for the most part these days not act as if other human beings are your personal property or sex toys, in order to have much of a decent life.

That is, apparently, a bit too much work for some people.

Some people just keep at it until they end up going down largely revisionist historical rabbit holes of racism and fake history of the sorts promoted by people like Dinesh D'Souza and Paul Joseph Watson, that claim stuff like that Romans were all white people or that Native Americans didn't have a civilization and that effectively seek to legitimize all the horrible shit that was done in the past because right-wingers can't seem to face the facts that some of their ancestors and the rich elites that supported it all are responsible for some pretty shitty things.

Dinesh in particular is an interesting case, especially considering that he's from India, and had he been born during the Raj (which he seems to idealize for some reason) he'd have been a customs inspector or a soldier or a telegraph operator and nobody would have ever known his name. He sure as hell wouldn't be some kind of famous conservative author and all-around bullshitter. He'd be sharing his crackpot theories with friends over drinks in the European style pubs reserved for those Indian people who were Christianized or of partial European heritage and that's about it.

But see, you can't tell that to these people.

And let me tell you why.

Do you know why these fools end up fixating on shit like the Crusades? Also, in so doing they often end up with a ravening and absolutely senseless hatred of Islam. But see, the truth is most of these goddamn fools have never met a Muslim, much less been done wrong by one personally.

I've known a few of these morons.

People will tell you that these idiots like the idea of Chivalry and gallant knights and grand holy quests or that they want to fight for some idea of Christianity.

Nope.

That's not it, not deep down, not really.

The absolute, utter cornerstone of a hell of a lot of this right-wing bullshit, from fetishizing the Crusades on down to veneration of the Lost Cause narrative of US Civil War history and Confederate flags all the way to the current Right-wing lionizing of Capitalism in the face of rising Democratic Socialism and the serious fear of losing power and having to pay higher taxes is that Every. Single. Last. One. Of. These. Motherfuckers. Thinks. They're. Going. To. Be. King.

Every last one of them thinks if they can just go back to the way things were back then they aren't going to be some loser with a shitty part-time job who spends most of their day sitting at a computer and eating Cheetos.

They think they're going to be the romantic image of the brave Crusader knight on horseback, not the peons hauling the baggage train or the common men-at-arms who had to walk from the Bosporus all the way to Jerusalem while lugging their own weapons and gear, nor the Turkish woman who got raped, sodomized and then murdered simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

They think they're going to be the "Southern Gentleman" in the plantation house, not the slaves in the fields...and of course they think that the Confederates were the Christian faction...not because they actually were or because the writings of Robert E. Lee seem to espouse Christianity as anything more than a justification for what was already going on...but because they are desperate to see themselves as righteous.

They think if they just believe in it all hard enough, they'll be the big banker, the corporate raider, the Wolf of Wall Street...not the working-class family left with an underwater mortgage and ultimately out on the street.

The racism, the white supremacy? It's simply a means to an end to justify their position and reduce competition for jobs and profits. The common narrative is that in the triangle trade and the trans-Atlantic slave trade, racism was the mother of that economic system.

No, it's the other way around, economics was the mother of racism...and racism was also a divide and conquer tactic on the part of wealthy land-owners who feared that black and white workers might unify and drive them from power.

I'm serious.

The Crusades, likewise, weren't about fighting for God. They were about wealth and land and removing hordes of angry, ambitious young men who might make trouble from Europe and pointing them at somebody else.

It's always the same shit with these people. It always comes down to the profits, not the prophets.

Take a look at this.

At least one of the weapons used in the attack was painted up with the names of battles, and people considered to be anti-Islamic, and with racist slogans.

The battle of Lepanto in 1571 was part of a war that grew out of disputes over maritime trade routes and the security of major Mediterranean port cities. So yeah, money.

The battle of Tours was actually defense against the Muslim raiders out to pillage a monastery...the kind of defensive war these idiots claim to aspire to...but it was also the foundation stone of the empires that eventually became modern France and Germany.

Charles Martel, the Frankish prince who led the army that defeated the Muslims, is comparatively a footnote unless you're French. But, his grandson, Charlemagne...became the first Holy Roman Emperor. That empire, or shades of it, and the intertwined Bourbon and Habsburg dynasties that led it at various times dominated Europe from the close of the Dark Ages until the French Revolution on the one side, and the end of World War I on the other.

So yeah, power.

The "14 Words" racism and the cute little manifestos are basically a distraction.

Because while everybody wants to be King...only one guy gets to be that guy. Spoiler: It ain't You. It ain't Me. Chances are unless we get smarter as s species, it's whatever lying bullshitter convinces the rich people he can get them the most money. See Also: Trump.

So here, have some racism and religious intolerance as a consolation prize. Fuck you, I've got mine, thanks for coming out.

You can paint that shit as white as you like and identify with it all you want, but it's still shit.

You can dress mass murder up with all the cute slogans and political bullet points you want, but it's still mass murder.

Meanwhile, 49 people are still dead, almost an equal number wounded, and hundreds more suffering from the pain and loss and shock of it all.

There's a common thread with a lot of these foreign far-right killers and monstrous wannabes.

Anders Behring Brevik in Norway idolized the American far-right.

So does Geert Wilders in the Netherlands (and his lack of political success only seems to enrage him more.)

So does Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel...and he, like Trump, is being investigated and may be indicted.

So did the assholes that did this crime. In his manifesto, the leader of these killers claimed to idolize both Candace Owens and Donald Trump.

Let's do the world a favor and stop exporting hate. If this bullshit is your identity, find a better one.