Virgil Caine

Not a criticism. It made me laugh and there is not much that does that nowadays. Much preferable to the usual gushing tripe when people peg it. I wish there were more obituaries that told the truth. After all many famous and successful people are right *****

They should employ you as an alternative obituarist on The Times.

She has an old womans hands. No amount of cosmetic surgery can disguise them.

Avast behind me shipmates.

I have some sympathy with Sheffield. The Welsh flag is quite distinctive and even cool whereas the current Irish one is just another bloody tricolour. In fact it is hard to tell it apart from the flag of the Ivory Coast. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Ivory_Coast Either the blue or green harp flags of Ireland are better than the current one

My grandmother was Irish so I am entitled to jig uncontrollably around the room on St Patrick’s day. Fortunately, I am able to resist the urge every year.

Well I have finally read Tarrants entire manifesto and I can see that he explicitly wants me to kill my CEO so I will see if I can get that goal written into this years Performance Agreement.

Yes I got that point from his manifesto. Tarrant actually wants to hasten the closure of the already dwindling subjects of political and social debate in the west which he hopes will eventually radicalise people. I am not sure that history has much evidence to support this tactic being successful. It certainly did not work in Czarist Russia. It was a war launched by the Russian state itself which ultimately destroyed it. Personally I think the something similar is going to happen this time in the west.

Very interesting piece. Terrorists justifying their actions as being necessary to force the polarisation, politicization and radicalisation of the masses in order to bring down a corrupt or tottering social system is not a new idea. It goes right back to the origins of terror as a political tool, particularly in the hands of revolutionary nihilists. I do wonder, however, to what extent Tarrant is playing with everyones heads. it seems the obvious disconnects in his manifesto are quite deliberate Maybe that is why he is smirking.

Agreed but is that is really a reflection of changing times. At the end of the day when all the cultural and political wrapping is removed these events come down to a bloke with a gun or guns mowing down unarmed and defenceless civilians,

Who knows. His manifesto mentions taking the fight to “High Profile Enemies” but as so often with these events it seems these are the least likely to be killed.

Well clearly he wanted to be noticed. Maybe we will find out more when he gets into court. At the end of the day I doubt he is really that different from the likes of Michael Ryan but to make that judgment I would want to know more about him than his manifesto (ie his material circumstances, personal connections, types of weapon used in attack ) etc. At the moment we don’t even know his DOB.

I have a read part of it and I have read every word of Breiviks similar document. I can’t regard either as a coherent political manifesto. It’s not that I disagree with all Tarrants statements it is just that I suspect he has adopted some of them to rationalise his own behaviour. The explanations people give for doing things and why they really do them are not necessarily the same. I would lay even money that this bloke could have been converted into a western jihadi if the Islamicists had got to him first.

Me thinks he protests too much. The whole event was set up to play live to as wide an audience as possible with him centre stage. As for 911 a lot of people will recognise the names of the likes of Mohammed Atta who piloted the planes into the twin towers. Terrorists who want to remain anonymous such as the IRA cell who blew up the Birmingham pubs or the Italian cell that bombed Bologna station usually succeed in that aim. And it is the deed and the shooters name that will be remembered not the manifesto which only a tiny subset of internet users will read. How many people can remember much of Breiviks similar document or can recount the various chivalric awards he wanted to create.

Propaganda of the Deed https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_deed In fact the likes of Tarrant, Breivik and a lot of Islamic terrorists have an M.O. much more in common with late 19th century and early 20th century anarchists than they do with mid 20th century state fascists or traditional Islamic Revolutionaries. The main difference is that the anarchists of yester year had more ambition than their rather pathetic contemporaries and took their violence direct to the elite rather than anonymous members of the public. . There is also a big ego element in these recent atrocities playing to modern societies obsession with celebrity. In part that explains why the perpetrators target ordinary people be they Muslim or not rather than high profile targets. If you want to be remembered then you don’t want to share the limelight with someone else. This was the problem for Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan and James Earl Ray who had to share the billing with the likes of JFK, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. By contrast the likes of Tarrant and Breivik don’t have that problem as their victims remain largely anonymous. It is why those Muslims who have been complaining about the media concentrating on the perpetrator rather than the victims are missing the point. The truth is that this is what always happens in the press after these events regardless of who gets killed. I bet if you queried the average person regardless of race and religion then barely any could name a single one of the victims of 911, the 7/7 London bombings, the Manchester bombings, the Breivik shootings etc. The same applies to non political shootings like that in Hungerford 1987. Michael Ryan is remembered but his victims forgotten by most people apart from their families. Stalin was right. One persons death is a tragedy but for the media large number of people dying is just a statistic.