Yet another van attack in London this AM. This one appears to be a white Brexit/May/Trumpian trying to pull and ISIS style crowd killer against Muslims; innocent Muslims doing the evening prayer before breaking their Ramadan fast.
Nacho texted this AM asking if I thought these smaller attacks were the beginning of something big or "just another day in our sad new world?" It's a simple question without a simple answer. But here goes: I think the 15+ years since 9/11 has normalized political motivated violence (what the media calls "terrorist attacks"). Frankly, I'm shocked it took this long for things like people driving trucks into open air markets to become the preferred attack method of extremist douchebags, but maybe zealotry keeps your mind too occupied to come up with simple solutions.
What we're seeing now is a "retaliation" from white people who feel put upon by a policy of addressing the cultural issues that create terrorism, poverty, and people who want to kill people due to a real (or perceived) inequality. Brexit, Trump, May, all this crazy right-wing backlash is fomenting some weird violent rhetoric, and white folks are starting to act that shit out. (White folks have acted that shit out for years, RE: Tim McVeigh, but it's becoming far more wide spread.) Philosophically, racial purity is making it's best effort to trump nationalism as the preferred dogma of the crazy right.
Mix all this with a weakened America under Trump, a politically and economically fractured Europe, and Russia making a power push both politically and militarily in Syria.... and what you kind of have is a potential recipe for politics of the American Civil War to erupt on a global level.
So really just another day in the 21st century.
