White supremacists have a culture of “martyrs” — but they also elevate violent attackers to the level of saints.
Case in point:
I’ve received numerous death threats that reference “Saint Tarrant” — the Christchurch perpetrator, who used the sonnenrad on his manifesto.
In fact, the are entire Telegram channels dedicated to “Saint Calendars” — celebrating a violent perpetrator on the attack anniversary.
Often, they use the sonnenrad as a halo.
There are also Neo-Nazi Telegram channels dedicated to white supremacist portraits of the “saints.”
Here’s Brenton Tarrant, the Christchurch massacre perpetrator — and his manifesto cover.
You can see the sonnenrad clearly on each.
Neo-Nazi artists often use the sonnenrad halo for historical figures like Hitler and prominent SS members.
Sonnenrad halos are also, however, applied to living “saints.”
Here you see Breivik, the Unabomber Kacynski, and Dylann Roof — in addition to Timothy McVeigh.
Those Rittenhouse stickers may be getting attention now, but the sonnenrad “Saint” depiction isn’t.
People need to get up to speed with the sonnenrad emblem — how it’s used, and why, as well as:
its use to *launder* Neo-Nazi and white supremacist messages as ‘conservative.’
For those asking, yes — I will write an in-depth article on the sonnenrad “Saint” halos (I already have a lot written on this, but I’ll update and publish it in response to the Rittenhouse stickers).
1) Logging off for now, but as always, I will respond to as many of your questions as I can later on.
2) For the (inevitable) angry conservatives, nowhere in this thread do I say or imply “Rittenhouse is a white supremacist.” I’m stating the obvious here: they claim him.
Like I said — nothing in the thread above even implies Rittenhouse is a Neo-Nazi.
I identified a Neo-Nazi symbol that Neo-Nazis use to *claim* Rittenhouse.
This much knee jerk hostility indicates: 1) you’ve fallen for their laundering op, *or* 2) you’re a bad actor.
- We aren’t talking about the OK sign.
- We’re talking about the “circular halo-like emblem called a sonnenrad.”
- We aren’t talking about Rittenhouse.
- We are talking about people who made Rittenhouse stickers.
I know this is difficult.
If you’re new to my timeline, and are impressed by the level of Can’t Read And Crazy in my @‘s here:
Just WAIT until someone asks me to explain Christian Identity Movement — an explicitly white supremacist theology (literally)!
Internal Wix messages “encouraged staff to support Israel’s ‘narrative’ in Hamas conflict,” specifically advising them to “‘show Westernity’ in social media posts backing Israel, as ‘unlike the Gazans, we look and live like Europeans or Americans.’” irishtimes.com/ireland/2023/1…
I’m just going to repeat a key point here.
Wix employees were specifically encouraged to “show Westernity” in pro-Israel social media posts, underscoring that Israelis “unlike the Gazans, look and live like Europeans and Americans.”
There’s an apt adjective for this: racist.
I’ll go ahead and be a bit more blunt with my translation:
“Make sure your pro-Israel posts are as white as possible and emphasize that people in Gaza are brown so we have to kill them if we want a Disneyland in the Middle East”
Extremely brief thread and then I’m eating sleeping pills and praying for a few hours of unconsciousness.
Here goes: on #Gaza, amplifying Palestinian voices, and interview requests.
If you’re already here, you’re no doubt aware that while I fail relentlessly in all things, I do like to try to live up to the ethical standards I set for myself.
I’ve publicly stated here and on other platforms that I won’t be doing any media interviews on Gaza, and request that Palestinians be contacted instead.
Regardless of one’s political stance on this conflict, it is a fact that Palestinian voices are far less covered.
If I’m quiet for a few more days, please understand that I’m completely drained from everything going on offline — especially from people I haven’t heard from in literal decades hitting me up “because you have a PhD” for “your perspective” on all of this.
I can’t say I’m familiar with this person’s work (apologies), but this is accurate, and it sucks that such a statement is controversial.
For now, what I will say is that I guarantee 99.9% of the commentary you’re consuming — especially on here — is shit, and the loudest voices (as per usual) are generally those who know the least about historical and geopolitical contexts that ABSOLUTELY matter.
I’m not about to get sucked into any debates on Palestine / Israel right now, but what I will tell you as a geopolitical analyst vis-a-vis the hawks calling for war with Iran:
Iranian nationalism is nothing to take lightly - any such scenario would be disastrous for ALL parties.
The other thing that I will say (and believe me it gives me less than zero joy) concerns Hamas’ latest statement concerning the potential execution of civilian hostages.
Hamas’ desperation in laying out this ultimatum - that Israel stop bombing Gaza civilians or Hamas will execute Israeli civilian hostages because “that’s the only language Israel understands” (paraphrased) is a very bad sign.
And Muslims, y’all know more than anyone what it’s like to be expected to apologize or explain the actions of someone in a diverse community to which you happen to belong.
Empathy, support, and solidarity — now, more than ever.
It doesn’t matter if you “don’t understand being trans.”
I don’t either — because it’s not my struggle.
But I know this: Ramadan is about compassion, mercy, and fighting base impulses like judgment. Don’t forget that.
I'm on day 2 of an all-nighter trying to finish writing this case study / profile of Dylann Roof --
-- whose actions were not considered representative of an entire community.
Before that, I wrote about Tres Genco.
Before that, James Reardon.
Before that, Patrick Crusius.