ORLY-EP0114A - Orlando Tragedy

June 20, 2016 Andy Cowen

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ORLY-EP0114A - Orlando Tragedy ORLYRADIO.COM

Welcome to ORLYRADIO #114A recorded Friday JUNE 17th, 2016 - where we dismantle the current events for your edutainment through mostly rational conversations that make you go ‘Oh Really’! I’m your host Andy Cowen, with my usual suspects, David O’Connor, Fred Sims, Stephen Griffith, and Daniel Atherton.

Audience Feedback From Previous Shows:

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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/10/google-denies-burying-bad-hillary-clinton-stories/

Potpourri: Guests/Rants/Etc:

Andy’s take

http://www.snopes.com/orlando-mass-shooting-math-doesnt-add-up/

https://www.facebook.com/humanrightscampaign/photos/?tab=album&album_id=10154314679198281

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/orlando-nightclub-massacre/orlando-shooter-omar-mateen-talked-about-bringing-gun-training-class-n594786

Fred’s:

When I awoke on the morning on Sunday June 12th it was to the news of shooting in our country, no longer shocking news unfortunately. Especially as this was following the news from the day previous in which another shooting had taken place. Both shootings occurred in the city of Orlando, FL, a mere stone throw from the city I call home. Before the sleep had even been rubbed from my eyes, I read about the second shooting being yet another mass shooting in our country. This one had claimed the lives of 20 individuals and wounded more than 40 others. Oh, wait, allow me to correct those numbers as they were corrected for me before even lunchtime on the 12th of June. 49 dead people and over 50 more wounded in what is described as the deadliest mass shooting in the modern history of the United states. The shooting occurred at Pulse Nightclub, a popular club and admitted safe place within the LGBT community. I would like to be able to tell you which number mass shooting this was in our country this month, this year, or even this decade but determining that information is next to impossible. Sure the shootings can all be reported on, they can certainly be speculated on, and they can damn sure be debated as to the motives behind how and why they occurred. However they can’t be studied by any organization that receives federal funding. There isn’t even a universally recognized definition of what a mass shooting actually entails. A cursory search of the internets will lead you to several studies with multiple definitions regarding how a mass shooting should be defined. This is a huge problem in our country. How are we ever to find a way to start reducing the number of mass shootings if we can’t even study the statistics behind them. Statistics that may lead to better understanding the causes or help profile against future shootings. Research that can actually eliminate all the debate about who or what is responsible, why they are responsible, and through what medium they are responsible. This isn’t about our country’s woeful response to shootings however so please also allow me to address certain groups of people at this time to better highlight where my head's at. To all the people blaming the “radical religion of Islam” or the fact that the shooter was a self reported follower of ISIS for this shooting: You’re wrong! To all the people claiming that the reason behind this shooting is a man’s homophobia: You’re wrong! To all the people claiming that the existence of assault rifles is the problem in regards to this shooting: You’re wrong!

“How could you possibly know that?” The reason I know they are wrong is because they are all, each and every group of people with a concrete reason for this tragedy, is absolutely right. Everyone arguing this is a homophobia issue but not religious or a gun rights issue is discounting the facts that without an indoctrination in a religion or culture with radical ideas regarding not just homophobia, but anyone who doesn’t believe as they do, the homophobia has a lessened likelihood of having existed. It becomes a circle in which everyone is wrong because everyone is right. The fact that this shooter was a Muslim, self reported ISIS supporting, possibly self-hating, possibly gay, homophobe, with easy access to a weapon that does not need to exist outside of the military or select law enforcement organizations due to a job that does not in any situations require that weapon and also despite the fact that the shooter had been the target of two previous investigations by the FBI all needs to be added up together when discussing how, why, when where, and with what this shooting occurred. It all has meaning, it all has merit, and none of that can or should be debated because to do so just provides a smoke screen over the path to real change. This man is the sum of all his parts and that full recipe of disaster is the cause for the giant piece of shit pie he recently served our nation. In order to move forward from this in a truly progressive way we need to stop bickering amongst ourselves about the causes and start uniting together regarding solutions. 49 people died early Sunday morning due to a myriad of reasons, almost all of which should have already been addressed. No more….please, no fucking more.

Stephen’s Segment.
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I have heard a lot of people call Omar Mateen a terrorist and call what he did an act of terrorism. I’m going to do my best to start off this with putting that notion to rest right away. First, I will say that there is no true agreed upon definition of what is and isn’t terrorism, however I will be using a definition that I was taught and which is very accurate. The definition is thus; Terrorism: The threat of violence or use of violence to affect political change.

By this definition it is quite easy to say that he isn’t a terrorist nor was this a terrorist act due to the lack of any political desire in its actions. If we break it down more, there is no rational reason for a terrorist to target a gay club. Why? The targets are too specialized, and the location is not conducive to producing a shock of the desire that an organization would want to do. Yes, a terrorist will hit a target of opportunity, but the target always serves a purpose. If he had gone and shot up a theme park, like Universal or Disney, that is a valid target on a terrorist list. If he’d gone after any number of police or federal buildings or financial buildings in the state, also a valid target. A single gay nightclub has no larger narrative purpose to further the agenda of these groups.

More importantly, this isn’t Islamic terrorism because of the lack of religious motivation of Omar Mateen. I know some of you are ranting and yelling now about the 911 phone call. However if you actually look at it, the phone call is a false flag. It was a means of psyching himself up or keeping himself going because in his mind it made him stand out more, be scarier, and somehow possibly feel more connected to a larger group which he could use as some kind of psychological support mechanism while committing his horrific act. His father, his friends, his wife and ex-wife have all said that he was not a religious man. Yes he attended Mosque, but if you are say a Christian, how many church goers do you see there every week, but aren’t really religious? That maybe there just there because of the community, or their friends, or because they have nothing else to do, or because it’s expected of them? From the Imam at the Mosque he attended, Omar Mateen was known for being aggressive, but also very quiet. That he used to run around a lot and make trouble and was a bodybuilder, but when he became an adult he just came there to pray 4 days a week, stayed very quiet and left [1].

This brings up a more important point as to why this guy, who wasn’t very religious, decided to go in guns blazing into a gay nightclub. We have seen information from people who were regulars at Pulse and also from others who have used gay dating apps that he was a somewhat regular at gay clubs. More importantly we have from his ex-wife that he had confessed to having a gay lifestyle and in her own words he had “gay tendencies”[2]. We have Omar Mateen’s father who has made the statement of “God will punish those involved with homosexuality”, and then retracted it somewhat by saying that “nobody has the right to harm anybody” [3]. Sound familiar? Sound like a boy who grew up a little different than his father wanted, in fact may have been something his dad said was very wrong, perhaps evil even, and that God would punish? I’ve seen the results of that kind of issue before, and now we have all seen another. I’ve known of people who have committed suicide because their parents told them these kinds of things, and indoctrinated and drilled it into the skulls of their children that being gay is wrong, and evil, and sinful, and only something that the unholy do. It’s a wonderful way to screw up a kid, even worse if that kid is gay.

So here we have a potentially seriously self hating gay man, who is living out a forced life because it’s what is expected of him. Some people in this situation commit suicide, others run away, still others say fuck off and utterly embrace themselves, and still others just bury it deep inside them, not knowing what’s wrong with them, why they hate themselves, why they always feel like they’re living a lie their entire lives until they die. A very, very few, turn that immense self hatred out, or one day something snaps in them. The story of Omar Mateen says that he was a hateful person, but that one day recently he saw two men kissing and being affectionate with each other in public and he broke. I think we can at least understand that. Here you are, living an utter lie, and there you see two people living the life, having the love you wish you had. Being true to themselves. Some people take this as a revelation and embrace who they are. He took the other path. If he couldn’t have it, then he’d destroy it for everyone else he could.

We also have signs that he was massively and physically abusive to his ex-wife as she has stated that he beat her black and blue on several occasions, and she had to be rescued by her family. Also with his behavior we see a potential of mental illness in him being possibly bi-polar, which would help with the suddenly snapping thing [4]. So what we have here is not an attack by a terrorist indoctrinated religious extremist. What we have here is a gay man, who had been told all his life his feelings are wrong, who was possibly suffering from being bi-polar, who had a mountain of self hatred and self loathing, and decided to take it out on the group he wanted to desperately to be a part of. No I am not forgiving of his actions. I merely seek to understand them and the reason behind them to prevent this from ever happening again.

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