Libel and Hopeful, Anticipatory Racial Animus

Yesterday afternoon, the FBI released photographs of the two suspects wanted for the Boston Marathon bombing. Despite being Bababooied by some cretin from Alex Jones conspiracy site “infowars”, within 6 hours after their images being released, the two were located in Cambridge and on the run. In the meantime, one was shot dead and injured by his own bomb in a shootout, and the other is the subject of a massive manhunt in and around Watertown – a suburb just to the west of Cambridge. 

But on the day of the bombing, Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post was alone in reporting that 12 people had died in the bombing. It reported this relentlessly until police confirmed that only three had been killed.  No correction, it just stopped. 

Maybe the fact that the Post can’t hack people’s emails and voice mails has adversely affected its reporting quality. 

Throughout the week, amateur sleuths on 4chan and Reddit have been poring over raw images and video of the marathon finish line to try and find out who did it. Running guy, guy on roof, guys with black caps – all were ultimately cleared. But there was also the tan kid with the blue jogging suit with the Nike duffel and his friend with the white cap and a black backpack. 

On Wednesday, the New York Post basically named blue jogging suit and his companion as the suspects. Put their image on the front page. 

Turns out, blue duffel is a nice kid from Revere who is a track star and was supposed to run the Marathon, but ended up being guilty only of being a Moroccan immigrant.  Gawker wants to know why the New York Post’s editor remains silent about his alleged pigfucking, alcoholic incompetent racism”. By 2pm, the Post had to – probably reluctantly – acknowledge that these two weren’t the bombers. 

American fascist, squadristi commentators were drooling over the possibility that the marathon bombers might be Arabs. 

These were taken yesterday from a publicly accessible Facebook page that is branded and operated by the Entercom Corporation. Ha ha they don’t look like Irish kids, these two innocent Arab-Americans who happened to be in the area of the first bomb.

Entercom’s Facebook Page’s terms of service read as follows, 

When posting on our page, please respect the views of other members and users of our page. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but please bear in mind the often sensitive nature of our work and the views and opinions of those that use our services. Entercom will not tolerate racist, homophobic, sexist or abusive comments and will remove any post or content from our page which, in Entercom’s opinion, is likely to cause distress or upset to other users of the page. Please note that our page is accessed by minors and accordingly posts and contributions should be suitable for individuals of all ages. 

Entercom reserves the right permanently to remove unsuitable content from the page and shall have no liability for any loss or damage caused by or in connection with such removal. Repeat offenders will be blocked from contributing to the page and Entercom accepts no liability for any loss arising out of or in connection with such removal. Entercom may report to Facebook all users posting inappropriate or offensive material and shall not be obliged to reinstate any individual it blocks.

Entercom tolerates nothing but racist, homophobic, and abusive comments. Even from its own hosts – both on Facebook and on the air. 

We don’t know the race of the two suspects, (some names have been floating around, and AP is reporting that they’re brothers from Chechnya. None of it has been confirmed on the record), and it doesn’t much matter. Wherever they came from, they are terrorists and they are murderers. One is dead, but the other – we can only hope – will be apprehended and then sent into the general population at the local holding center. 

For anyone to gleefully speculate – based on libel – on the race of the suspects reveals a dramatic lack of humanity and decency. I hope Nike duffel kid and his friend get some very good and aggressive legal counsel.

UPDATE:  Never one to acknowledge fault, the felinophile fascist has another smart take this morning.