It ought to be easy enough in this City at this moment to get just too used to the casual sadism, the genocidal urge, the unhinged anger, the antihuman racism, the unreasoning relentless violence, directed by sociopathic housedwellers towards our homeless neighbors, including the calls to use starvation as a policy tool. It ought to be easy enough because of the ubiquity of the hatred, the relentless ever-present angry self-pitying rhetoric, but it’s not, it never is, there’s no bottom to this pit and no getting used to its horrors. Just for instance see this post right here on the Venice (California) Facebook page, and here’s a screenshot in case something changes over there.
It seems there’s a person living in a van at Venice and Louella. And the neighbors don’t like it. So Swedish canine-mold-detection specialist Yvonne Sjostrand1 posted a rambling cri de coeur about the vandweller and then, just like that, the usual conversation began yet again. Garcetti won’t do anything, cops won’t do anything, stolen bikes, human excrement, unaesthetic laundry, insert facile self-serving cynicism here, blah blah blah. Until things took a decidedly darker turn with the appearance in the conversation of one Joel De Gan, a housedwelling member of the same profession that built the infrastructure of genocide in Nazi Germany, employed by LinkedIn, with a simple plan. Firebomb his van, he’ll move.
And then all the other Facebook warriors were like ummm, Joel, we hate homeless people too but we don’t want to murder them, we just want them to move to Lancaster or Culver City or whatever. Just kidding, none of them said anything about Joel’s suggestion, and five of them took the trouble to click to like or smileyface it. Because not only does murder strike these housedwellers as an appropriate response to a human being living somewhere they don’t want him to live, but it’s an unremarkable response as well.
And these like-clickers seem like ordinary enough people, there’s Giovana Brown, who wants donations to a hospital for her birthday and also thinks that burning people to death is a good idea. There’s Mitchel Xavier Green, who at least via his profile picture admits to an unhealthy interest in ultraviolence, which is consistent with his approval of burning people to death.
There’s Heatha Bee, who loves doggies but approves of burning people to death. There’s Mia Duncans, who is purportedly a journalist of some sort and (rightly) wants to ban hairstyle discrimination in California, but also likes burning people to death. Finally, there’s the secretive Allan Parsons, who has something to hide on Facebook but not, it seems, his approval of burning people to death.
And it’s a serious research problem in history, sociology, psychology, as to how a society becomes genocidal. Is it authoritarian leaders frightening ordinary people into supporting their killing machines? Does the will of the people create the leaders that organize the genocidal policies the masses crave?
One thing (among many) that makes this problem hard to solve is the lack of data. In the past, it seems, very few people took the time to record their reasons for supporting, participating in, genocide. But despite its many flaws, at least we can be sure that Facebook has solved this problem for future historians. At least there’s that.
Image of psychopathic housedweller Joel De Gan is ©2019 MichaelKohlhaas.Org.
Dear Mr. Kohlhaas.
I was made aware of your article. I respect the fact that we are all entitled to our opinions. So I would hope, you respect the opinion I am about to make.
Simply because someone screenshots a moment in time, as you did, with the writing of this article and the emoji reactions that you base your writings on. What you took a screenshot of, was exactly that, a moment.
I realized I had accidentally placed a laughing emoji on the fire bomb comment, when I most certainly meant a “sad face” reaction. Perhaps it was after your screenshot, but I realized my error and changed it to the reaction I intended it to have.
To accuse people you don’t know personally for being “murderers” and comparing individuals to Hitler and Nazi’s , simply based on an emoji reaction, seems a bit extreme.
It’s almost the same as all those who accuse homeless people as being bad and horrible criminals, which is not a fair assumption to make if you don’t know the individual personally.
I’m not sure if you were trying to defame or cause shame by trying to add live links to those of us you speak about in your article, but it doesn’t bother me in the slightest.
I know who I am, I know what I stand for. I know I am a kind compassionate human being who doesn’t tolerate or sit back and let things like social media bullies tear apart people they truly don’t know in person. I’ve always had a place in my heart for those less fortunate than myself. I’ve lived in Mar Vista my entire life, born and raised. I’ve been a renter all this time as well, as was my Mom for the majority of her adult life.
We are all two steps away from sleeping in the exact tents on the exact sidewalks that certain people taunt on social media .
It’s hurtful that you assume I would want someone dead by fire bombing a vehicle. That’s the furthest from the truth that you could possibly get.
I would hope you would retract your comments about me, but seeing that this is an article that you’ve already written and published based on one screenshot, others wont know it was only a moment in time. It was before I had realized I hit the wrong emoji for that comment.
I wish you well, and I also wish you knew the people that you spoke about, personally. Just like I’m sure you would want those commenting to get to know the homeless people they speak about, personally as well.
Have a good evening.
Hey there, about that firebombing article..
I want to apologize about that and maybe you can help.
You can see in the Venice (California) Community group I did issue a public apology about that comment.
I was not aware of the spate of RV fires in Venice and now I can see my comment would, and should, have been taken as you and others took it.
I responded the way I did because I was reading through the comments and every single one was “air horn all night” or “put shaving cream in tailpipe” or “blast loud music” and all I thought was they might as well just firebomb the guy if they going to treat him like that.
So, I responded with that to troll them.
But, I moved from Venice a while back and was entirely unaware of the recent RV fires until someone pointed it out to me and now I feel pretty bad for that trolling.
Anyway, if you could add an addendum to your article or whatever that I have issued a public apology in the community group tand maybe hat would help some people knowing that ‘no there are not actual people in the world who want to firebomb them’. I would feel horrible if someone was afraid to sleep at night because of some stupid comment I made.
Thanks for reading.
Here is the text and an image of the conversation with David Busch:
Joel De Gan So, I was unaware that several motor homes caught fire in Venice recently …
In light of that, the truth is, I was being snarky in response to other peoples crazy over reactions… Saying you all wanna pile on, I will relent my trolling (I really didn’t know about the fires) and let you all know I was making fun of the people posting on her post about the guy front of her house.
So, my apologies if you took me serious. The people who clicked like on that comment know me and why I reacted that way.
I obviously don’t want to kill anyone, and no I don’t advocate burning property.
I didn’t know about the rv’s and so that comment probably really hit a nerve.
Sorry