Here's very close footage of the bombs going off.
Patton Oswalt brilliantly reminded us: "You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out... We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago."
We can see this in action with Carlos Arredondo. Better known as "that guy in the hat," Carlos's selfless display of heroism on Monday has turned him into a media sensation. There's a famous photo of him circulating around, but the bottom half is usually cropped out. I kept it small because it's really fucking gruesome, but click on it if you want to see what was happening. I've seen conflicting reports of that thing in Carlos's hand being either a tourniquet or that guy's artery. I'm still not sure.
(If anyone's curious, that guy in the wheelchair is going to be fine. Carlos kept talking to him to make sure he stayed awake, and he was rational and coherent and brave the whole time. He's 27, only a couple years older than me.)
Arredondo's story is incredible. His son was killed by a sniper in Iraq in 2004. When the marines came to his door to bring him the news, he understandably flipped his shit.
"I just screamed," he said. "I said ‘No, no! It can't be my son.'"
Mr. Arredondo said he "lost it." He ran to his garage and grabbed a gallon of gasoline and a propane torch.
He took a sledgehammer and smashed the government van's windshield and hopped inside. As the officers tried to calm him, Mr. Arredondo doused himself and the van with gasoline and lit the torch.
There was an explosion, and the officers dragged Mr. Arredondo to safety. He suffered second- and third-degree burns over 20 percent of his body.
"I went to my son's funeral on a stretcher," he said.
In 2011, his other son killed himself because he still couldn't quite deal with his brother's death. Carlos has been traveling around the country as passionate anti-war activist since his son's death. He's a certified first responder, so when he ran towards the bomb blasts, he knew what he was doing. Everyone should check out his interview on Democracy Now from yesterday morning.
I don't know what I would've done, had I been there. In all likelihood, my knees probably would've stopped supporting me as I shat my pants. But looking at those photos of Carlos, and watching his interview and learning his story, it's hard not to sit there and not feel inspired and humbled. I want to be him. In the last couple days, I've seriously contemplated getting some serious first aid training, or maybe eventually getting certified as a first responder. At the very least, I'd like to get more involved in activism like him. I really hope I get motivated enough to these things someday, and I hope Carlos's actions inspire others in similar ways as well.
In the wake of the attack in Boston, Americans have shown that 9/11 has affected them in permanent and terrifying ways. The racism we're seeing is hardly a surprise. America has a long history of slavery, genocide, and executive orders demanding internment camps based on one's race -- all of which had widespread support in their time -- so racism is naturally going to be embedded into our culture. In a racist culture like ours, racism is like a cancer -- you don't always know it's inside you. So it's a very bad thing when an event like this happens, because the fear pushes all that shit out into the open.
Case in point: racism reared its head, not just before the smoke cleared, but even as the bombs were going off. Within moments of the bombing, a bystander tackled an injured student from Saudi Arabia who was caught in the blast. He had been running away, like everyone. I won't post his name here, because he didn't do anything. The FBI, desperate and with no leads, decided to racially profile and harass him in his hospital bed. He was the so-called "Saudi national," the "suspect" the media had been raving about after the attack occurred. The FBI visited his apartment and harassed his roommate, also a student.
"He was the only one who, while in the hospital being treated for his wounds, had his apartment searched in “a startling show of force,” as his fellow-tenants described it to the Boston Herald, with a “phalanx” of officers and agents and two K9 units. He was the one whose belongings were carried out in paper bags as his neighbors watched; whose roommate, also a student, was questioned for five hours (“I was scared”) before coming out to say that he didn’t think his friend was someone who’d plant a bomb—that he was a nice guy who liked sports. “Let me go to school, dude,” the roommate said later in the day, covering his face with his hands and almost crying, as a Fox News producer followed him and asked him, again and again, if he was sure he hadn’t been living with a killer."
I mean, just think about this. Carlos Arredondo is from Puerto Rico. He was an illegal immigrant until 2004, and only made a citizen after his son was killed in Iraq. What if someone decided to tackle Carlos? What if he had been detained by the FBI, and all the people whose lives he saved left there to die? This is a god damn outrage.
On the day of the bombing, two men were removed from a plane in Boston for the crime of speaking Arabic.
Fox News commentator Erik Rush advocated genocide.
(he was being "sarcastic." Hilarious.)
Just as predictably as racists used this as an excuse to vent their hatred of people of color, partisan Democrat types went and pushed equally baseless conspiracy theories of their own.
Hey, you know what else falls on April 15? The fucking Boston marathon.
I've seen both gun rights advocates and gun control advocates somehow try to morph this thing to support their own agenda. It's either, "See, mass killings happen whether there are guns or not, banning guns wouldn't do anything!" or "See, nothing would've changed even if more people had been armed to stop the guy!" It's really weird, but more than anything, pretty fucking gross.
In one of the most hilarious displays of dumbfuckery in recent memory, a "reporter" from Alex Jones' Infowars managed to kick off a press conference from the governor on the day of the attack. With a question about - get this - "false flags." There's a video here if you wanna check it out. It was with that usual "I'm-important-get-out-of-my-way" air that straight white men always strut around with, which makes it doubly funny. It's hard to make out anything he's saying, so it's like, "blah blah blah FALSE FLAG blah blah FALSE FLAG blah blah blooop FALSE FLAG?" The governor just responds with a quick "No." and moves on to the next question. This part isn't in the video, but as the governor was leaving the room after the conference ended, the guy went on and shouted, "False flag, gentlemen!" for the whole room to hear. It was one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen. FALSE FLAG, GENTLEMEN!
It's probably wrong to condemn an entire nation, just because a few fucktards don't know how to react to this. In fact, in my own experience, every person I know has been treating this cautiously and with sanity. I don't know if that's because I live in a little bubble of cool people and I don't see what the country's really like, but that's just what I've seen personally. Almost everyone I know is calling out and shaming racists. And it's incredible. I'm seriously so proud of everyone in my life right now.
At the time of this writing, there's almost no information about the the identity of the bomber(s) or their motives. The trail almost looks cold. Earlier today, CNN broke that a suspect had been "arrested." It was a "dark skinned male." Turns out, that turned out to be complete bullshit, racism and all. The FBI quickly denied it, but for an hour, literally every news site I went to had "SUSPECT ARRESTED" plastered all over their front pages. CNN cited a single anonymous source, and nobody bothered to double check anything. It's pretty hilarious watching all the news outlets now trying to condemn CNN for irresponsible reporting, and not a single one of them bothers to mention their own complacency in the whole mess.
At this time, I'm pretty sure there is a suspect right now. Maybe two. There's a lot of conflicting stuff. There was supposed to be a press conference tonight, but then it was postponed, and finally cancelled outright. So nobody knows what the fuck is going on. I just hope the guy/people are caught soon, tried (with evidence!), and quickly executed so we can move on with our lives. But most of all, I just hope it's a white guy so this racism won't get even worse.
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