A fire, a fascination with explosives and family discord marked path to clinic bombing
www.latimes.com
Guy Edward Bartkus is the sole suspect in the bomb attack at a Palm Springs fertility clinic last Saturday. In the years leading up to the incident, his life was touched by family acrimony and a keen interest in explosives.

Imagine my surprise reading this on the LA Times this morning (emphasis mine):

“I would not acknowledge reproduction as a human right, but instead as a form of rape,” IndictEvolution wrote on Lemmy.World in July 2023. “I am also not bothered by infanticide as long as it is done humanely…”

Here is an archive of the article.

Here is his account.

It looks like he only stayed on Lemmy for about a month, most likely a temporary Reddit exile with the earliest exodus on June 2023. The article mentions threads on Reddit but doesn’t provide any quotes from there. User IndictEvolution on Reddit deleted their account, and the article makes it sound like they are referring to a different username that they don’t specify.

        • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
          0·
          28 days ago

          But that’s me! I guess world is p heavy with the liberal apologia, so I can see it.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
            0·
            28 days ago

            Usually is more common on Hexbear and other more explicitly Leftist instances, I don’t typically frequent slrpnk.net so I am not sure if that terminology has spread there. If it hasn’t, it’s likely due to defederation and whatnot, IMO. Just spitballing, but I’ve seen stormfront.world frequently enough.

          • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            0·
            28 days ago

            The defining trait of Stormfront of course being its liberal apologia. These people are not grounded in reality and just need to keep finding more extreme labels for the people that did them wrong.

            • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
              0·
              28 days ago

              No but liberals, esp centrists, have a much higher tolerance for fascist ideology, esp cryptofascism.

              It’s like when people just don’t perceive how awful racist dogwhistles like DEI, globalist, thug, etc.

              • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
                0·
                28 days ago

                I agree the term goes too far. I just see the connection. Most liberals are well meaning patsies, but they have a line.

                • BrainInABox@lemmy.mlEnglish
                  0·
                  27 days ago

                  The last 18 months have made me increasingly skeptical that they actually do have a line.

                • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
                  0·
                  28 days ago

                  That’s an absurd level of connection though. It’s blown right past the mild hyperbole of calling Twitter a Nazi site because it doesn’t ban Nazis, past calling your Fox News uncle a Nazi for voting to “stop the caravan”, through labeling MSNBC a Nazi station because it buys into the “break the conservative fever” myth, and into the territory of “everyone who doesn’t agree with me is an actively organizing Nazi”.

                  Stormfront isn’t a site for “well meaning patsies” and calling .world a Nazi site is just making up a heroic story for why the fascist at 7/11 kicked you out because he hates communism rather than because you were being an asshole to everyone else in the store.

  • Raiderkev@lemmy.world
    0·
    28 days ago

    Our very first terrorist. We’re going places boyos. Just hope this doesn’t bring like minded people here, especially since reddit banned that sub, and Lemmy’s is still up.

  • gradual@lemmings.world
    0·
    29 days ago

    His last comment contained “and that wellness is hard to measure since society does not allow people to express how they truly feel about things.”

    Too true.

        • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          0·
          29 days ago

          If you want my personal opinion, it depends on how you want lemmy.

          .ml is held by Marxist-Leninists. Most users there aren’t, but if you care about that, its either for you or aren’t for you.

          .world is held by centrist liberals. Most users don’t care about that, but if it matters to you, there ya go.

          My instance is for anarchists. There’s ones for queer people. Or people who speak German. Or Italian. Or French. Some are made for being NSFW, some are made to shitpost, some are isolated by choice or massively de-federated.

          But most instances don’t care who you are or why you’re on it, just don’t break the rules.

          So far lemmy.cafe lemmy.zip sopuli.xyz all seem fine, I don’t recall a constant issue with the userbase.

        • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
          0·
          29 days ago

          Well, that depends on what you want. Lemmy.world leans right and harbours transphobes and racists, hence the nazi.world jokes. Personally I think such users should just be allowed to make fools of themselves, but if you find that disturbing you can join another instance. lemmy.ml leans left, lemm.ee is fairly centrist, and sh.itjust.works is mildly right. But all are great instances.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
          0·
          29 days ago

          Lemmy.ml is seen as “bad” on Lemmy.world because the average opinion of Marxism-Leninism on Lemmy.world is negative, but that’s not the case everywhere. If you aren’t hostile to MLs, Lemmy.ml is fine.

          It really depends in what you want in an instance, though. My favorite instances are the niche ones that stick to a common subject or theme, mander.xyz is a good example of a science-focused instance, or Hexbear.net which is focused on Left-Unity and anti-Capitalism.

          • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            0·
            29 days ago

            Hexbear is an interesting beast. It tends to be really insular because it is defederated by a lot of the bigger instances. But it does have a strong sense of community, and a lot of its own in-jokes. From the outside looking in, it often looks like a dumpster fire. But the reality is that it’s more like old 4chan, where it always looks like a dumpster fire on the surface… Then when you dig deeper and start understanding some of the memes, you realize it’s actually a really interesting community surrounded by a dumpster fire

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
              0·
              29 days ago

              Hexbear was its own thing for years before federating, that’s why it has a stronger site culture than most other instances. It’s unapologetically Communist, so those who are hostile to that quickly defederated from them once they started federating.

              • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                0·
                29 days ago

                Lots of instances defederated because of the tendency to brigade. Since Hexbear was already a fairly large instance before federating, it meant it tended to dominate a lot of conversations on other instances. People have similar complaints about .world these days too. But fairly early in the first Reddit exodus, there were a few cases of Hexbear brigading smaller instances, and the Hexbear mods/admins clearly didn’t have any interest in stopping it. So not all of the defederation is purely politically based. Politics may have helped swing the decision, but it certainly wasn’t the only reason.

                • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
                  0·
                  28 days ago

                  Yeah. The “it was just because they hate communism” descriptions of hexbear defederation are just making up a story of oppression to explain why it wasn’t actually their behavior that got them locked out. People don’t hate communism, they hate trolling, tankies (in the literal sense with the Ukraine invasion), and brigading (referencing their fights with the libs and then a bunch of commenters swarming).

                  I could take or leave the lemmygrad defederation, but hexbear absolutely made its own bed.

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
                  0·
                  29 days ago

                  I don’t really think it’s brigading to participate on threads you’re federated with. If comments on threads federated with Hexbear are active, Hexbear users see them, and as Hexbear is a large instance, this appears as brigading, but is just a natural element of participation in federation. Some instances are hostile to Communists, so they didn’t want a bunch of Communists on every thread, so they defed.

            • Simon 𐕣he 🪨 Johnson@lemmy.ml
              0·
              28 days ago

              Most people are mad at hexbear because their moderation policies are consequentialist not deontological and thus more stringent against stupid online shit. As a poster you don’t have a “right” to post on hexbear, however the community has a right to be protected. As such it’s one of the better places if you don’t want to read reams upon reams of lib coded bigotry.

          • Psychadelligoat@lemmy.dbzer0.comBannedEnglish
            0·
            29 days ago

            Lemmy.ml is seen as “bad” on Lemmy .world everywhere else because the average opinion of Marxism-Leninism on Lemmy.world is negative of how tankies behave, but that’s not the case everywhere we like to pretend otherwise. If you aren’t hostile to MLs tables or tell the truth about countries were in love with, Lemmy.ml is fine.

            Ftfy

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
              0·
              29 days ago

              What a colorful modlog you have, frequently suicide baiting and complaining about Marxists. Always funny to check the modlogs of people most upset about Lemmy.ml.

              Lemmy.ml is generally seen as fine, or positively among instances like Hexbear.net and whatnot. Users hostile to Marxists tend to also be hostile to Lemmy.ml, users pro-Marxism tend to be fine with it.

              • Psychadelligoat@lemmy.dbzer0.comBannedEnglish
                0·
                29 days ago

                What a colorful modlog you have

                Am I supposed to care what the terrible mods on this site think of me? Little weird of you to go crawling around there like it’s relevant but go off

                Lemmy.ml is generally seen as fine, or positively among instances like Hexbear.net and whatnot.

                I love how you immediately jump to an even worse regarded instance as if that’s going to help your point

                Keep pretending y’all aren’t shitty tankies and aren’t hated by most of the rest of the site, you look like a bigger idiot than normal doing it!

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
                  0·
                  29 days ago

                  I mean, you’ve been banned many times for telling other users to kill themselves, tried to claim calling a user “guy” isn’t misgendering them, and seem to just be generally toxic. It’s nice as a bit of confirmation that those who complain the loudest about Marxists also generally are toxic people. I wouldn’t call the mods removing your suicide baiting comments and transphobic remarks “shitty.”

                  Hexbear.net is worse regarded among people who hate Marxists, yes. As a Marxist, I don’t really hold the opinions of those hostile to Marxists as particularly important, the driving divide is in people’s position on Marxism. If I went into a MAGA conference, I would expect to be hated as well, but I wouldn’t care much either. Anti-Communism is the biggest division, those supportive of Communism tend to be okay with the Marxist-aligned instances.

        • Arelin@lemmy.zip
          0·
          29 days ago

          Lemmy.zip and lemm.ee have been consistently the best so far.

          And anyway, the main reason not to use lemmy.world is just that it’s the most popular. The whole point of coming to the fediverse is to decentralize so joining LW kinda beats the purpose.

      • Grapho@lemmy.ml
        0·
        29 days ago

        Not really tho. Some instances talk a big game about their cOnCeRnS when defederating from the explicitly leftist instances but then let fascists of every ilk say the wildest shit as long as it’s directed to whomever is the villain of the month for libs.

      • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
        0·
        29 days ago

        I’d agree except it’s the biggest one, so fair game imo.

        It’s like Hamiltonians taking swipes at Toronto.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
        0·
        29 days ago

        .world is ideologically liberal on average, so a lot of people on the fediverse take issue with that as Leftists tend to be more prominent by ratio than on Reddit. It’s also the largest instance, and gets hate for that, as a lot of people like the decentralized aspects of the fediverse.

      • Sagittarii@lemm.ee
        0·
        29 days ago

        …That it’s no better than reddit and doesn’t ban right wingers? Like that IndictEvolution account is still up lmfao

          • Grapho@lemmy.ml
            0·
            29 days ago

            Spouting blatantly ecofascist rhetoric should have had him banned and his comments removed. Instead the community he modded is still up and still posting ecofascist shit with zero pushback from admins.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
            0·
            29 days ago

            Liberalism is the dominant ideology in western society, banning the Marxists but keeping the liberals is more of an echo-chamber than a Marxist instance banning liberals could hope to be. Liberals never have to engage with Marxism if they don’t want to, Marxists must engage with Liberalism on a daily basis.

  • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    0·
    29 days ago

    In that same period, Bartkus’ rhetoric on alternative social media sites was dark.

    I’m just proud they know we exist.

    • masta_chief@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      29 days ago

      We’ll have to push back with pointing to the decentralized nature of the fediverse, and that there’s gonna be crazies on some instances. I always use email as an analogy when explaining Lemmy, maybe we could continue that and argue you wouldn’t blame all of email infrastructure if an extremist had a gmail or Hotmail or whatever.

      Actually now that I read that, it just might be more confusing. But there’s gotta be a counter angle to argue to get ahead of people thinking “Lemmy=bad”

      • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
        0·
        29 days ago

        Also even if the cops shut down world, people will just … move. Like yours and my instances don’t even have the word “lemmy” in the domain. I don’t think anyone would care beyond “we shut down that radical forum.”

        Though most likely is it goes completely unnoticed and some bombing or shooting or human rights abuse next week will shoves it down the memory hole for good.

        • meowMix2525@lemm.ee
          0·
          29 days ago

          some bombing or shooting or human rights abuse next week will shoves it down the memory hole for good.

          Next week? Try last night in DC. I’m doubting this will even register tbh

        • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
          0·
          28 days ago

          It would not bode well for the future of discourse if lemmy.world of all places gets shut down for radicalism. Our instance is significantly more radical than lemmy.world. Can you imagine some ecofascist idiot who posted on slrpnk.net a couple times committing a terror attack and getting the instance taken down? I can, which is why this news should be very concerning.

          Edit: Just looked through some of the bomber’s comments and their replies and some users even pointed out that his rhetoric was reminiscent of ecofascism. Anti-natalism and ecofascism are ideological siblings. The backlash to this attack is going to catch environmentalist groups in the crossfire, with many environmental activists being accused of having anti-natalist views. Anyone who’s ever advocated for degrowth might get lumped in with them.

          • turtle [he/him]@lemm.eeOPEnglish
            0·
            27 days ago

            I agree, you have very good points. I don’t particularly think that him having posted for about a month two years ago on a particular instance is any particular mark against that instance, as I think that that could have happened to many (but perhaps not all) Lemmy instances. Good point about backlash hitting eco activists too.

        • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
          0·
          29 days ago

          It’s funny because even of the people I know, it’s actually like “lemmy=what?” Even of the people I’ve talked to about it.

          They’re so painfully disinterested, they usually tune out after the first five words of my fediverse elevator pitch.

    • turtle [he/him]@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      0·
      27 days ago

      You mean the reporters? I wondered about that, but then realized that the guy tended to use the same online nickname on various sites. Searching the web for that nickname probably turned up a bunch of his accounts and then they could read the comments to determine if they were likely the same person. Pretty good reporting, I thought.

        • turtle [he/him]@lemm.eeOPEnglish
          0·
          27 days ago

          Yes, definitely a good privacy and security practice. Different passwords is important too. Different email addresses as well, if possible. There are services like simplelogin and anonaddy that make the email part simple.

          • Lime Buzz (fae/she)@beehaw.orgEnglish
            0·
            27 days ago

            Yes, the email I use has that built in, though if I can I don’t use email for an account, like on Lemmy (which is how it should be everywhere in my opinion, just a username and password). All my passwords are different too!