I really want to know.
Because the usual suspects in "trusted media", such as MSN, USNews, Deutsche Welle, Reuters, Buzzfeed, Daily Beast, Politico, Guardian, Associated Press (AP), ABC and BBC (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11), decided to take the public's familiarity with the expression "having connections/financial links to" - popularized through reports of lone-wolf jihadist killers found to be backed by ISIS - and employ said phrase to strategically attack a group that the Christchurch mosque shooter funded, suggesting that that person/group is, through that donation, "connected" or "linked" to the Christchurch mosque shooting.
The problem here is as follows:
killer donates money to support x ≠ x donates money to support killer
And to prove that, let us suppose that the man who shot Republican Steve Scalise donated to the Democratic Party; is now the Democratic Party "connected" and "linked" to the shooting?
Suppose the list of donations which the killer made at some point included, let's say, St. Jude, Make-A-Wish, the World Wildlife Fund, a fraternity or even some chess club - are these organizations now "connected" or "linked" to the shooting, too?
The narrative in the media seems to suggest that is the case and, unfortunately, the public appears to be too dull to call the media out on it.
Perhaps now we can understand why the rightists' $27,000 in donations to St. Jude by rightists for cancer research were refunded: if anyone who donated happened to be an unhinged rightest who would later go postal, maybe the blame would be pointed at St. Jude for being "connected" and "linked" to the killer.
All joking aside, the connections and links that we need to concern ourselves with are when an organization funds a killer to carry out a terrorist act. You know, so that opens the door to investigate the organization to see if it helped to plan the terrorist act and had agency - which is the real basis for criminal culpability and liability.
Furthermore, if a killer donated to an organization, not the other way around, what really happened is that organization absorbed funds that the killer otherwise would have had to fund his terrorist act. Nobody seems to understand this. And every single cut-and-paste "mainstream trusted news source" provides the same narrative, designed to turn the public against the organization which, as far as I can tell, is being selectively targeted by opponents of the organization who see an opportunity to destroy what they hate.
But perhaps this is a new era, with new rules. Perhaps, in the 21st century, receiving donations from a criminal is the new standard for complicity. That being the case, humor me: I would like to know what organizations "had connections" or "financial links" to Jussie Smollet when he decided to fake a hate crime. I want these organizations identified so I can vilify them for their terrible actions.
