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Bachmann's "armed and dangerous" leading to massacres?
I saw this topic on a local DC tv station's website, and it kind of made me think -- does the deliberate paranoia the rightwing creates for political purposes lead to real violence? In the Pittsburgh shooting where three police were killed, apparently the killer thought that Obama wanted to take his gun. Now where would he get an idea like that?
http://cfc.wjla.com/forums/viewmessages.cfm?Forum=47&Topic=58174
Now, some of these shootings are unrelated of course, but what if one of them is not? We regard Bachmann as a clown-like figure of fun, but there might actually be some unstable people who take her nonsense seriously. This is not the first time this sort of thing has happened either. The 1990s anti-government bile that the rightwing was spewing came back to haunt them in the form of Timothy McVeigh terrorism.
What's remarkable today is how no one, least of all the media, has the courage to denounce Bachmann's incendiary, and terroristic, remarks. You can't make a joke about a bomb in an airport, but Bachmann encourages paranoid violence against the government in an era when we have deadly shootings one after another -- and gets away with it. To quote another rightwing blowhard, "Where's the outrage?"
http://cfc.wjla.com/forums/viewmessages.cfm?Forum=47&Topic=58174
3/21: Michele Bachmann says in a radio broadcast that she wants people "armed and dangerous"
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/23/bachmann-armed-and-dangerous/
Gunman Kills 4 in Oakland, Calif.
http://californiabeat.wordpress.com/2009/03/21/lone-gunman-kills-3-oakland-policemen-leaves-one-in-grave-condition-in-brazen-daylight-shooting-spree/
3/29: 8 shot and killed at a nursing home
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/03/29/nursing.home.shooting/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
4/3: 14 Shot and Killed in Binghamton, NY
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/04/04/binghamton.shooting/index.html?iref=topnews
4/4: 5 Shot Dead in Pittsburgh, PA
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30043893/
Now, some of these shootings are unrelated of course, but what if one of them is not? We regard Bachmann as a clown-like figure of fun, but there might actually be some unstable people who take her nonsense seriously. This is not the first time this sort of thing has happened either. The 1990s anti-government bile that the rightwing was spewing came back to haunt them in the form of Timothy McVeigh terrorism.
What's remarkable today is how no one, least of all the media, has the courage to denounce Bachmann's incendiary, and terroristic, remarks. You can't make a joke about a bomb in an airport, but Bachmann encourages paranoid violence against the government in an era when we have deadly shootings one after another -- and gets away with it. To quote another rightwing blowhard, "Where's the outrage?"
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Yes, but Bachman is clearly crazy, and not to be taken seriously anyway. but your point is taken, as she also is a sitting Congresswoman, a lawmaker, who has access to media sources to spew her paranoia and insane drivel. she, in some perhaps small and tangential way, is responsible for those police officers deaths in Pittsburgh at the hands of that murderous coward who thought Obama was gonna take his guns away. Michelle, you are a 'murderer'.
April 4, 2009 6:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course Bachmann's drivel is geared to incite negative reactions.
Her history proves she (and her ilk) only want to tear down, not build up.
I firmly believe they put party above country.
But, at this time - with our society in such disarray and too many seeking a source to blame, her type of 'rallying' is certain to create an environment that promotes senseless violence and endless damage.
No doubt! Thanks for post. Rec'd.
April 4, 2009 8:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am gonna come right out and say this.
Michelle Bachmann, in her fanatical ignorance, is INCITING the lunatic fringe/militias to action.
The militias never go away, they just go deeper underground. And the wanna-be militia are twice as dangerous.
Bachmann hasn't got clue one what she is doing. Isn't there any person within the Republican Party able to SHUT THIS WOMAN'S MOUTH?
April 4, 2009 10:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I dont know. But maybe if people were more easily allowed to carry a gun then someone could have stopped the crazy Pittsburgh massacre guy before he killed so many people
April 4, 2009 10:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's how your ludicrous excuse for logic works:
1) Something bad happens somewhere in U.S.
2) MiddleClassBill says, "Maybe if there were more and easier guns, No. 1 above would not have happened."
April 5, 2009 3:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree it's a stretch. It's just as ludicrous as associating Bachmann with the Pittburgh incident or saying she made a "terroristic" remark
April 5, 2009 8:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bill,
A. Estimate the probability that someone actually carrying a gun would have been present in Pittsburg . Now multiply that by the probability that that person would have been capable of using the gun to prevent the deaths. And
B. Estimate the probability that someone might react to inflammatory statements by deciding to kill someone. Taking into account that this
has already happened.
You grant A is ludicrous. I don't understand how you can say B is equally so when B has happened and A is just a hoped for outcome.
April 5, 2009 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
What Bachmann said had nothing to do with going out and killing people
April 5, 2009 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bill makes valid points in polite terms, while others respond rudely.
In this thread, in my opinion, logic is on Bill's side.
p.s. I don't like Bachmann.
April 5, 2009 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you want to say I was rude, and that was maybe uncalled for, inappropriate, and needlessly offending, I can accept all that as fair criticism, plead guilty, and sheepishly offer my regrets. Fine. Sorry, Bill. And I do hate guns, for reasons that this incident demonstrates.
Now as to how logic is on Bill's side, though, you need to rebut Flavius to have credibility. If Bill says the world is flat in his view, Flavius shows factually how it's round, and you say nothing more than "In my view, Bill has the winning argument," that's a clever use of the nothing hand you're holding. But it won't convince most people.
April 6, 2009 2:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
"It's just as ludicrous as associating Bachmann with the Pittburgh incident or saying she made a "terroristic" remark."
It's so odd how people make these connections, you know? And so unfair! Remember that woman at a McCain rally who said Obama was an Arab? And then they tried to pin that on the never-ending McCain-Palin Obama's-a-terrorist smear campaign! I'm glad you don't see the connection, cause I sure don't either!
And when Benjamin Netanyahu marched around Israeli streets carrying a coffin-in-effegy of sitting Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin? You can look it up if you don't remember. Well, then, when one of Netanyahus followers plotted and carried out the assassination of Rabin, Rabin's widow tried to say Netanyahu was partly to blame! AGAIN! WHERE IS THE CONNECTION, BILL?! Netanyahu didn't buy the assassin's gun, didn't aim it, so how on earth can he be linked with this?! If Israelis were allowed arms(or if PM Rabin had been allowed to have some security detail), I'm sure it would have been prevented like you say, but what was that sour-grapes widow so mad about?!!
April 6, 2009 2:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
If only the officers he shot were allowed to carry weapons...
April 5, 2009 4:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
You're so right! When is our nation going to learn that it's urban police should be allowed to bear arms?
April 6, 2009 2:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
You're so right! When is our nation going to learn that its urban police should be allowed to bear arms?
Upon reflection, it might require a Constitutional amendment to prevent infringement of the right to bear arms to a well-regulated militia such our urban police. It would have to be carefully written, though, specifically including words like "well-regulated" and "militia," or else any maniac might be allowed to have a gun and could just start shooting people. Anyhow, yeah, let's arm the police and end these incidents once and for all!
April 6, 2009 2:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Umm, Bill? The guy in Pittsburgh was driven by his obsession that the Feds are trying to take away his guns. In other words...well, I think you can figure it out.
April 5, 2009 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
See my response to overreach.
April 5, 2009 11:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm just a stupid liberal, so that probably explains why I don't understand. Are you suggesting that you know what was going on in that guy's mind? What his motivations were? What made him take arms against cops?
Note that I never suggested a connection between the incident and Bachman's demented ravings. My reaction was to you and your implication that armed civilians might fare better than cops against a gun-tottin' maniac. That idea has always struck me as absurd, and one that both Poplawski and Bachman both hold (held, in the case of the male lunatic) dear.
April 5, 2009 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I take back my comment about armed civilians, but the original post here suggested a link between Bachmann's comments and the "massacres". Suggesting a link is just as much of a stretch as my suggestion that armed civilians could stop a madman.
April 5, 2009 3:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
That rarist of all political raræ aves -- a conservative admitting to a mistake. Now, if only we could believe that admission would hold until the next time...
As to the assertion that the rhetoric of political leaders has no effect on their partisans, well that's simply untenable. Particularly when those in question are a mentally off-center leader and mentally off-center partisans.
April 5, 2009 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wild Bill,
Let's just go to fantasy land here. We've all got holsters with six shooters proudly on display. Yes, we're back on the frontier and we all look like either Jimmy Stewart, or Henry Fonda, maybe some of us are lucky enough to resemble St. John of Wayne. It's Pittsburgh, the cattle have just come to town and with it those bad cowboys.
Here are some questions to ponder. It might help you know something. I really think you CAN know but choose not to know because of who your crowd is.
Exactly when do we get to shoot this guy? After he shoots someone? When he draws his gun? When he "makes a move", or when he looks like he might be thinking about drawing his gun?
I don't know. Maybe we should remove the incendiary talk about armed and dangerous so this notion is far from his head and there is no appearance that if he shoots people there are people who approve, who declare erroneously that they are "defending freedom", and therefore, being "armed and dangerous" is okay.
April 5, 2009 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well said. Moveon.org was censured for its ad about Petraeus. Which I saw as rather mild. Republicans turned it into a national crusade.
But no one in the Congress will censure, Bachmann, Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity et al who have been stoking the lunatic fires for a long, long time. Palin and McCain should have been censured by Congress during the election for endangering Obama and his family with their rhetoric about terrorists, etc.
Not a peep.
I'm a proud progressive and think the Dems are easily superior to the Republicans. But, damn. The Dems sit on their hands all too often while Rome burns. They need to make this a national issue. Now. Today. Nasty, incendiary rhetoric can kill. This country is on the edge and the Bachmanns, Limbaughs, Becks and Hannitys of this world are pushing people closer and closer to the edge of the cliff.
April 4, 2009 11:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why did you leave Olbermann off of your list?
April 5, 2009 8:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
I understand that you are not to be taken seriously and posted your commnet merely to annoy, but please cite one instance, just one, where Olbermann encouraged people to take up arms, buy guns, or prepare for some sort battle that included weapons or involved killing opponents.
Just one.
All forms of outrage are not the same, nor are all calls to action incendiary.
April 5, 2009 11:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
When did Bachmann tell people to take up arms or buy guns?
April 5, 2009 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe because he never suggested armed insurrection?
April 5, 2009 12:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Neither did Bachmann. She said that she wanted people to attend and cap-and-trade forum in Minnesota so they could be "armed and dangerous" on the issue and fight back.
I don't think any person would interpret this as "armed insurrection". Maybe you've never heard of a metaphor?
April 5, 2009 2:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Michelle hasn't.
April 5, 2009 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Very funny but I don't think accurate. She didn't tell anyone to go out and buy a guy to arm themselves for a skirmish. People on here are making a big thing out of a metaphor. Linking her to massacres is nuts
April 5, 2009 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
So how many people have to comment here before you WILL believe that people interpret "armed" as having weapons and "dangerous" as willing to use them, because that is the common definition of armed adn dangerous. Your unwillingness to believe anyone would interpet it that way is beyond ridiculous.
MCB, you are a Republican, that's for sure. You have powdered sugar all over your face and you're trying to convince us you didn't eat the donut.
April 6, 2009 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, that would be great, Bill, if folks walked around with big ole signs hanging around their necks that had "I'm gonna shoot somebody if you don't shoot me first" printed on it. Then we could all pull out our pea shooters and off the dude before he got us.
WHAT?
April 4, 2009 11:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
And there ya go....
But Bill would be ducking and dodging all the time, everywhere. Oh wait, he does that already when he's here.
April 4, 2009 11:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
My comment was just as silly as trying to associate Bachmann with the pittsburgh shooting
I guess seeing such a crazy original posting made me write something just as absurd.
April 5, 2009 11:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, actually, your comments and the responses are NOT the same. Stating they are the same is merely a way to avoid actually comparing the two. You suggest, "they are the same" and walk away. Look a little closer. They are not. Please explain how "armed and dangerous" is NOT suggesting terror. What is your definition of dangerous? Hippie-like flower child ... sorry flowerchild ... I'm making you a prop here to help Wild Bill come to his senses. I'm a fool and still think he may have some concept between right and wrong, but it may be he really doesn;t care all that much about it.
April 5, 2009 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
When I listened to Rep Bachmann speak, she meant "armed and dangerous" when it comes to people have all the proper information about the issues. They would be "armed" with the facts.
If there was another instance where she was actually saying people should go out and buy guns, I'd like to see it. But so far I have not been able to find any.
April 5, 2009 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
MCBill, the point is that Bachmann's comment about being "armed and dangerous" might have been rhetoric, as you say, but those are the kinds of fighting words the megaloonies grab hold of when their hatred gets the best of them and they try to do something stupid.
They're the same megaloonies who listen to the vicious bombast spewed daily by the Right Wing "spokesmen" like Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, Beck, Savage, and a whole slew of hate-filled radio wannabees.
I'm waiting for the day when the people who claim to love America come to their senses and stop listening to that garbage. In the meantime, we need to do double duty watching out for the loonies who hear those words as some sort of gospel, and feel the need to act on them.
A responsible person would realize words like "armed and dangerous" can have a double meaning. She should be using her pulpit to explain her meaning, now that she sees how her words have been misconstrued. I haven't heard a word from her about it. Have you?
April 5, 2009 6:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I saw her office respond that she wasn't suggesting people buy guns. Her office's explanation was that she was using a "metaphor" like I said.
I think people on here just don't like her views and grab on to anything she says.
If Keith Olberman had used that phrase I don't think anyone on here would be worried about how the "megaloonies" would be interpreting his words.
April 5, 2009 7:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
So how many people have to comment here before you WILL believe that people interpret "armed" as having weapons and "dangerous" as willing to use them, because that is the common definition of armed adn dangerous. Your unwillingness to believe anyone would interpet it that way is beyond ridiculous.
MCB, you are a Republican, that's for sure. You have powdered sugar all over your face and you're trying to convince us you didn't eat the donut.
April 6, 2009 2:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sometimes I think the Bachmann's of this world know exactly what they are doing but they don't care, especially if they feel the desired results, will benefit them.
April 4, 2009 11:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's not just Bachmann. It's a big fat slob of a GOP gang push to reinforce the notion that the Republicans are all about gun rights. Really?
Tell me what restrictive firearms legislation has ever been reversed when the Republicans had the congressional power? Did they reverse anything during the Bush years? Did they introduce legislation to that end? I haven't found any attempt at all.
You would think with all that power and W sure to sign, they could have at least gotten the 15 round magazines back for crying out loud. You would think that their base would think to themselves, "boy, now it's time to get our gun rights back", and press their Congress. Nope.
So. I submit that it's all just a "mockery of a travesty of a sham" (to use a little Groucho). The GOP wants to have the "liberals are coming for your guns" meme as a wild card to enrage their base, as the need arises and especially around election time. Hell, the dumb bastards won't even think to ask us to work on legislation to get the damned 15 rounders back!
Bachmann and the whole gang are back to their infamous meme, and it crowds the fringe off the edge in worriment that their guns will soon be confiscated.
It is bound to incite, and I believe it is not so innocent a sham.
April 5, 2009 2:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly, now that they are losing the religious right, the GOP only has the rabid gun advocates to "cling" to.
Isn't it ironic?
April 5, 2009 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
True that it's not just Bachmann. The frothy-mouthed maniacs are comparing the President to Stalin, Hitler,even Charles Manson. This, they explain, is how they succeed by "distinguishing" themselves from Democrats.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/20888.html
April 5, 2009 3:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
See Charles M. Blow in the NY Times from Friday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/04/opinion/04blow.html
April 5, 2009 10:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Charles M Blow is a hypocrite like a few of the commenters here.
The link that you posted was from Friday.
But on Tuesday, Charles M(oron) Blow(hard) was writing this about GM:
"... Something doesn’t feel right.
I’m not saying that the Despots of Detroit deserve a break (Wagoner should be FLOGGED in the streets for the Hummer alone), but the use of the GUILLOTINE could be a tad more egalitarian..."
http://blow.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/car-loan-shark/
April 5, 2009 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
What I don't understand is why Michele Bachmann gets so much obsessive coverage at TPM.
Who exactly is the paranoid one?
April 5, 2009 1:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
She's a bonafide wingnut, as such she is particularly interesting.
April 5, 2009 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gasket, why do you keep insisting that people should look in the mirror?
April 5, 2009 3:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I could answer that, but if I did, I would hate myself in the morning.
April 5, 2009 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
“Chop down the tall trees”
That was the code word, which led to the Rwandan genocide.
Republican enablers are creating an atmosphere of hatred and reprisal
“Look out they’re coming for your guns”, is the code word to strike out against…
April 5, 2009 4:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Republican enablers are creating an atmosphere of hatred and reprisal"
I consider that an absolute fact. And ironically, Obama is giving the haters reasons for reprisal. But if some haters are going to snap and shoot folks, I honestly wonder why they don't shoot Wall Streeters and politicians rather than police and random civilians.
April 5, 2009 5:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dont forget, McCain's friend G Gordon Liddy advised people the best way to shoot federal agents.
Doesn't seem a far stretch from that to Bachmann, or to Timothy McVeigh, or this rightwing paranoid who killed three cops in Pittsburgh.
April 6, 2009 12:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
My kneejerk reaction was that the Binghamton rampage was right-wing terrorism, because it took place in an immigration center. But now that more information is available, it looks more like a typical 'middle-class man's spirit crushed by capitalism, snaps in the workplace which betrayed him' story.
America is a society of winners and losers, that's just a fact. Is it so surprising that some of the losers won't just bend over and take it?
If you're interested in the cause-and-effect of these increasingly common events, read Mark Ames' reporting on the subject.
April 5, 2009 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
To expound on how common this story is,
here's a convenient rundown of last month's murder rampages (via Fox, sorry - original source is AP) the majority of which involved shooters which were unemployed or had recently been fired.
April 5, 2009 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree. The ruling faction needs to wake up.
April 5, 2009 6:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for pointing me towards Mark Ames. He had an interesting article on Larry Summer in The Nation, last fall:
"In 1990, Lithuania, a restive Soviet republic seeking independence, hired Summers to advise on that country's economic transformation. Poor Lithuania had no idea what it got itself into. This was Summers's first opportunity to tackle a country in economic crisis and put his wunderkind theories into practice. The results were literally suicidal: in 1990, when Summers first arrived, Lithuania's suicide rate was 26.1 per 100,000 and falling. Just five years after Summers got his hands on Lithuania's economy, life became so unbearable under the economic transition that the suicide rate nearly doubled to 45.6 per 100,000, worse than any other ex-Soviet republic in transition. In fact, it was the highest suicide rate in the world, suggesting something particularly harsh and brutal about the economic transition in that country as opposed to the others, where suffering and pain were common. Things got so bad that in 1992, after just two years of Summers-nomics, the traumatized Lithuanians voted the communist party back into power, the first East European nation to do so--even though just a year earlier Lithuanians actually died on the streets fighting communism."
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081124/ames
Is it all part of the plan? Doesn't seem any more conspiratorial than pointing to Bachmann's quip-- and, honestly--who has more power?
April 5, 2009 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Welp, I do think your case would be a bit stronger if you actually kept to incidents where there is at least a tenuous announced connection to Bachmann's commments.
April 5, 2009 5:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, perhaps/ Clearly the most closely connected is the one in Pittsburgh, where some nut got the impression that Obama wanted to take away his gun. Gee, I wonder where he heard that?
Bachmmann is the most egregious, being a sitting lawmaker, but the NRA and rightwing noise machine share in the blame for creating anti-government paranoia centering on guns. Timothy McVeigh was created in a rightwing culture of paranoia and hatred. "The government is evil". So he went and blew up a government building. Now we have a member of Congress telling citizens to be paranoid about a government that wants to take away their freedom, so better be armed and dangerous, and presumably shoot anyone who comes knocking.
People who can't see the subtext of her comments don't want to see, or are lying.
April 6, 2009 12:10 AM | Reply | Permalink