How Many More?
Two politically motivated shootings by right wing extremists in two weeks. One man's dead and another is gravely injured.
What's happening is as plain as the as the nose on your face and as subtle as a whack on the head with a 2x4. We've been watching it come together since last summer.
We saw a carload of methed-up white supremicists who'd loaded up their scoped, high powered rifles and headed to Denver with the intent to kill Obama dismissed as "no credible threat," just a bunch of mixed up, drug addled boys who weren't really capable of putting together a seriously dangerous plot, according to the Bush-appointed U.S. Attorney. (Yet somehow these drug-addled fellows, who practically had to be led to their targets on a leash by an FBI informant, are the most dangeriest, scariest terrorists since 9/11. Hmmm, what's different about these two groups of would-be killers that accounts for that? Nope, nothing's coming to me. Anyone want to help me out here? ' Cause I'm drawing a blank.)
In the weeks that followed, we were treated to the ugliness that kept flaring up into threats and violence at Sarah Palin's rallies. Violence, and more violence, vandalism and threats of violence at presidential campaign rallies, not in Zimbabwe or some former Soviet republic. All just dismissed as the misguided acts of a few hotheads.
Then we had Jim Adkisson, a guy who, fueled by a steady diet of Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Mike Savage, was moved to go on shooting spree in a Unitarian church in Knoxville last July because, according to the cop who interviewed him "of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country's hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of media outlets." Adkisson also apparently told the investigating officer that since "he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement that he would then target those that had voted them in to office."
Next we had multiple killer-rapist Keith Luke of Brockton, Mass, who carved a swastika into his head to dress up for his arraignment. Luke, it seems, had a little plan to kill as many non-whites and Jews as possible before the police took him out. (Which, of course, they didn't.).
In April, Pittsburg resident and budding young white supremicist Richard Poplawski, prepared an ambush for the police officers whom, he was sure, would soon be acting on Obama's secret plan to take his guns away. He killed three of them and wounded three more. You may recall a bit of blogtroversy over the relative derth of reporting on the guy's extreme right associations and beliefs.
And now, two more murders in two weeks.
And, oddly missing from all the stories in the traditional media coverage of the ongoing outbreak of right wing lunatic kill-sprees is any discussion of the other crimes. Each is treated as sui generis, just one lone nut cooking off, nothing to see here move along.
So my question is this. How many more murderous rampages by enraged rightists--whether executed or merely in the planning stage--are we going to have to endure before the traditional media is willing to acknowledge and address the obvious? How many people are going to die, and how highly placed will the victims have to be, before someone connects the dots and starts calling out the ever more violent, hateful and apocalyptic rhetoric of the likes of Coulter, Malkin, O'Reilly, Hannity and Savage as bearing some responsibility for creating this climate of insanity?
As acidly pointed out yesterday by This Modern World, in the fever delerium that conservatives call "reality" these days, people are endlessly, dangerously suceptable to video games, popular music and situation comedies, but completely unaffected by those who actually purport to be trying to affect their opinions. Are we going to have to wait until one of these loons gets his hands on some fertilzer and fuel oil and takes out hundreds the MSM says "enough is enough" to jolly ol' Rushbo, the dramatic Beck, and the little black dress clad Coulter rather than calling them "great guests" and "entertainers" and "always provocative?"
I just watched the video of Shep Smith Josh linked to in which Shep decried the steady flood of hateful and insane ravings they get in the email. Somehow, they managed to be anguished without once even implicitly noting that their station--the station of Hannity, Beck, Bill-O, the morning show twits and dozens of anger-mongering spokesmodels--might in any way be implicated creating the super-saturated solution in which the prophetic visions that drive the killers to kll crystalize.
And therein lies the problem. At some level, every one of them, from John Boehner to Rupert Murdoch to Rush Limbaugh to Billy Jim Goober in his un-airconditioned manufactured home/arsenal in the Dixie Twilight Trailer Park believes that race means something more than a slight variance in the genes that control melanin production. They think that that something is inextricably linked to "Americanism." Obama personifies and crystalizes their anxiety over the browning of America that's been growing among them for thirty years. For the rich ones, their horror is magnified by the idea that he wants to bump their taxes up a few points and put some modest curbs on the unfettered rapacity they fought so hard to claw back from the New Deal reforms.
Fearing taxes and regulation, they eagerly whipped up the more open racial hostility and anxiety of their poorer brethern. They saw it as a handy tool with which to rally the poor whites to the noble cause of unfettered rapacity. But the truth is that the old rich guys are themselves as suceptable to the forces they have unleashed--they're like O'Brian and the Inner Party members at the start of "1984;" unable to resist the power of the Two Minutes Hate, even though they themselves designed it solely as an outlet for the Outer Party member's hostility for them. In the same way, the richest, most urbane and most cynical of the conservative elite are themselves powerless to resist the the fear they peddle.
And that, I fear, is what will keep the MSM from ever coming to grips, connecting the dots and exerting the social pressure necceary to get them to dial down down the ever more toxic rhetoric from the right. At least not until the body count gets a lot higher or the targets become more powerful.
I pray to god I'm wrong.
But you're probably right.
June 10, 2009 7:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I watched that Shep Smith clip as well, and immediately sent an email to him in which I basically said what you said, only less compellingly.
I'm feeling a little helpless and out of control at the moment. What can we do to help stop the violence?
June 10, 2009 8:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is nothing the individual can do stop their violence.
They cannot be boycotted; you cannot put them out of business.
They cannot be bought or bribed.
They cannot be reasoned with.
They cannot be arrested until they break the law.
They are careful to not break the law.
They blame the government for everything that goes against them including bad weather.
I'm dead serious.
They call themselves patriots.
They are organized.
They have a plan.
I have no quibble referring to them as 'they' or even 'those people' because they are my greatest enemy. I live closer to them than I wish to but I was here first and I'm not moving.
So, helpless is quite often how I feel too, Orlando.
June 10, 2009 9:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
They blame the government for everything that goes against them
Except if George W./Cheney is President, then they blame Clinton, liberals, media, Hispanics, Blacks, Jews or feel that bombing brown people in a country on the other side of the world, that they can't even find on a map, will make their lives better.
June 11, 2009 12:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
According to WaPo, Von Brunn was sent over the edge when his Social Security was "cut." He was convinced people in the Social Security Administration were reading his blog and punishing him for his views.
June 11, 2009 9:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
ROTFLMAO, so he was upset he was not getting his check from the government, from the socialist security administration? LOL.
I write socialist as a description of the program that is accurate. I do not see a socialist enterprise as a mortal threat to capitalism. I believe they can co-exist. In the end, we have Social Security with 401Ks, so why the need to abolish SS? We have public education and private schools, so why the need to abolish public schools? We have medical providers who take cash, and always will, so why abolish Medicare or Medicaid, or prevent their expansion?
June 11, 2009 12:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I suspect he was setting the stage for an insanity defense, in the event he was captured.
June 11, 2009 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
How about we finally pass across the board gun control laws???And start confiscating the cache of arms these maniacs have? And then, with an eye to the future, figure out what the trigger happy DNA marker is and then breed for peace? Just sayin' -- if horses can be bred for speed, and dogs can be bred for affection, couldn't we evolve out of this behavior with a little help from science?
June 10, 2009 8:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, if only.....I don't see gun control helping at all. What we need to do is find the hate gene, because the hate gene is dominant over the love gene. So, we have our work cut out for us. Behavioral and social science might help us out, but as long as "enablers" are given rights to the airwaves, we have a problem.
June 10, 2009 8:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kate O -- is that true? a) that there is a hate gene? And, b) that the hate gene is stronger than the love gene?
I'm sorry if you are speaking metaphorically and I am too ill-informed to know that, but I was half-kidding, which is my default reaction to despair... I had no idea that there actually might be a gene for this.
Well, if there is, let's find it, fast. Who among us, except the hatemongers, would actually have a child we knew would carry that profile?
June 10, 2009 8:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am half joking, and speaking somewhat metaphorically, but there does seem to be a genetic component to some forms of paranoia and anti-social behavior. Let's hope those are rare genes with low penetrance. But dominant genes tend to be VERY potent, which is why they were given that name. They override the recessive allele. You must know that the search for genes that control behavior is filled with land mines. We are not supposed to engage in social engineering....probably a good thing. More importantly, nurture likely wins out over nature here. Haters breed haters. Sometimes nature takes over and lovers breed haters, and vice versa. But haters are pretty efficient at raising haters.
June 10, 2009 9:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the clarification, KateO. I hope nurture wins out. In the here and now, though, what can we do? You're right about the religious community -- where are the "thou shalt not kill" sermons, full-page ads and videos?
Is that what we could do? Write them, produce them -- in effect broadcasting beyond blogging to becoming our own national medium/media?
June 10, 2009 9:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like that idea. I know there are groups rallied around stopping hate speech. I am going to do some research, see if they need help/funding. I have seen some PSAs about standing up to hate speech/bullying. I cannot recall who funded or produced them, but you have given me the motivation to try to find out.
June 10, 2009 9:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like that idea. I know there are groups rallied around stopping hate speech. I am going to do some research, see if they need help/funding. I have seen some PSAs about standing up to hate speech/bullying. I cannot recall who funded or produced them, but you have given me the motivation to try to find out.
June 10, 2009 9:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20090605/sc_livescience/boyswithwarriorgenemorelikelytojoingangs
June 10, 2009 9:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oops, I pressed go before I could add that the article linked to refers to a 'warrior gene' and not a 'hate gene', but it's in the same vein.
June 10, 2009 9:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for that link, Flower. Scary though.
June 11, 2009 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Too late. By a lot of years. Irrational, unfounded fear that we're going to do just that is one of the things fueling these murder sprees. But, now, if someone were to grow a pair and call out the NRA for spewing out ever more hateful, hysterical crypto-racist rhetoric in order to pump up its memebership dues and its powers, that might be a help.
June 10, 2009 9:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, if we're going to have warrantless domestic surveillance, the NRA membership list might be a good place to start.
June 11, 2009 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think we, as a society, need to spend more time as parents and educators (note here that I am neither) instilling some measure of impulse control and less giving in to the emotion of the moment into kids.
June 11, 2009 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
But but but, this guy was 88!
June 11, 2009 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
No doubt that his hatred didn't start with the onset of his golden years. He's been a hater for scores of years and I'll bet credits to navy beans that he inherited a lot of his poisonous views from good ol' dad.
June 11, 2009 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
My commuter bus was delayed a good hour tonight because half of SW DC was closed off because of this gruesome murder. It is a mixed group on this evening bus but I heard more than one person say that the volume and intensity of the hate talk on public airwaves is just fanning the flames. This security guard was a citizen of DC, so this is a local story as well as a national one. What can be done to tone down this domestic terrorist feeding frenzy? I don't know, I'm asking for people's thoughts. How do we stop this? Where the hell is the "religious" community on all of this. Their silence is deafening.
June 10, 2009 8:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Where the hell is the "religious" community on all of this. Their silence is deafening."
The religious community is hardly silent. They are stoking the fires and loudly, proudly cheering the murder and mayhem.
June 10, 2009 11:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Like a Baptist official praying for Obama to die.link
Plus, many 'religious' anti-choicers are too busy harassing female strangers, about whom they know nothing and care even less about, in their 'war on the war on the unborn'
June 11, 2009 12:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
He's not just praying for Obama to die--he's doing it publicly, which to me means he's preaching for someone to do it.
June 11, 2009 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think if we want the hate to stop that we have to all look within ourselves first. Take the hate and prejudice out of our own hearts.
Obama is a part of the religious community. Many of the African-Americans who voted for Obama are actually Baptists.
It's unfair to judge the whole by a few extremists. There are religious people in this country who donated, volunteered and voted for Obama and the Democrats. There are many religious Americans who practice tolerance in their faith and are concerned with other issues instead of abortion and gay marriage. And most of the people who have strong feelings against abortion do not condone killing a doctor.
Yes, the violence by radicals and extremists is increasing, but we can't discuss the increase of hate and at the same time accuse the religious people in this country of being cheerleaders to violence and murder.
More tolerance and understanding is needed on both sides.
June 11, 2009 1:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think we can stop it. It has to come from their side, including the MSM.
June 11, 2009 4:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Are we going to have to wait until one of these loons gets his hands on some fertilzer and fuel oil and takes out hundreds the MSM says "enough is enough" to jolly ol' Rushbo, the dramatic Beck, and the little black dress clad Coulter rather than calling them "great guests" and "entertainers" and "always provocative?""
It wasn't enough the last time. The media will never, WILL NEVER, own up to fact that their cohorts on the far right of the opinion spectrum are fomenting violent, anarchic rebellion against a duly elected government. Their ratings model depends on the rhetorical fireworks that these provocateurs provide.
Well, maybe after an attack that kills thousands and results in widespread rioting and further bloodshed, they'll issue a mea culpa like they did after cheerleading us into the debacle in Iraq.
June 10, 2009 11:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Last time, there was no TPM, no DailyKos, No Media Matters, no HuffPo (and, in fact, Arianna was a bit of a right wing nut herself, at the time), no alternative media voice of any particular strength.
Then, the MSM created, and pretty much completely defined, the national narrative. Now, the MSM is on the ropes and the blogs do have the power to affect the narrative. It's slow. It's like trying to change the course of a fully loaded supertanker, but would we have heard anything about, just by way of example, the Downing Street Memo and the U.S. Attorney firing scandal if the MSM still had a monopoly on the narrative?
June 11, 2009 7:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
True, which is why we matter. We need to keep talking about this. And pushing that it is irresponsible to spew hate when so many believe what they are told.
June 11, 2009 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wonderful summary.
Here's what I was wondering after Tiller's murder, and has come to mind again. At what point are O'Reilly, Rush, and Coulter (and all the nut jobs on Free Republic), in the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes, shouting "Fire" in a crowded theater? In other words, at what point does their right to free speech conflict with society's rights to defend itself?
All rights have their limits. We have the right to bear arms, but we don't have the right to own automatic weapons or howitzers. We have the right to free speech, but we don't have the right to threaten or intimidate our neighbors.
I'm pretty liberal (and pretty close to an absolutist) on the First Amendment, and it bothers me that I'm even thinking this. I don't want us to have to go this route, but, as you asked so well NCSteve, How Many More?
June 11, 2009 8:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm close to being a free speech absolutist myself. As a private citizen, I have the right to suggest to my fellow citizens that they should open up a can of STFU, and I've exercised it on occaision, but I'll be damned if I'll put up with the government doing it.
Under Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298 (1957) the line is drawn at incitement to action as opposed to mere advocacy of ideas. That test gets applied in a fashion that many lay people find to be a surprisingly literal fashion. There isn't a lot of interpretive wiggle room.
"I want everyone who hears me to get a gun and meet me at City Hall" would be incitement. "Somebody ought to do something about those no account bums at City Hall! They're destroying everything good and decent in this city. Whatever it takes, that's what I say!" wouldn't.
The hate-spewers understand perfectly well where the line is drawn and they toe it as closely as they can with out crossing it.
But this is also why the guys who make their living spewing the toxic waste that's been poisoning the airwaves for the last twenty years have been bleating about the nonexistent evil librul plot to restore the Fairness Doctrine since last summer. Murdoch, LaPierre and their cohorts in the business of selling lunacy know exactly what they're doing. There is an inexhaustible market for apocalyptic hate-porn. There's nothing those people love more than listening to and reading opinions that confirm what their own prejudices are already telling them. The only problem is that the hate and fear merchants have to keep escalating the rhetoric to keep the customers interested. They have lots of competition on the Internet, and if Beck's rhetoric isn't strong enough to light up Billy Joe Goober's pleasure center anymore, he can always log on to Freeper or order the Turner Diaries. That's Murdoch's competition for Billy Joe's eyeballs and so, sadly, Rupert has no choice but to give Billy Joe what he wants or he'll just go get it elsewhere.
These guys are businessmen. They know how this works and what they're doing so they've long understood perfectly well that, at some point, the fury they're whipping up to sell their soap and NRA memberships is going to boil over into acts of violence and that could eventually trigger a public outcry for an accountability moment.
Hence the "Fairness Doctrine" conspiracy theory. They're laying the groundwork with their consumers, and the MSM, to argue "See, see? We told you those radical liberals were going to try to suppress our sacred right to free speech! What we're doing is perfectly legal and, therefore, good for the country. This is how it started in Nazi Germany, you know!"
June 11, 2009 9:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent post, (formerly) NCSteve. Arguing against the Fairness Doctrine as an infringement on speech is ironic considering it was in effect during all of those salad days that conservatives wax nostalgic about.
The Fairness Doctrine was repealed in '87. Shortly thereafter, Limbaugh and the RW conspiracy radio sprang to life with paranoid ravings about black helicopters and Clinton murders. This birthed the anti-government militia movement. Roeder, the murderer of Dr. Tiller, was a fanatical member of one of the Freeman groups (and let's not forget little Timmy McVeigh).
It seems like this anti-government fanaticism has been kept in storage somewhere, waiting to be dragged out the moment Democrats took over leadership. The DHS report released a few weeks ago warning law enforcement to watch these groups (a report begun before Bush left office) was no joke. But how did the RW rabble-rousers respond? They claimed it was proof that the government was targeting them.
June 11, 2009 1:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
"These guys are businessmen. They know how this works and what they're doing so they've long understood perfectly well that, at some point, the fury they're whipping up to sell their soap and NRA memberships is going to boil over into acts of violence and that could eventually trigger a public outcry for an accountability moment."
Yes. Or to help start a war to sell more newspapers, like WR Hearst and the Spanish-American War.
June 11, 2009 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
A very well presented post, Steve.
Since the murder of Dr. Tiller I've wondering whether media voices of hate and their corporate masters could have civil liability for such a murder. I suppose, it would require evidence that the perpetrator had been influenced by those voices, but to what degree do they have to have been influenced? Is there a legal standard in place? I don't see much else reigning in the hate talk.
I have another question I hope someone can answer with authority. From a criminal law perspective, how does the behavior on FOX and right-wing talk radio differ from an "incitement to riot"? Is it a matter of kind, or only a matter of degree?
June 11, 2009 9:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
See my prior post.
As to civil liability, the gold standard would be the case the the SPLC used to break the Klan. Problem is that in that case, you had the Klan leadership and the editors of their publican talking specifically to its own members. Today, by contrast, there is just so much of this hate porn out there, coming from so many sources, that it would likely be impossible to show causation, either actual causation, much less proximate cause.
The only answer I see is the power of public shaming, bad P.R. and skittish commercial sponsorships. It starts by people saying "enough!" And hopefully it doesn't take Oklahoma City or another Dallas to get it started.
June 11, 2009 10:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
There it is! THAT is exactly what we can do and should do. Follow the money and choke it off. Laugh anytime someone mentions O'Reilly et al, and say, "I would never watch them. Their thoughts and attitudes are not far removed from cavemen."
June 11, 2009 1:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
That will help, but it's not going to be enough.
You probably have relatives, friends of friends, co-workers or co-religionists who adhere to some elements of these beliefs, to some degree. I think that we all do - I know I do.
You have to engage them. We have to take the time to not simply say "you're fucking nuts." We've got to take the things they parrot and offer evidence that rebuts it, point out where those beliefs violate their own codes of conduct and self-interest.
Point out the lies long enough - when they are lies - and people stop having faith in the sources.
It isn't quick, or easy, or enjoyable, and you will alienate some of them, and you will be verbally abused and maybe physically abused and at the end of the day most days, you'll have nothing to show for it other than having tried.
But it beats doing nothing.
June 11, 2009 2:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kenga, In prior comments I have said the same thing as you just did, but that was weeks ago and we need to remind ourselves. There are a million little battles to be won in the public arena, removed from the stage. Silence is not an option when someone is spreading lies and distortions. Sometimes, whlie we respond to the lies, it is those who hear and replies, not those to whom they are directed, that have their eyes opened. There are situations where diplomacy works and I do encourage them and have done so successfully. And there are other times where it wil get me now where, so I just want to scream how incredibly stupid they are and pretty much do. I'm not perfect all the time, but sometimes.....
June 11, 2009 7:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Right is not and never has been in the business of covering news. They are about promoting their version of what the want the news to be. Calling it like it is, is not in their vocabulary. If an abortion doctor, or even a President for that matter, gets killed along the way, so be it! As long as they can make money on the coverage of it. In my opinion, politicians have sold this country out completely by, allowing companies like Clear Channel and Ruppert Murdoch to control the airways and leasing our lives to the Chinese government. That's what crazies on the right should be upset about.
June 11, 2009 10:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
TPMtv has another video of Shep Smith. This time he is talking to a reporter about the DHS extremist memos that went out earlier in the year that caused so much upset on the right.
The reporter notes that yesterday's shooting was done by a veteran, which was one of the features of the right wing extremist memo. Never mind that Fox trashed the memo at the time, because now they think it perhaps deserves a second look.
I hadn't heard that Social Security has been cut, which is supposedly what led this crazy to go to the Museum toting his gun.
June 11, 2009 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
(To start here, just scan the Fox News site for a review of today's various news and opinion titles and subjects - then come back).
http://www.foxnews.com/
The fundamental fact for all these recent headline criminals (and their enablers and implicit suporters in the national commentariat) is that the world has fallen out from under their feet in the Revolution of 2008. PRESIDENT Obama and a strong Democratic Congressional majority (with all the social baggage that implies), emerging out of thin air seemingly overnight, is literally more than the worst of them can process or accept. The challenged economic circumstances we are ALL coping-with at the moment, and the strong unconventional measures the President has taken to deal with them, only aggravate that inherent problem.
We have an extraordinarily dangerous moment where a PERMANENTLY changed reality collides with an assertive subset that is incapable of adjusting itself to that change, and has unhinged itself on the idea that the national political environment no longer validates its deepest conceptions: Self-righteous; inflexible; deeply 'principled'; intolerant of loss; concluding in spite of knowledge rather than because of it; inherently angry, fearful, and(at best)borderline violent; incapable of reflection, doubt, learning, or forgetting.
We are in for some hard times here, and I doubt there is any way around it except thru it.
I think the best we can do is to try to set a better example within ourselves: Moderate our own absolutist impulses, make a sincere effort to understand other LEGITIMATE points-of-view, try to reach those who are reachable, and live more honorable, peaceful, and compassionate lives.
June 11, 2009 10:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm responding with a certain amount of trepidation because sharing one's thoughts with strangers in writing, as we do here, can make a person feel vulnerable and responses can sting more than they should. Thing is, I really agree with everything you've said here. I think your comment is bang-on and probably worthy of a blog of its own. But, by way of sincerely well-intended criticism, when I read a post that has single words in all caps, my mental narrator SHOUTS the capped word to me because I've internalized the Internet convention that all caps = shouting. And, well, when someone talks and shouts single words at random, it just kind of unfairly undercuts the commenter's credibility.
June 11, 2009 10:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
I do EXACTLY the same thing, but it is for emphasis, not intended as shouting... like accenting the dominate syllable in a word, just like I would do in a face to face conversation.
June 11, 2009 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Possibly I'm just confusing a very petty peeve from the heyday of Usenet with an actual problem.
June 11, 2009 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I sure hope so, 'cuz it is so ingrained in my writing, I don't know if I'm even CAPABLE of stopping, and I HATE being offensive!!!
June 11, 2009 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great insights you've shared here.
I agree in part with what you're saying... but while what you're suggestion as to how we deal with this is pretty good overall, the reality is we have to present and respond appropriately.
Sometimes anger and action is called for and it may not agree with being 'peaceful' etc. I just guard against the idea, especially when it comes to dealing with 'abusers' that we can always just respond peacefully. I am not the Dalai Lama and it didn't really work for Tibet... for example. Being 'skillful' in all ways and learning to become more skillful in working toward ideals is called for.
I appreciate the recognition that what is going on is a reflection of discomfort and fear, feelings of losing control that has been experienced by some from the changes that have been taking place.
June 11, 2009 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just so. The very best part of an excellent comment.
Indeed, charity does begin at home. We must moderate our own discussions first.
June 11, 2009 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed, with this proviso: We also need to be significantly less tolerant of those who would use tolerance as a vehicle for their own agenda of disrupting and destroying the society that tolerates them Openness and acceptance are good ideas, so long as they do not become suicidal obliviousness to real dangers.
June 11, 2009 12:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for putting this all together. It's disconcerting to see all these "little things" composing a picture. I'm curious how long it will take for some sort of organizing to go on in this climate. First you get the unhinged doing seemingly random acts. Will or when will groups start working together in this climate of hate that's building?
June 11, 2009 12:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Go spend a little time on the Southern Poverty Law Center website and then plan on taking a sleeping pill tonight. There's been a growing ideological and organizational fusion between the militia movement, the Christian Identity and other Fourth Reich types, the radical anti-abortion movement members, the Dominionists, and the older racist groups like the Klans for years and its been accelerating.
June 11, 2009 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
What about the culpability of the people he was communicating with by e-mail and on the internet? Is there no duty to report someone who was so clearly (and openly) heading towards a violent act?
And the comparison between the FBI "infiltrating" i.e. entrapment of the Newburgh Knuckleheads vs. the hands of approach to these right wing extremists is just appalling. Terrorism is terrorism - whether the victims are muslim or anti-abortion or anti-semitic or supremacists. Maybe they can focus on actual extremists versus trying to snag headlines by creating them where they did not exist.
June 11, 2009 12:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
err, that should be "whether the perpetrators are muslim or anti-abortion or anti-semitic or supremacists."
June 11, 2009 12:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Too true. Surely there's now at least enough cover for the FBI to be able to devote the same kind of resources to the violent extremist right that they do to, say, the Earth Liberation Front. It needs to be done notwithstanding the fundraising boost the first indictments will give Wayne LaPierre.
June 11, 2009 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ahead of the presidential election in Iran, a Port Louis weapons broker, on behalf of a foreign government, is reported as offering for urgent sale the following WMD
1187 No. Tellar-Ulam 1 megaton thermonuclear fission bombs &
520 No. Jericho III High Impact ballistic missiles c/w nuclear warheads
which are now surplus to requirements.
Best cash offer over US$ 2.5m FOB will be accepted
Bids sought immediately for immediate delivery by FedEX
Successful bidder will be also entitled to receive 1000 complimentary cluster bombs plus 22 type F16 aircraft delivered FOC with main shipment
Note: no pre-qualification necessary
June 11, 2009 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's appalling that reporters, journalists, and the MSM so completely swallow the "lone wolf" narrative whenever a domestic terrorist murders someone.
The only sliver of light that exists now, that didn't in 1995, is the power of blogs. If the only source of information available was the MSM, we'd all be lulled into thinking that the murders that have occurred are just random acts by lone nutjobs. Small consolation, though.
June 11, 2009 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
They only swallow it when the perp is a winger. If the perp is a leftist, a Muslim or some one who's not lilly white, they'll fall all over themselves to provide scary context.
June 11, 2009 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
dljamo: It was the search for terrorists that sucked us into Afghanistan and Iraq. And that search leads only to a black hole in the center of human existence. There is no end to it, because...
Yes, Kate0 and wwstaebler, there is a hate gene.
But the problem is it's in all of us. There is, in fact, some evidence of its existence in our discussion here today.
If I were a Baptist, which I'm not, but pretty close to it because I am a Christian, I would be offended at being included in the same group with any speaker would pray for the death of our esteemed President.
Thank you, Debra, for rising to the defense of those of us who find our identity in the "religious community." Thank you, especially, for pointing out to our gentle readers this truth:
"Many of the African-Americans who voted for Obama are actually Baptists. It's unfair to judge the whole by a few extremists."
We religious folks are the ones who espouse this principle: "Thou shalt not kill." (There you have it, wwstaeblerdirectly from a member of the religious community.) It's a commandment brought forth through Moses long ago; it's prohibition was reinforced by Jesus when he expanded the definition "murder" to include hate.
But getting back to KateO's hate gene. It's in all of us, and it cannot be removed by genetic engineering or social engineering. It can be curbed, in a limited sort of way, by establishing laws to punish hate crimes and speech; but it cannot be eradicated by human law because it's a part of who we are. As Pogo says: "We have met the enemy and he is us." We would have to punish or incarcerate all of us. But one gentle soul took that punishment already for all us...never mind
Only the Spirit of God, a presence of truth and holiness, can defeat that beast within. That may sound naive and religious to you, but that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
Moving right along. The "warrior" gene that you mentioned, flowerchild is not the same as the hate gene (original sin) because that "warrior" gene was resident in the brave yanks and our Allies who busted into into Nazi territory back in '45 and beat the hell out of their Third Reich asses and scared their Feuhrer to death, the last time they raised their depraved supremecist heads in a gargantuan beastly way.
There's a good side of humanity, though, speaking of which... thank you to one_wilson for the sound advice about moderating "our absolutist impulses," etc., even if you did use caps and upset our narrator, speaking of whom...
Thank you, formerlyNCSteve, for posting this, hosting this discussion, and especially for the informative lesson and example from Justice Holmes inYates v. United States.
Carey Rowland, author of Glass half-Full
June 11, 2009 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
You describe the situation well,NC. I would only disagree when you say it's a racial issue. I see it as more all encompassing than that. I've heard about a book recently that I have ordered and believe might explain my view of what's going on. The title is The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right by David Neiwert.
This excerpt from a Publishers Weekly review describes the content:
The author writes the Orcinus blog.The far right has become intolerant, not of any one race or idea, but of anything and anyone who doesn't believe the same way they believe. What's more, they cannot abide living in the same sphere with the *others*. Further, I believe there is nothing we on this side can say or do to change them We can stop giving into them like Harry Reid tends to do. But that won't change them.
June 11, 2009 4:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please see my comment near the top of the thread.
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/the_commenter_formerly_known_as_ncsteve/2009/06/how-many-more.php#comment-3494862
It may sound too dramatic, what I wrote, but it is not an exaggeration. I live uncomfortably close to these people...I am everything they hate and I feel it when I am in their presence. Like I mentioned in a comment on another thread, there are towns/areas around here I won't visit.
So, when you read the book you ordered, please do not dismiss what you might think over the top writing. "Eliminationists" sounds about as close to their reality as it can get.
June 12, 2009 8:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
In response to my own question above, asking where the religious community was on this, I wanted to report that this afternoon an interfaith services was held outside the Holocaust Museum, with ministers, rabbis, and leaders from many faiths condemning the violence and praying for the victim's family. Very moving.
June 11, 2009 6:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
The reason your beloved Clinton News Network and All Barack Channel don't really care about these shootings is because they're insignificant compared to how many lives guns save every year.
Here's a link to get you started:
http://gunowners.org/sk0802.htm
June 21, 2009 12:00 AM | Reply | Permalink