I have noted a number of times that it is my belief that the Christianists and other elements of the political far right, whether intentionally or not, create an atmosphere and mindset that justifies violence and terrorism - at least in the minds of the mentally unstable. The recent tragedy in Norway is a case in point where Anders Breivik found countless messages of support for his warped and deadly views all across the conservative blogosphere. Indeed, the U.S. far right's aversion to rational gun control even set thew stage so that Breivik could buy the automatic ammunition that was illegal in Norway. A piece at Crooks and Liars looks at the continued failure in the USA to take far right terrorism seriously. Worse yet, the media continues to treat those who have hate and division as their principal stock in trade with kid gloves. One only need to observe the unchallenged deference given to mouth pieces of hate groups like Tony Perkins by the mainstream media for but one illustration of the problem. Here are some highlights from the article:*
[Y]ou have to wonder when the media will wake up and realize that their operative paradigm for understanding terrorism is broken. As we observed this morning about the attacks: It's also a sobering reminder that, while we've been obsessing nationally over the supposed threat of Islamist radicals -- embodied by Peter King's haplessly myopic hearings on domestic terrorism -- the reality remains that right-wing extremist terrorism remains the most potent domestic-terrorism threat in America as well.
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Indeed, the number of violent domestic-terrorism incidents has been steadily rising for the past two years, but the threat has gone largely ignored. Indeed, the Obama administration has kowtowed to right-wing complaints by gutting our own government's intelligence-gathering capacities in this area.
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Charles Pierce has a piece in this month's Esquire describing how, indeed, "the truth is, the overwhelming majority of our terrorism has always been homegrown. And it is times like these — times of anger and disaffection — when we turn on ourselves, and kill" (and he gives our work a nice shout-out, too):
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At the beginning of this year, not long after they'd found the bomb on the bench in Spokane, a journalist named David Neiwert put together a list of nearly thirty acts of right-wing political violence that had taken place, or had been foiled, in the United States since the summer of 2008 — or roughly since Barack Obama's presidency began to be seen as a genuine possibility. The list began with Jim David Adkisson, who killed two people in a Unitarian church in Tennessee because he was angry at how "liberals" were "destroying America." It included two episodes in April 2009, one in Pittsburgh and one in Florida, in which men who were sure that Barack Obama's government was coming for their guns opened fire on law-enforcement officers who had come to investigate them on other matters.
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Some of the crimes on the list were briefly sensational — Scott Roeder's murder of Dr. George Tiller in Wichita, or Joseph Andrew Stack's flying his small plane into a building in Austin in protest of the Internal Revenue Service, or the incoherent array of violent crimes committed by the "Sovereign Citizens Movement." But most of them barely made the national radar at all.
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The list of right wing terrorist incidents can be found here. The cited Esquire piece is also informative and frightening. Together, the list and the Esquire article demonstrate that Breivik has plenty of company in the far right fringe that seems consumed with hatred of immigrants, minorities, liberals, and the government in general. The bigger question is when will the USA see an attack on the magnitude of what struck Norway a little over a week ago. Fore more on hate groups, the Southern Poverty Law Center has this site which notes as follows:
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The Southern Poverty Law Center counted 1,002 active hate groups in the United States in 2010. Only organizations and their chapters known to be active during 2010 are included. All hate groups have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.
[Y]ou have to wonder when the media will wake up and realize that their operative paradigm for understanding terrorism is broken. As we observed this morning about the attacks: It's also a sobering reminder that, while we've been obsessing nationally over the supposed threat of Islamist radicals -- embodied by Peter King's haplessly myopic hearings on domestic terrorism -- the reality remains that right-wing extremist terrorism remains the most potent domestic-terrorism threat in America as well.
*
Indeed, the number of violent domestic-terrorism incidents has been steadily rising for the past two years, but the threat has gone largely ignored. Indeed, the Obama administration has kowtowed to right-wing complaints by gutting our own government's intelligence-gathering capacities in this area.
*
Charles Pierce has a piece in this month's Esquire describing how, indeed, "the truth is, the overwhelming majority of our terrorism has always been homegrown. And it is times like these — times of anger and disaffection — when we turn on ourselves, and kill" (and he gives our work a nice shout-out, too):
*
At the beginning of this year, not long after they'd found the bomb on the bench in Spokane, a journalist named David Neiwert put together a list of nearly thirty acts of right-wing political violence that had taken place, or had been foiled, in the United States since the summer of 2008 — or roughly since Barack Obama's presidency began to be seen as a genuine possibility. The list began with Jim David Adkisson, who killed two people in a Unitarian church in Tennessee because he was angry at how "liberals" were "destroying America." It included two episodes in April 2009, one in Pittsburgh and one in Florida, in which men who were sure that Barack Obama's government was coming for their guns opened fire on law-enforcement officers who had come to investigate them on other matters.
*
Some of the crimes on the list were briefly sensational — Scott Roeder's murder of Dr. George Tiller in Wichita, or Joseph Andrew Stack's flying his small plane into a building in Austin in protest of the Internal Revenue Service, or the incoherent array of violent crimes committed by the "Sovereign Citizens Movement." But most of them barely made the national radar at all.
*
The list of right wing terrorist incidents can be found here. The cited Esquire piece is also informative and frightening. Together, the list and the Esquire article demonstrate that Breivik has plenty of company in the far right fringe that seems consumed with hatred of immigrants, minorities, liberals, and the government in general. The bigger question is when will the USA see an attack on the magnitude of what struck Norway a little over a week ago. Fore more on hate groups, the Southern Poverty Law Center has this site which notes as follows:
*
The Southern Poverty Law Center counted 1,002 active hate groups in the United States in 2010. Only organizations and their chapters known to be active during 2010 are included. All hate groups have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.
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