Far-Right-Wing Violence since January 2008

[Sector 7]

If somebody listens to Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow, then goes batshit and kills someone, you wouldn't say *they* were responsible, would you?

If either one of them alluded to taking back the government using a second amendment option...perhaps.

I agree. I equate the escalated rhetoric as putting more logs on a bed of coals. The feelings were already smoldering and the rhetoric fuels it to an ever hotter fire.

I would remind those posting their own harsh rhetoric to heed our president's voice of reason. Let us live up to the ideals of the nine year old child killed in this attack. Let our discourse be reasonable and tolerant of others.

 

[Gaith]

The Weather Underground
The Symbionese Liberation Army
The Unabomber
The Earth Liberation Front
The Black Panther Party
Puerto Rican Nationalists
Anti-Globalization activists

The Unabomber wasn't a leftist.

When in the past generation did the Weather Underground murder a Holocaust museum guard? When did the ELA murder a nine-year-old girl?

I would remind those posting their own harsh rhetoric to heed our president's voice of reason. Let us live up to the ideals of the nine year old child killed in this attack. Let our discourse be reasonable and tolerant of others.

No. There's a difference between harsh and openly violent rhetoric, and it isn't the former from either side that's the problem; it's the latter, and it's only coming from the right in this country.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I thought it was the "People's Front of Judea??!!"

SPLITTERS!!

 

[Chaos Descending]

The Unabomber wasn't a leftist.

Say what?

On what planet does a pro-environmental anti-industrialist not count as a leftist?

 

[Gaith]

... When it's Al Qaeda, for one.

Also, anti-industrialism isn't a leftist ideology, and right-wingers claim to be pro-environment - GWB called himself a "good steward of the land." Moreover, unlike Loughner and many others on the above list, Kazynski's targets weren't political.

And, unlike many of the Fox/Beck/Rush listeners in the OP list, he wasn't a devotee of any particular mass-media political ideology.

So no, not a leftist. Try again.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Richard Nixon was responsible for the EPA and the Clean Air Act, among other things.

 

[Chaos Descending]

... When it's Al Qaeda, for one.

Also, anti-industrialism isn't a leftist ideology, and right-wingers claim to be pro-environment - GWB called himself a "good steward of the land." Moreover, unlike Loughner and many others on the above list, Kazynski's targets weren't political.

And, unlike many of the Fox/Beck/Rush listeners in the OP list, he wasn't a devotee of any particular mass-media political ideology.

So no, not a leftist. Try again.

Forgive me for not taking your word for it, but that's bunk.

 

[RJDiogenes]

The Unabomber was an Anarchist and anti-Leftist, as per his "Manifesto."

 

[Gaith]

... When it's Al Qaeda, for one.

Also, anti-industrialism isn't a leftist ideology, and right-wingers claim to be pro-environment - GWB called himself a "good steward of the land." Moreover, unlike Loughner and many others on the above list, Kazynski's targets weren't political.

And, unlike many of the Fox/Beck/Rush listeners in the OP list, he wasn't a devotee of any particular mass-media political ideology.

So no, not a leftist. Try again.

Forgive me for not taking your word for it, but that's bunk.

I didn't ask you to. Look it up. Learn something.

 

[Chaos Descending]

I didn't ask you to. Look it up. Learn something.

Condescension is cute and all, but you have nothing to teach me.

The Unabomber was an Anarchist and anti-Leftist, as per his "Manifesto."

I could call myself a unicorn if I so chose, but if I went around complaining that unions are the root of all evil, that we need to give tax breaks to corporations and do away with the minimum wage, I think you might just paint me as a right-winger.

Likewise, the Unabomber railed against techno-industrialism and started bombing when they began "hurting the environment" and seemed to have a serious beef against coal plants and global warming. You can call a pig a cat, but if it still wallows in the mud and oinks, well, that's all on you.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Well, if you want him to be a Leftist that badly, that's up to you. But he is pretty much universally considered an Anarchist. Probably the only people who would call him are a Leftist are the same people who want Nazis to be Socialists.

 

[Chaos Descending]

I hope you do understand that the majority of anarchists are left wingers.

Anarchism is often considered to be a radical left-wing ideology,[8][9] and much of anarchist economics and anarchist legal philosophy reflect anti-statist interpretations of communism, collectivism, syndicalism or participatory economics. However, anarchism has always included an individualist strain [10] supporting a market economy and private property, or morally unrestrained egoism.[11][12] Some individualist anarchists are also socialists.[13][14]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism

 

[Gaith]

In this country, anarchists are more weirdoes than anything, there are so few of them, and they have no voice whatsoever. But gun-loving "revolutionary" types who think "the government" is out to take away their hunting rifles, health care and, if they're white, jobs? Not only are there thousands of times more, they get deliberate and overt encouragement from Big Media.

You're really comparing roast beef to Thursday.





Also: Kaczinski: one guy, fifteen years ago.

July 2008: A gunman agitated at how “liberals” are “destroying America” kills two and wounds four at a Unitarian church.

October 2008: Two neo-Nazis are arrested in Tennessee for a plot to murder Barack Obama and dozens of other African-Americans.


December 2008: A father-son team involved in the “patriot” movement try to extort a bank with a homemade bomb; they end up killing two police officers.


January 2009: A white supremacist in Brockton, Mass., rapes a black woman, kills her sister and a homeless man, and is captured while en route to a Jewish community center.


April 2009: A white supremacist and gun nut kills three Pittsburgh cops because he believed conspiracy theories about President Obama taking away his guns. He had been posting Glenn Beck videos on a neo-Nazi website.


May 2009: Another right-wing crazy in Okaloosa County, Fla., also fearing his guns would be confiscated, kills two cops before being shot dead.


June 2009: A Holocaust denier and right-wing tax protester kills a security guard at the Holocaust Museum.


July 2009: A woman takes a break from posting Glenn Beck videos on her MySpace page to case an Air National Guard Base in Long Island. Upon her arrest, authorities find an assault rifle, a shotgun and 500 rounds of ammo in her car.


August 2009: A man in Collier Township, just south of Pittsburgh, walks into a women’s aerobics class and kills three women. His diary states, “Good luck to Obama! He will be successful. The liberal media LOVES him. Amerika has chosen The Black Man. Good!”


February 2010: An anti-government tax protester flies his plane into the IRS building in Austin, Texas, killing himself and one other.


March 2010: Seven militiamen in Michigan and Ohio are arrested for plotting to assassinate local police officers to spark a new civil war. This is also the month that an anti-government extremist walks into the Pentagon and opens fire, wounding two, before being shot dead.


May 2010: A mosque in Jacksonville, Fla., is firebombed.


July 2010: A Glenn Beck fanatic loads his car with weapons and drives to the Bay Area to attack the offices of the Tides Foundation and ACLU. He is wounded in a shootout along with the patrolmen after they intercept him on a routine traffic stop.


September 2010: A Concord, N.C., man who refers to himself as the “Christian counterpart to bin Laden” is arrested and charged with plotting to blow up an abortion clinic.

These guys: at least fourteen people, in the past two years - before Loughner.







Kacynski: not a follower of any mainstream political figure.

April 2009: A white supremacist and gun nut kills three Pittsburgh cops because he believed conspiracy theories about President Obama taking away his guns. He had been posting Glenn Beck videos on a neo-Nazi website.

July 2009: A woman takes a break from posting Glenn Beck videos on her MySpace page to case an Air National Guard Base in Long Island. Upon her arrest, authorities find an assault rifle, a shotgun and 500 rounds of ammo in her car.

July 2010: A Glenn Beck fanatic loads his car with weapons and drives to the Bay Area to attack the offices of the Tides Foundation and ACLU. He is wounded in a shootout along with the patrolmen after they intercept him on a routine traffic stop.

If you don't see a pattern, you're either biased or not paying attention.

 

[Chaos Descending]

Who said I didn't see a pattern? I commented on one thing so that means I disagreed with everything? Why not allow ME to state my own positions, thanks.

 

[Gaith]

Fair enough. Apologies. (But not to Laser Beam or Rage..., to whom the above observation definitely applies.)

 

[Chaos Descending]

No worries.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The Unabomber wasn't a leftist.

Say what?

On what planet does a pro-environmental anti-industrialist not count as a leftist?

Actually he takes it in turn to act as a sort of executive officer for the week. But all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a simple biweekly meeting...

 

[RJDiogenes]

I hope you do understand that the majority of anarchists are left wingers.

Anarchism is often considered to be a radical left-wing ideology,[8][9] and much of anarchist economics and anarchist legal philosophy reflect anti-statist interpretations of communism, collectivism, syndicalism or participatory economics. However, anarchism has always included an individualist strain [10] supporting a market economy and private property, or morally unrestrained egoism.[11][12] Some individualist anarchists are also socialists.[13][14]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism

That's interesting, since Left Wingers want big government and Anarchists want no government. Evidently, the term "interpretations" is key to that definition, because I don't see any realistic correlation. In any case, Unabomber was no Left Winger-- and even if he was, it doesn't make much difference. As pointed out before, there have been a handful of domestic Left Wing terrorists and terrorist groups, but nothing on the scale of the Right Wing.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

Fair enough. Apologies. (But not to Laser Beam or Rage..., to whom the above observation definitely applies.)

The problem I have with your approach is the problem I have whenever someone tries to convince me that one side(ironically always their side) is on the side of the angels and the other side is on the side of pure evil. It usually comes from an entirely subjective and biased not to mention often skewed standpoint.

Nowhere in his post does Moulitsas attempt to provide an actual link between individual statements and individual action. He simply believes the rhetoric of Palin, Beck, et al. is hateful, ties together a number of highly disparate crimes under one banner, and says they are responsible. Peoples motivations and actions are simply far too complex to be summed up in a simple analysis like whet you posted. To say that speech A leads to action B requires a lot more sophisticated presentation of peoples psychology.

Heated and and at times blatantly malicious political rhetoric has always existed in this country from day one. There is no bit of rhetoric you can bring up from someone that I cannot find an almost exact corollary statement from the other side. Moulitsas himself was involved in a similar controversy awhile back. A charge leveled by members of the right a few years back was that anti-war statements emboldened the combatants in Iraq. When Moulitsas said that contractors killed in Iraq got what they deserved was he adding to a climate of violence against Americans in Iraq. Why not, the principle is the same

Even some of Moulitsas own examples actually dispute his point.

The Mosque bombing: There have been hundred if not thousands of church bombings in the history of this country for numerous reasons. There was a rash of church fires in the south a few years ago. Can I blame that on the rhetoric of the "New Atheists"?

The IRS plane bomber: was not an "anti-government, tax protester". He was an individual who held a personal grudge against the IRS because he believed they had financially ruined him. His letter railed against big business as well.

The Collier township shooting: the individual behind the shooting had deep seated issues with sexual inadequacy and frustration. His rage was largely targeted towards women who he felt an immense amount of rage towards.

Not to mention that trying to frame white supremacist violence as a new phenomena that can be tied to political rhetoric is just silly.

Again Moulitsas is simply looking for anything he can possibly represent as political violence to try and make a point. As i said these things go in cycles and yes I do believe we are currently in a phase where the right has the lions share of crazies of crazies in it. I think the opposite was true in the 80s when hysteria pitch erupted over Reagan. it's all two sides of the same coin.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

I hope you do understand that the majority of anarchists are left wingers.

Anarchism is often considered to be a radical left-wing ideology,[8][9] and much of anarchist economics and anarchist legal philosophy reflect anti-statist interpretations of communism, collectivism, syndicalism or participatory economics. However, anarchism has always included an individualist strain [10] supporting a market economy and private property, or morally unrestrained egoism.[11][12] Some individualist anarchists are also socialists.[13][14]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism

That's interesting, since Left Wingers want big government and Anarchists want no government. Evidently, the term "interpretations" is key to that definition, because I don't see any realistic correlation. In any case, Unabomber was no Left Winger-- and even if he was, it doesn't make much difference. As pointed out before, there have been a handful of domestic Left Wing terrorists and terrorist groups, but nothing on the scale of the Right Wing.

Left-wing anarchism is not individualist though as right-wing anarchism is. Left-wing anarchism simply believes that government is an impediment to the natural mass social relationships that will develop without it. Ironically anarchism doesn't believe in government but it does believe in mass social institutions.