FLAMEFANNING

I was going to post something to the following effect back in January but I didn't. I wish I had, as it might have made me look prescient.

This is going to be a long four-to-eight years. If you're on the bunker-dwelling fringe of the right, I can only imagine the extent to which you believe your own personal endtimes have arrived. The election of Obama must be seen by militiamen as an angry bull sees a waving red flag – liberal, black, "foreign-sounding" name, insufficiently Christian (or secretly Muslim), fan of the U.N., in favor of gun control legislation…well, it's no wonder that some of these people think we have elected the antichrist. When the left is out of power, they do two things: whine and scheme to get back in power. On the right, the preferred option of 99% of conservatives is to whine. The remaining 1% start loading the guns and picking targets.

During the Clinton years we had the Waco siege, Timothy McVeigh, the Olympic bombing (by a pro-life extremist), and a revitalization of the neo-Nazi and nationalist right. In the past year we've had a man go on a shooting spree to kill as many liberals as possible while another murdered three police officers because he was convinced that Obama was coming to take his guns away. Think it's unfair to pick out these "isolated" examples? Fine. Find me one example of a liberal snapping and rushing off to "kill as many conservatives as possible until the cops kill me." Go on. I'll wait.

Republicans get elected and the worst that happens to America is some shrill rhetoric, empty threats to move to Canada, and the occasional public protest.
online pharmacy amoxil best drugstore for you

Democrats get elected and the right instantly goes over the edge; we get Federal courthouse bombings and shooting sprees. These incidents, I'm afraid, won't be the only ones of their kind during the Obama years. I worry that we're going to have another Oklahoma City.
buy bactroban online buy bactroban no prescription

I worry that we're going to see more unhinged white guys who dabble in neo-Nazi circles snapping and going on shooting sprees. I worry that someone's going to take a shot at the President. I worry because I think all of these things are virtually assured to happen in the next four or eight years.

My Instaputz colleague BT opined that people like Glenn Beck and Wayne LaPierre of the NRA have blood on their hands as a result of their shameless scaremongering and willingness to fan the flames of far-right hysteria. I'm of two minds. On one hand, I think Mr. Pittsburgh Cop Killer was getting his paranoia from much harder sources than the mainstream media and the NRA – news reports indicate that he frequented white supremacist web haven Stormfront and numerous conspiracy fringe sites. I doubt that the plain ol' conservative right was strident enough for him.

On the other hand, it's not unreasonable to accuse the conservative punditry of irresponsibility at best and incitement at worst. Listen to Michelle Bachmann's insane ass:

And the real concern is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums.

Now, does that sound like a responsible thing for a Member of Congress to say when fully aware of the fact that there are extremists with a history of violence who are currently at the end of their psychological ropes? Is it responsible for Glenn Beck to make excuses for spree killers by pointing out that "political correctness" can drive any reasonable person to go on a rampage? Is it prudent for the FRC to blame "the secular media" or for Tom DeLay to blame the teaching of evolution for the Columbine killings?

The punditry seems to be of the opinion that domestic terrorism and spree shootings are the inevitable consequence of conservatives not getting what they want.
buy lipitor online buy lipitor no prescription

And in every case, liberals drive the individual in question to do it. Right wingers, of course, bear no responsibility for their constant, hysterical fearmongering and willful dissemenation of the kind of paranoid misinformation that pushes all of the militiaman buttons.

This is going to keep happening. If people like Bachmann and Beck had any decency they'd tell their meatheaded followers "We all hate Obama, but for god's sake, killing people isn't the answer you morons." I won't hold my breath. If anything they seem to get off on their own ability to incite people to violence.
online pharmacy doxycycline best drugstore for you

They understand that their audience already sees the world through the scope of a rifle; a Democrat in power is nothing but a great opportunity for turning words into "actions."

21 thoughts on “FLAMEFANNING”

  • The punditry seems to be of the opinion that domestic terrorism and spree shootings are the inevitable consequence of conservatives not getting what they want. And in every case, liberals drive the individual in question to do it.

    Yes. Domestic terrorism seems to have a lot in common with domestic violence. "It's not his fault, she drove him to it, she musta done somethin' to make him so mad, he just can't control himself when he sees her like that." It's always a woman's fault if she gets assaulted, and always the liberals' fault if a right-winger has to take "corrective action" with his fucking gun stash. (And seriously — domestic violence exists across all parts of the political and socioeconomic spectrum, but the last time we had left-wing nuts hoarding guns was, what? The 1960s?)

  • It is sort of a reach and not exactly super recent, but we do have ecoterrorists and the unibomber.

  • By their nature, liberals don't snap because they are more flexible, inclusive, and accommodating of difference than conservatives. Liberals are "free to be you and me", and conservatives are "my way or the highway." I think one of the reasons cons fixated on the PC movement is because it was prescriptive in nature — the cons' own method — turned toward a liberal goal. So yeah, the right-wing Christians are deeply threatened by anything not cast in the image of Ronald Reagan. But two groups who are not going to do a damn thing to cool the jets of the nutjobs are conservative TV folks, who rely on ratings, and politicians, who rely on votes. It's the last thing they'd do.

  • If people like Bachmann and Beck had any decency they’d tell their meatheaded followers “We all hate Obama, but for god’s sake, killing people isn’t the answer you morons.”

    And if my grandmother had balls, she'd be my grandfather.

  • It gives one cause to wonder if the likes of Mann Coulter, who have been quoted as saying that Liberals should be killed, could be held criminally responsible for inciting such behavior…

  • Conservative extremism is just more conducive to violence. The Liberals have the eco-loonies in Seattle and some 60s era extremists, but the right has to deal with most every other type of politcally-motivated freak. I think the pundits on the right expect these kinds of things to happen and just don't give a shit. Look at one of the titles of O'Reilly's books for instance: "Cultural Warrior." You think Al Franken would write a book titled some vague concept for Liberals to attack. No. He writes books about Rush Limbaugh being a jackass and conservatives lying. He's not writing books about how Conservatives are a serious danger to society and how we should firebomb newspaper buildings like Coulter the Neo-Nazi says about the New York Times. The cons are all about attacking the way Liberals think and eradicating it. It's just their way. As long as Obama is in office there will be 1,786,684 more instances of you going online and seeing Yahoo news headlines like this, "You won't believe what Ann Coulter said about Barack Obama" and sub-headline: "NAACP up in arms over recent statement."

  • Shane, I spent a lot of time trying to think of examples to make sure I wasn't being unfair. After about 1970 I couldn't think of any aside from eco-terror; I'm not sure how to value that given that it usually targets property and not human lives.

    The unabomber was an anti-technology neo-luddite. I don't think his terrorism fit neatly on the left-right spectrum. I've read copious amounts about his life and "career" and I do not believe that he was out to get people of a particular mainstream political ideology. He was motivated by a desire to fundamentally restructure society.

    The best examples of violent leftists would have to come from the 1960s…various bombings (including the Wisconsin Sterling Hall murder) and some early 1970s groups with paramilitary pretensions like MOVE or the Symbionese Liberation Army. To find left-wing movements that actually did (rather than talked about) violence to large numbers of people you'd have to go back to the labor movements of the late 19th Century, and one could easily argue that they were reacting to the sheer amount of violence being done to them.

  • It should also be pointed out that, historically speaking, the differences between conservatives and progressives in the U.S.A. are not so great as they might once have been. Contemporary conservatives aren't monarchists, although they do dabble in Fascism. Contemporary progressives aren't hard-core Marxists, although they do dabble in Socialism.

    That being said, however, the hate speech and fear mongering promulgated by the right wing loonies is unacceptable and obscene in a decent and civilized society. Promoting violence and hatred ought to be prosecuted as hate crimes and inciting violence.

    The difference between the right and left wings of political ideology, though, may be as simple as the right wing idealizing their vision of the past while the left wing idealizes their vision of the future.

  • I think this just shows the level of logic on both sides of the camp. There is actually logic on the liberal side, and there isn't a whole lot on the conservative side.

    I also think that many Conservatives use the slippery slope fallacy a lot, and some actually use this fallacy as their cornerstone to shoot people. Stuff like, "Obama's president, now he's going to take our guns away and have mandatory Gay Pride Parades in every town!" Hey nutjob, this stuff probably isn't going to happen, and why don't you wait around to see if it happens before you start killing people. Hell, you may not even have to perform a murder-suicide!

  • Serial violence or mass violence? And are shootings/bombings all that are being considered here? Does rape count, or fatal / near-fatal beatings? "Soul on Ice" may have been renounced by the author, but people are still reading it, especially the parts pushing rape as a political tool. It's self-serving bullshit, of course, but cons see Obama with a former Black Panther and think of it. The fact that Eldridge Cleaver died a Republican doesn't make them think "Hm, we're not claiming him; maybe the left doesn't agree with him either." But every time a liberal shouts, "Free Mumia", cons lump us all together.

  • I think blaming the pundits, while satisfying, is not entirely accurate.I suspect that the kinds of psychos who kill people for what they see as a political aim don't do it because Ann Coulter told them to any more than kids were smoking because Joe Camel told them to. While the right-wing conservative pundits may be a little more whacked-out in the mainstream, there is nonetheless plenty of violent rhetoric on the extreme left as well. Considering that the people you're talking about looked to sources like Stormfront for inspiration as well as Coulter, it'd be just as easy for someone with leftist tendencies to find a Marxist forum and take inspiration from both Keith Olbermann and his communist "revolutionary" friends on the internet.

    So why are they right wing? I suspect it's what ladiesbane touched on–right-wing politics in this day and age are more conducive to the kind of fear and paranoia that people inclined toward acts of violence would be attracted to. While the pundits don't help the situation, holding them responsible for those sorts of acts is overestimating their power. Not to mention that saying things like "Ann Coulter should be arrested for saying that" sets one hell of a precedent.

  • Nick, I run in some " extreme left" circles and have yet to find anyone advocating violence against a group of people in the same vein Ann Coulter and her offhand remarks about killing liberals and destroying Muslim countries.
    There are those who advocate " direct action" i.e. vandalizing property and making general nuisances of themselves, but very few advocating violence against people.
    As far as Keith Olbermann being communist, I will assume that is sarcasm and most of us Reds don't find him all that inspiring ( we prefer John Stewart).
    The kneejerk reaction that a lot of liberals have to condemn the far left along with the far right is tiresome and the " damn both your houses" approach smacks of moral cowardice.
    P.S. Please send us some examples of American Marxist websites that advocate violence like Stormfront does. I will be surprised if you can find three.

  • I don't think most people are arguing that Coulter should be arrested, because she obviously trolls for a living. She actually came to IU a few years ago to annoy students who bothered to show up. I didn't attend because she is an idiot and it's the same reason I don't go to Klan rallies, because they enjoy non-racists yelling at them because it validates their purpose as a hate group. The main argument is that most popular, mainstream liberals in media don't make such a large portion of their living trolling and constantly pissing people off via lewd remarks and vaguely racist and violent ideology. Coulter, Limbaugh, and the like pay their bills largely on hatred and lies.

  • comrade x: I've met plenty of people who have advocated violence (against property and against people) for "animal liberation" or environmental causes or (in a very few cases, admittedly) Marxism. I don't know that any of them will ever follow through, but then again, most people who say that "liberals are traitors" wouldn't be willing to pull the trigger themselves.

    The Keith Olbermann sentence was poorly phrased; I meant Olbermann as an example of a mainstream media liberal, and the "communist friends on the internet" as a different, more radical entity.

    As for condemning the far left along with the far right, it's not "moral cowardice" so much as I think that both are fucking stupid. Finding Rush Limbaugh tiresome and stupid doesn't preclude me from thinking that anyone who identifies themselves as an "anarchist" and is over the age of fourteen is a goddamn moron.

    Daniel: When it comes to "trolling," few people can outdo Michael Moore. I'll give you that left-wing pundits are not generally as violent or paranoid, but I still think that those who are holding right-wing talking heads responsible for acts of violence are confusing cause and effect–the kind of people who are psychotically paranoid, far-right, and violent are more likely to buy "Slander" than "Dude, Where's My Country?". This does not mean that Coulter's admittedly idiotic and virulent comments are what inspire these people to go off the deep end and start shooting.

  • Yo Nick, the moderates had an excellent chance to halt the spread of fascism in the 1930s, but decided to do what they usually do- defend the friggin' status quo.
    Just one example from history.
    Neville Chamberlain: the poster child of the middle.

  • Godwin'd already! Well, Chamerblained. For the record, comparing my distaste for idiots on the left as well as idiots on the right to WWII appeasement sounds no better than Bush making the same comparison those who thought the Iraq war was a bad idea.

Comments are closed.