Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Face it: extremists on both sides do the same stuff

By

— January 2009: A white supremacist named Keith Luke embarks on a killing rampage in Brockton, Mass., raping and wounding a black woman and killing her sister, then killing a homeless man before being captured by police as he is en route to a Jewish community center.

— February 2009: A Marine named Kody Brittingham is arrested and charged with plotting to assassinate President Obama. Brittingham also collected white-supremacist material.

— April 2009: A white supremacist named Richard Poplawski opens fire on three Pittsburgh police officers who come to his house on a domestic-violence call and kills all three, because he believed President Obama intended to take away the guns of white citizens like himself. Poplawski is currently awaiting trial.

— April 2009: Another gunman in Okaloosa County, Florida, similarly fearful of Obama’s purported gun-grabbing plans, kills two deputies when they come to arrest him in a domestic-violence matter, then is killed himself in a shootout with police.

— May 2009: A “sovereign citizen” named Scott Roeder walks into a church in Wichita, Kansas, and assassinates abortion provider Dr. George Tiller.

— June 2009: A Holocaust denier and right-wing tax protester named James Von Brunn opens fire at the Holocaust Museum, killing a security guard.

— February 2010: An angry tax protester named Joseph Ray Stack flies an airplane into the building housing IRS offices in Austin, Texas. (Media are reluctant to label this one “domestic terrorism” too.)

— March 2010: Seven militiamen from the Hutaree Militia in Michigan and Ohio are arrested and charged with plotting to assassinate local police officers with the intent of sparking a new civil war.

— March 2010: An anti-government extremist named John Patrick Bedell walks into the Pentagon and opens fire, wounding two officers before he is himself shot dead.

— May 2010: A “sovereign citizen” from Georgia is arrested in Tennessee and charged with plotting the violent takeover of a local county courthouse.

— May 2010: A still-unidentified white man walks into a Jacksonville, Fla., mosque and sets it afire, simultaneously setting off a pipe bomb.

— May 2010: Two “sovereign citizens” named Jerry and Joe Kane gun down two police officers who pull them over for a traffic violation, and then wound two more officers in a shootout in which both of them are eventually killed.

— July 2010: An agitated right-winger and convict named Byron Williams loads up on weapons and drives to the Bay Area intent on attacking the offices of the Tides Foundation and the ACLU, but is intercepted by state patrolmen and engages them in a shootout and armed standoff in which two officers and Williams are wounded.

— September 2010: A Concord, N.C., man is arrested and charged with plotting to blow up a North Carolina abortion clinic. The man, 26-year–old Justin Carl Moose, referred to himself as the “Christian counterpart to (Osama) bin Laden” in a taped undercover meeting with a federal informant

Please share widely!
fb-share-icon
Tweet
0

Comments

  1. I understand that they whine about “politicizing” this tragedy. So be it.

    <

    p>This garbage from the right has to be named what it is. I want candidates and commentators who spout this stuff to be treated like child pornographers and cop-killers.

    <

    p>There is nothing respectable about terrorist violence like this and those who foment it.

    <

    p>And yes, the right wing does indeed foment it.

    • Is an entire legal concept of what you would term the “conspiracy” crowd.  They regard the concepts of left/right american politcs as a product of the military-industrial-intelligence complex.  They are correct.  You may associate it with “right wing” because it originates in Texas, Alex Jones territory.  And Tea Party comes from the 911 truthers, before the commercial arm of the “right” hijacked the term and movement.

        • but it also gets into globalism, the “Illuminati” the New World Order, Bilderbergers, Trilaterals and CFR although there can be soverigns with no knowledge of belief systems like this.  To them the US left/right system is a fallacy, a trap, something to be avoided in favor of more spiritual persuits.

          <

          p> An example.  You “own” your house.  No, you don’t.  You paid John Smith and you and the bank got something which says John Smith Quit his claim to property X for y dollars and the bank’s mortgage on it.  So the concept has basis in literal interpretation.

            • which insurance company is the worst to deal with.  David Icke is relatively old school in the CT community.  There are 57 different alien species “they” know of and have secret treaties with.

      • My supposition based upon recent history is that there will be and perhaps already is sovereign citizenship.  However, it is reserved for corporations alone.  Peons like you and me can only be stalking horses for the rights and privileges of said corporate entities (and their highest paid employees).

        • They kill people for starting up such things.  You have to pay somebody for energy, for control purposes of course.

  2. I was about to throw a hissy fit.

    <

    p>There was an extreme left during the 60s and 70s, though their support from the more mainstream left was tenuous. They were dragging up Bill Ayers on NRO. Historically, the Weathermen and the Weather Underground were just not that popular. Sure, they had their followers, but the SDS, namely Todd Gitlin, was blamed them for taking the student movement over the edge.

    <

    p>And sticking us with anarchists and the Earth First, Earth and Animal Liberation Front doesn’t cut it either. The Democratic Party doesn’t consort with or rely on these folks for votes or funding. It doesn’t adopt their philosophies or send out memos based on hate fetishes and fear obsessions.

    <

    p>

    <

    p>Sorry, Republicans. We just aren’t that into this kind of thing.

    <

    p>

    • from the eight Bush years I spent at dailykos?  Sean Hannity in Nazi regailia?  At least with Bush we had that incompetence thing going for us.

      • at least that I know of.

        <

        p>Elected Democrats and DLC officials have worked tirelessly to calm down their base – the polar opposite of Republican efforts.

      • You mean?

        1. Invading Iraq unnecessarily and basing that invasion on lies and distortions
        2. No planning for the invasion because it might undercut the politics
        3. Dismantling of the Iraqi army
        4. Allowing chaos in Iraq after the invasion that destroyed important parts of the infra-structure
        5. Not keeping track of billions of dollars in Iraq
        6. Appointing unqualified Republican operatives to run the Provisional Authority
        7. Mismanaging the many  contractors in Iraq: drinking water for troops, shoddy construction
        8. Not providing armor for our troops
        9. Conducting counter-insurgency in a counter-productive manner with too few Arab speakers and too much bombing
        10. Allowing the abuses at Abu Ghraib and then not handling it in a manner consistent with international law and allowing it to destroy the goodwill Iraqis originally had for the U.S.
        11. Mismanaging our relationships with our allies
        12. Lying about Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch
        13. Letting Osama bin Laden get away
        14. Permitting Afghanistan to sink into chaos again
        15. Neglecting of Arab-Israeli conflict
        16. Lying about no child left behind
        17. Willfully neglecting mine safety for the sake of the mine owners
        18. Ignoring food safety, e.g., problems with salmonella and the pet food poisonings
        19. Ignoring regulatory problems in the mortgage market
        20. Raising the allowable arsenic levels in water
        21. Politicizing the Justice Department
        22. Lying about social security, e.g., saying that private accounts would make the system solvent when they would make the system less solvent
        23. Destruction of EPA libraries
        24. Giving Iran and North Korea an incentive to arm
        25. Green light on India’s nuclear ambitions
        26. Violating FISA
        27. Abrogating FISA
        28. Pushing irresponsible tax cuts and running up gigantic deficits
        29. Filling FEMA with incompetent Republican operatives so that it was incapable of responding when Katrina hit New Orleans
        30. Using terror warning levels for political reasons
        31. Using of terrorism prosecutions for political reasons
        32. Holding innocents at Guantanamo and elsewhere without applying due process
        33. Torturing prisoners at Guantanamo and elsewhere

        Well, he was sort of a nice guy.

      • Having seen some of the utterly hateful and bigoted things coming out of Hannity, it does not seem like it is totally unfair to compare him to the hate and intolerance of the Nazis. An exaggeration? Yes, of course it was, but how exactly is that an incitement to violence?

      • so I couldn’t (dis)agree with you on the anti-Bush content. My question though is, were the Hannity/Nazi regalia in a front-paged post or merely the comments?

        <

        p>Comparing Hannity to Nazis may be extreme in the specific, but his emotional embrace and promotion of right-wing conspiracy theories certainly warrant a comparison to the rise of fascism and the demonization of Jews and communists. It would make an interesting study. Putting Hannity in Goebbel’s uniform, however, really doesn’t advance much of a comparison.

  3. The press, in its majestic evenhandedness, deplores the left and the the right alike from making automatic weapons available to criminals and madmen, poisoning political discourse with rabid rhetoric and threats of violence, and targeting public officials for assassination.

  4. Great!  Clear line back to Rush Limbaugh there, I’m sure.

    <

    p>Now if he and Beck would only stop calling for the murder of abortion doctors, we’d be all set.

    • Just a racist. I mean if Obama weren’t “uppity,” an affirmative action candidate…

      <

      p>Besides, Limbaugh’s just an entertainer. He’s really clever and funny. There’s noooooo racism at all in the following gems:

      “You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray. We miss you, James. Godspeed.”

      “Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?”

      “Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.”

      “The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.”

      [To an African American female caller]: “Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.”

      “I think the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well.  They’re interested in black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well.  I think there’s a little hope invested in McNabb and he got a lot of credit for the performance of his team that he really didn’t deserve.”

      Obama a ‘halfrican American’

      “We need segregated buses… This is Obama’s America.”

      “Obama’s entire economic program is reparations.”

  5. Parked outside work for many days last month was a truck with a bumpersticker reading, “No liberals”. It’s always seemed at least creepy.

  7. except that it does

    <

    p>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Liberation_Front

    <

    p>

    2000

    On November 27, in Colorado, the ELF burned the Legend Ridge mansion and sent a message to the Boulder Weekly saying “Viva la revolution!” Damages were estimated at $2.5 million.[44]

    2001

    In March, a total of thirty SUVs were torched, belonging to Joe Romania’s dealership, in Oregon, with damages estimated at $1 million. The action was claimed in support of Jeff “Free” Luers, who targeted the very same dealership and was in court for the charges at the time.[45] He was then sentenced to twenty-two years in jail, later revised to ten.

    On May 21, a fire destroyed laboratories, offices and archives at the Center for Urban Horticulture, University of Washington, causing a total of $7 million in damages.[46] The arson destroyed 20 years of research and plant and book collections. The ELF claimed responsibility based upon the incorrect belief that the University was involved in genetic engineering of poplar trees.[47] No genetic engineering was being conducted. In the wake of the attack, an FBI spokeswoman in Portland, Oregon said “I don’t think there’s any doubt the ELF is upping the ante”.[48]

    On November 21, ELF member Ian Wallace planted incendiary devices outside of two buildings on the campus of Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Michigan during the early morning hours. The devices failed, and on March 21, 2009, Wallace was sentenced to three years in prison for the incident by Judge Robert Holmes Bell,[49] who said Wallace “didn’t intend to hurt anybody, (but) this is a serious offense.”[50] Said Wallace after his conviction, “I have been consumed by shame for what I have done,” Wallace said. “My greatest blessing is that no one got hurt.” [51]

    2003

    On August 1, a 206-unit condominium in San Diego was destroyed, with a banner left at the scene saying “If you build it, we will burn it”, signed “The E.L.F.s are mad”.[52] The damages totaled $50 million[53] after flames reached an estimated 200 feet (61 m) in the air, as over a hundred fire fighters attempted to put out the fire. The destruction was the movements most financially damaging action against a target, with a local preservation group calling the action pointless, noting that “You can go and burn something down, but it’s just going to get built again.”[52] Exactly three weeks later, 125 SUVs and hummers were torched, costing a total of $3.5 million, with “I love pollution” spray-painted at the scene,[54] and a month later homes being built in San Diego were targeted again, this time costing an estimated $450,000 in damages.[55]

    2006

    The FBI’s most recent report stated that there had been over 1,200 “criminal incidents”,[30] within January 2006. A nearly completed 9,600-square-foot (890 m2) house, worth $3 million, was burnt to the ground in Washington. The Herald Net reported that a bedsheet was draped across the front gate, with a threatening message spray-painted on it.[56]
    On March 23 2009, The ELF claim the burning of a backhoe in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. In one of many recent anonymous communiques, the ELF reported to Bite Back; “Maybe we have not collapsed the system of domination with these actions, but it begins with actions like these.”[4][57][58][59]

    2008

    One of the latest ELF arsons was reported on the morning of March 3, when explosive devices set fire to four multi-million dollar homes from the 2007 Seattle Street of Dreams in Echo Lake, Washington, costing $7 million in damage.[60] Authorities described the act as “domestic terrorism” after finding “ELF” spray-painted in red letters, mocking claims that the homes were environmentally friendly: “Built Green? Nope black! McMansions in RCDs r not green. ELF.”[61] A criminology professor replied saying: “The real unfortunate thing is many citizens will empathize with ELF because their goal is the environment.”[62]

    2009

    On March 23 the ELF claim the burning of an excavator in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. In one of many recent anonymous communiques, the ELF reported to Bite Back; “Maybe we have not collapsed the system of domination with these actions, but it begins with actions like these.”[63]

    On September 4 ELF claimed responsibility for using a stolen excavator to overturn two AM radio towers belonging to station KRKO near Seattle, Washington; they claimed that radio waves are dangerous.[64]

    A Texas man was arrested after construction workers found a disabled construction vehicle grafiteed with the words “ANOTHER TRACTOR DECOMMISSIONED BY THE E.L.F.” [65]

    <

    p>SEIU Attacks Bank of America Executive’s Home

    <

    p>SEIU thugs attack black conservative TEA party member.

    <

    p>New Black Panther Party intimidate voters at voting precinct in Pennsylvania.

    <

    p>I could really go on here.  Nice try though.

    • Block quote is from Wikipedia, which allows for re-use under their Terms of Use.

      <

      p>

      Attribution: To re-distribute a text page in any form, provide credit to the authors either by including a) a hyperlink (where possible) or URL to the page or pages you are re-using, b) a hyperlink (where possible) or URL to an alternative, stable online copy which is freely accessible, which conforms with the license, and which provides credit to the authors in a manner equivalent to the credit given on this website, or c) a list of all authors. (Any list of authors may be filtered to exclude very small or irrelevant contributions.) This applies to text developed by the Wikimedia community. Text from external sources may attach additional attribution requirements to the work, which we will strive to indicate clearly to you. For example, a page may have a banner or other notation indicating that some or all of its content was originally published somewhere else. Where such notations are visible in the page itself, they should generally be preserved by re-users.

    • … the ELF wasn’t held up as a paragon of the left.  I can’t remember ever seeing these guys on TV nor anyone looking for their endorsement or showing up at a convention of theirs.

    • No one is saying there are no extremists on the left.  What we are saying is that there is no where near as much extremism of actions and language on the left as there is on the right.  

      <

      p>One key difference is that Republican leaders regularly do not condemn the extremist actions on the Right, and often implicitly or explicitly endorse them in their rhetoric (especially on things like the killing of abortion doctors).  Democratic leaders always condemn violence against others and property.   You won’t see Democrats meeting with ELF members, but people like Randall Terry can get meetings with John Boehner and other leaders.  

      <

      p>Another important distinction is that leftist extremists, such as ELF, do not identify as Democrats, whereas many (most perhaps) of the right-wing extremists are loyal Republicans.

      <

      p>Frankly, it may not be proper to call right-wing extremists “extremists” because they are hardly a miniscule, fringe element these days.  They are a sizable portion of the modern conservative movement.  

      • Face it: extremists on both sides do the same stuff (+)
        by: MannyGoldstein
        Tue Jan 11, 2011 at 17:03:16 PM EST

        [subscribe]
        Except that they don’t at all, and the equivalency arguments are surreal.

        <

        p>Wow, just wow!

        • Manny never said there are no extremists on the left.  He is pointing out a theme of the actions of Right-wing extremists.  They are all murders and planned murders.  The best you could do is cite ELF’s property destruction.  Is that really doing “the same stuff”?

          <

          p>Has ELF been connected to a murder or attempted murder?  My understanding is that they are focused on only damaging property.  

          • They blow up houses with explosives.  We’re pretty lucky they haven’t killed a person.

            <

            p>As to Manny’s sentences.  I’m pretty good at reading comprehension.  I know I get accused of seeing things in black and white.  But what is not black and white about the declaratory statements.

            <

            p>

            Face it: extremists on both sides do the same stuff.  Except that they don’t at all, and the equivalency arguments are surreal.

            <

            p>That seems pretty declaratory to me.

            • The things they destroy are in the process of being built, uninhabited offices, or parked vehicles.  They do not bomb inhabited buildings.  I do not support their actions and think they are lucky they haven’t killed anyone, but they are not trying to kill people.  

              <

              p>I don’t think that their actions are the same as the murderous actions Manny cites, and therefore not “the same stuff.”

          • The C&L excerpt had dozens of incidents over a three-year period, vs. 10 ELF incidents over a decade.

            <

            p>I don’t think anyone at all on BMG, for example, would applaud the ELF’s actions, and certainly our leadership and spokespeople would not.  Nor would we call for violence against our opponents.  Compare and contrast to the Right, e.g,:

            <

            p>

            Ann Coulter: “My only regret with Tim McVeigh is that he did not go to the New York Times building”

            Rush Limbaugh: “I tell people don’t kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus – living fossils – so we will never forget what these people stood for.”

            Glenn Beck: “Hang on, let me just tell you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could.”

            Eric Erickson (Redstate.com): “At what point do [people] get off the couch, march down to their state legislator’s house, pull him outside and beat him to a bloody pulp for being an idiot?”

            Michael Savage: “I say round liberals up and hang em’ high. When I hear someone’s in the civil rights business, I oil up my AR-25.”

            Sharron Angle: ” You know, our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. And in fact Thomas Jefferson said it’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years.  I hope that’s not where we’re going, but, you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I’ll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out.”

            <

            p>Can you imagine, in your wildest dreams, similar garbage coming from any prominent Democrat?

    • … some video and context of the Gladney event.

      <

      p>

      Given this leaked police report, the tea party activists and Glenn Beck are asking, “Why have there still not been any charges filed?” I can think of two responses to this question. First, the police report should not be regarded as an account of the entire incident as it only relies on the testimony of three witnesses and absolutely no material evidence. These witnesses (who were all tea party activists) approached the officer so the officer had no real opportunity to interview everyone who was present. Second, the witnesses involved all have political agenda’s and there are good reasons to question their reports.

      <

      p>Friends don’t let friends get their news from Breitbart.

    • Burn any churches? Shoot any people in a church? Shoot any cops? Fly any planes into buildings? Threaten to shoot any census workers performing a constitutionally mandated duty? Stomp on a woman holding a sign?

      <

      p>Santa’s ELF’s are more dangerous than these guys. And more liberal.

      • No but they’ve bombed functioning animal testing laboratories with humans in them at universities.  That’s at least according to the Southern POvertly Law Center.

    • The ELF isn’t in the Democratic tent. We don’t use their rhetoric. We don’t approve of their terrorism. Their politics are putatively on the Left, but they have no relation to the Democratic Party. Neither does the New Black Panther Party–the ADL and SPLC categorize them as a hate group.

      <

      p>The difference with Republicans is that you guys let the crazies in. In part because the crazies finance the craziness. Mellon-Scaife. Koch Bros. Etc.

      <

      p>The SEIU action in D.C. is troubling. It would be nice to see real reporting on the events, not a CNN editorial or a HuffPo blog post. Andrew Breitbart, however, that’s a non-starter…

      <

      p>Face it, your part is full of crazy people that you brought in from the fringes for the votes and the money.

      <

      p>

Archives