For many years, I have pondered the question of why so many conservative Americans have such a strong attachment to guns and make such a huge issue out of gun rights and the Second Amendment, which sometimes seems like the only part of the U.S. Constitution that they care about. Today, I want to share my own theories about this.
I think the root causes for conservatives' intense gun-love are (1) overwhelming fear of the changing world of increasing cultural and ethnic diversity that we live in, and in response to this fear, (2) a desire to cling to an idealized past version of America that they find more reassuring. That is to say, conservatives are both very very scared and very very nostalgic.
For quite some time now, beginning with the defeat of the pro-slavery Confederacy in the U.S. Civil War, American conservatives have found society changing in ways they didn't like, and have had a keen sense of frustration that they were losing the battle of ideas in American culture. What exactly do they so object to about trends in modern American (and indeed world) society? I think the main issue is loss of white privilege in the movement toward a more open society that is more accepting of equality between various ethnic, racial and/or religious groups. Remember, it was fierce resistance to Reconstruction efforts to empower blacks that set off the ugly Jim Crow laws and the paramilitary terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan.
It was the mystical "power of the gun," as well as other forms of violence including bombs and lynchings, that made it possible for white southerners to terrorize blacks and keep African-Americans in a fearful, subordinate position in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was also the power of the gun that subdued the Native American "savages" so that the West could be won for white settlement, a display of race-based violence to be long celebrated in games of cowboys vs. Indians and Western films. The current "Cowboys and Aliens" film shows how our society has, to some extent, moved away from this viewpoint with a narrative that requires white cowboys and "red" Indians to work together for mutual survival.
Anyway, let's go back into the conservative dream-world of beautiful, blood-white-and-blue patriotic violence, a harmonious, segregated world intoxicatingly scented with freedom-loving gunpowder. Thanks to his trusty gun, the White Man was indeed king of the country in the late nineteenth century. King of violence and racism, I would say, though I am sure conservatives would say that this use of violence in defense of the (white) "American Way" was something entirely noble and necessary. In the twentieth century, the KKK would form chapters all across the country, even in supposedly liberal strongholds like New York State and Connecticut, demonstrating that the violent defense of white privilege was not limited to the Southern states alone.
When the Civil Right movement emerged in the 1950s and 1960s, it was countered by massive violence in the South, and the cry of "State's Rights!", reaching back to Confederate slogans of the Civil War period to justify the right of states like Alabama to refuse equal rights to blacks and other non-white Americans. It would seem that they preferred returning to the Civil War rather than risk the unspeakable horror of granting Civil Rights to non-white Americans, and one must wonder if some such sentiment is among the motivations that have made Civil War reenactment so popular in recent decades. It certainly factors into the love for the Confederate flag in the South.
When the Democratic Party became the champion of civil rights for minorities, many white Southern former members quit the party to become Republicans. In every Presidential election since the 1960s, the majority of white voters, especially in the South, have gone Republican. Where Democrats have scored a victory, as with Carter in 1976, Clinton in 1992, and Obama in 2008, the Democrats' margin of victory came from African-American voters. The same demographic dynamic applies to the Tea Party, which is an almost exclusively white movement. The Tea Party desire to limit and dismantle government obviously appeals to those who see the national government and the Democratic party as overly concerned with the civil rights of minorities and allowing the country to sink into a sewer of mixed-race multiculturalism. (Note the endless sneering and sniping in the conservative media about "political correctness;" so many are nostalgic for the day when they could feel free to make jokes about niggers and Jews and faggots and whoever else they enjoyed insulting "back in the good old days.")
The gun issue has developed into a great vote-winner for the Republican Party, which has positioned itself as the protector of the seemingly sacred "right to bear arms," in opposition to the Democratic Party, which used to advocate for gun control and careful restriction of gun rights, though it no longer seems to possess the moral or political courage to stand up for this anymore. Many Democrats lost their seats in Congress the last time there was gun-control legislation, back in 1994, largely thanks to the efforts of the NRA. If one asks gun-loving conservatives, why do people need or want so many guns, the two pat answers are "hunting" and "self-defense." When one points out that no gun control effort has ever attempted to abolish all hunting in the USA, but only to place certain reasonable restrictions to prevent potential harm or abuse, just as we do with driving or alcohol, gun-minded conservatives will commonly express disbelief that gun control is anything other than an evil plot to eliminate ALL gun use and gun ownership in the USA, or they will pivot to the second issue of self-defense. This is something that conservatives are often quite passionate about.
It is particularly in the self-defense argument that you can see the latent, even unconscious racism, blended with FEAR, like an emotional accelerant: fear that the minute they let down their guard someone is going to break into their home, rob all their possessions, kill everyone in the family, fuck their dog, cook it on the backyard grill, and then eat it. Who exactly is it that they are thinking of in these fearful fantasies? The history of Republican political advertising,such as the Willie Horton advertisement from 1988, shows that the typical fear is of blacks, particularly black men. More recently, Hispanic men, increasingly mythologized as super-violent Mexican drug-runners, have been added into the paranoid mind-mix.
Here is how I see the race-fear/gun-love matrix speaking: "See, if you got your gun, and those black or brown-skinned devils, those niggers, Mexicans, Muslims, whatever, come to your house, you can blow them all away and defend your sweet wife and angel-faced children against the inevitable evils that come from all this modern multi-culturalism and civil rights bullshit: the savage, violent blacks, browns, and others who don't know their place and need to be reminded of the one primary fact of life in these United States, that the White Man's got the gun."
In the nineteenth century so idealized by conservatives, the blessed age before horrible transgressions of the American spirit like Social Security and civil rights, the violence-enforced "proper" place for non-whites like African-Americans and Native Americans was either on plantations or reservations. Our twenty-first century equivalent is prison for the blacks, with an absolutely skyrocketing rate of incarceration for African American men, deportation for Latinos,which has actually increased under the not-really-so-liberal Obama, and the various wars against Muslim populations, another brown-hued people to be put in their place.
In recent decades, the conservatives have succeeded marvelously in their "law and order" agenda, with gun rights always available as a sure-fire way to fire up the conservative masses and distract them from thinking about anything else. Fear is now ruling the national soul, and guns and threats of violence are everywhere. Funding priorities have shifted from schools to prisons, education replaced by incarceration. National security has replaced human rights and civil rights and, it would seem, almost any kind of rights other than gun rights as the top national priority. Criminal justice is a booming major on college campuses, replacing the fading idea of social justice that was once a common phrase on the campuses of the past. Real law is CRIMINAL law, you see; real justice is PUNISHMENT and nothing else. Invading other countries and brutalizing other peoples has become commonplace, and with new technology evolving rapidly, we will soon be able to do this without risking harm to any human American soldiers. The twenty-first century Sinatra will just have to sing, "Send in the drones..." The drone is the ultimate wet-dream of irresponsible violence, sanctified by the cult of technology: the gun acting alone, as it were.
Make no mistake: The gun, and with it the conservatives, are winning the national debate, for now, anyway. Fear rules the country, and the gun is our national sweetheart; the big, hot, red-white-and-blue penis that everyone wants to stroke and suck. Why do you think there are so many cop shows on television, so many variations of CSI, Law and Order, on and on? What picture of society and human nature is reinforced by this repetition?
Public figures of all sorts from politicians to newscasters to comedians know they cannot advance any criticism of our gun-wielding enforcers, from police to soldiers. Watch for how such supposed liberal icons like Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert slobber and coo when they have military guests on their shows. Discussion of what these wars are doing to the peoples of Iraq, Afghanistan and wherever else we are invading this week? Maybe raise a question about the killer drones in Pakistan? Question whether the wars are morally defensible? Ask your guest how many people he has killed? Forget it; that kind of discussion doesn't happen in today's militaristic America. All must bow before The Gun and He Who Wields the Gun (or the missile, or the drone, or any other new form of the gun.)
Contrast this to critiques of police brutality and protests against the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s. Why was there no sustained outcry or movement for more restrictions on guns after the near-assassination of Gabrielle Giffords earlier in the year, or the Virginia Tech massacre a few years back, or any other such events in our sad history of national violence? Because the right has won; guns have become sacred.
This has its effect on American Paganism too. In some forms of Asatru or Heathenry, there is a great devotion to weapons. Where is that coming from, and where does it lead? These are two questions that have so disturbed me that I have taken my leave of American Asatru. Whatever spirituality is to be found through the barrel of a gun or the swing of an axe is not something that makes any sense to me.
Resist the gun.
Speak up for peace.
Fight the fear.
I believe that in the long run, the future belongs to diversity and pluralism. There really is no going back. Conservatives may want to retreat to some kind of racially, socially, and ethnically cleansed past, and may be dreaming, as Anders Behring Breivik did, of using violence to achieve or enforce that, but they will never succeed. Yes, the law-and-order, gun-obsessed, anti-diversity crowd is riding high right now, but I don't think the majority of Americans are really with them. Once the intentions of the most extreme conservatives become clear, America will reject this and return to the path it was traveling in the past that led us from the Constitution to Emancipation to Civil Rights.
And praise be to the people of Norway for not becoming fear-and-punishment obsessed in the light of their national tragedy, and for striving to maintain their very open, very supportive society. They are showing an emotional maturity and social wisdom that seems sadly lacking in the United States.
Showing posts with label Norway. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Norway. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Chronology of Recent Right-Wing Terrorism in the USA, from SPLC
The bombing and massacre in Oslo raise the question of the danger of right-wing extremism in America. Today, the Southern Poverty Law Center released a list of right-wing terror plots and arrests of the last fifteen years. Here it is.
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/publications/terror-from-the-right?ondntsrc=MBC110770NOE&newsletter=newsgen-20110726
Accessed July 26,2011
[As the article is too long to reproduce in this blog, here are just the items from the last two years.]
June 12, 2009
Shawna Forde — the executive director of Minutemen American Defense (MAD), an anti-immigrant vigilante group that conducts "citizen patrols" on the Arizona-Mexico border — is charged with two counts of first-degree murder for her alleged role in the slayings of a Latino man and his 9-year-old daughter in Arivaca, Ariz. Forde allegedly orchestrated the May 30 home invasion because she believed the man was a narcotics trafficker and wanted to steal drugs and cash to fund her group. Authorities say the murders, including the killing of the child, were part of the plan. Also arrested and charged with murder are the alleged triggerman, MAD Operations Director Jason Eugene "Gunny" Bush, and Albert Robert Gaxiola, 42, a local member of MAD. Authorities say that Bush had ties to the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations in Idaho, and that Forde has spoken of recruiting its members.
June 25, 2009
Longtime white supremacist Dennis Mahon and his brother Daniel are indicted in Arizona in connection with a mail bomb sent in 2004 to a diversity office in Scottsdale that injured three people. Mahon, formerly tied to the neo-Nazi White Aryan Resistance (WAR) group, allegedly left a phone message at the office saying that "the White Aryan Resistance is growing in Scottsdale. There's a few white people who are standing up." In a related raid, agents search the Indiana home of Tom Metzger, founder of WAR, but he is not arrested. On the same day, white supremacist Robert Joos is arrested in rural Missouri, apparently because phone records show that Dennis Mahon's first call after the mail bombing was to Joos' cell phone. Joos is charged with being a felon in possession of firearms.
Oct. 28, 2009
Luqman Ameen Abdullah, identified by authorities as a member of a black Muslim group hoping to create an Islamic state within U.S. borders, is shot dead at a warehouse in Dearborn, Mich., after he fires at FBI agents trying to arrest him on conspiracy and weapons charges. The FBI says Abdulla encouraged violence against the United States, adding that 10 other group members are being sought.
Feb. 18, 2010
Joseph Andrew Stack, who had earlier attended meetings of radical anti-tax groups in California, sets fire to his own house and then flies his single-engine plane into an Austin, Texas, building housing IRS offices. Stack and an IRS manager are killed, and 13 others are injured. Stack leaves a long online rant about the IRS and the tax code, politicians and corporations.
March 25, 2010
A man later identified as Brody James Whitaker opens fire on two Florida state troopers during a routine traffic stop on I-75 in Sumter County. Whitaker flees, crashing his vehicle and continuing on foot. He is arrested two weeks later in Connecticut, where he challenges the authority of a judge and declares himself a “sovereign,” not American, citizen. Sovereigns typically believe that police have no right to regulate road travel. Whitaker is later extradited to Florida to face charges of assaulting and fleeing from a police officer.
March 27-28, 2010
Nine members of the Hutaree Militia are arrested in raids in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana and charged with seditious conspiracy and attempted use of weapons of mass destruction. The group, whose website said it was preparing for the imminent arrival of the anti-Christ, allegedly planned to murder a Michigan police officer, then use bombs and homemade missiles to kill other officers attending the funeral, all in a bid to set off a war with the government.
April 15, 2010
Matthew Fairfield, who is president of a local chapter of an antigovernment “Patriot” organization called the Oath Keepers, is indicted on 28 explosives charges, 25 counts of receiving stolen property and one count of possessing criminal tools. Authorities searching his home discover a napalm bomb built by Fairfield, along with a computer carrying child pornography. Fairfield later pleads guilty to explosives charges, but still faces trial on other counts.
April 30, 2010
Darren Huff, an Oath Keeper from Georgia, is arrested and charged with planning the armed takeover of a Madisonville, Tenn., courthouse and “arrest” of 24 local, state and federal officials. Authorities say Duff was angry about the April 1 arrest there of Walter Francis Fitzpatrick III, a leader of the far-right American Grand Jury movement that seeks to have grand juries indict President Obama for treason. Several others in the antigovernment “Patriot” movement accuse Duff of white supremacist and anti-Semitic attitudes in Internet postings.
May 10, 2010
Sandlin Matthew Smith detonates a pipe bomb at a rear entrance to a mosque in Jacksonville, Fla., while worshippers are inside. Armed only with a fuzzy videotape, authorities only identify Smith, based on talking to witnesses to whom he admits the attack, a year later. They track Smith, a bus driver from Julington Creek, Fla., to a campsite near Fairview, Okla., where he resists arrest with a gun and is killed. A search of Smith’s two homes turns up explosive materials.
May 20, 2010
A father and son team of “sovereign citizens” who believe police have no right to regulate road travel murder West Memphis, Ark., police officers Robert Brandon Paudert, 39, and Thomas William “Bill” Evans, 38, during a routine traffic stop on an I-40 exit ramp. The incident begins when Jerry Kane, 45, starts to argue with the officers over his bogus vehicle paperwork and then pushes Evans into a roadside ditch. Kane’s 16-year-old son then kills both officers with an AK-47 before the pair flees. Authorities catch up with them about 45 minutes later. In the ensuing shootout, two more officers are badly wounded and both Kanes are killed. The pair had been traveling the country offering seminars in bogus sovereign techniques for avoiding foreclosure and related matters.
June 8, 2010
A bomb packed into a soda can is planted outside Osage Baptist Church in Carroll City, Ark., where a polling station for a Democratic Senate primary runoff between Sen. Blanche Lincoln and Lt. Gov. Bill Halter is located. The device does not explode, although authorities say it was capable of causing death or serious bodily injury. Officials later receive a tip from contractors who hired to clean out the foreclosed home of self-described “Patriot” Mark Krause, where they find bomb-making materials, manuals, and materials related to antigovernment militias. Krause, who earlier posted antigovernment messages to MySpace, eventually is arrested in Seattle.
July 18, 2010
An unemployed parolee with two bank robbery convictions, apparently enraged at liberals and what he sees as the “left-wing agenda” of Congress, allegedly opens fire on California Highway Patrol troopers who pull him over in Oakland. No one is killed, but two troopers are slightly injured and Byron Williams is shot in the arms and legs. Williams allegedly later tells authorities that he was on his way to attack offices of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Tides Foundation, a liberal organization that, although little known to most Americans, has been repeatedly pilloried on air by Fox News host Glenn Beck.
July 21, 2010
Attorney Todd Getgen is shot to death at a gun range in Cumberland County, Penn., and his weapon, a silenced AR-15 rifle, is stolen. Authorities arrest prison guard Raymond Peake nine days later, saying Peake was trying to accumulate weapons for an unnamed organization that intended to overthrow the government. Fellow prison guard Thomas Tuso is also arrested for allegedly helping Peake hide Getgen’s custom-built weapon.
Sept. 2, 2010
A pipe bomb is thrown through the window of a closed Planned Parenthood clinic in Madera, Calif., along with a note that reads, “Murder our children? We have a ‘choice’ too.” The note is signed ANB, apparently short for the American Nationalist Brotherhood. Six months later, law enforcement officials arrest school bus driver Donny Eugene Mower, who allegedly also threatened a local Islamic Center and has the word “Peckerwood,” a reference to a white supremacist gang, tattooed on his chest. Mower reportedly confesses to the attack.
Sept. 7, 2010
The FBI arrests 26-year-old Justin Carl Moose, a self-described “freedom fighter” and “Christian counterpart to Osama bin Laden,” for allegedly planning to blow up a North Carolina abortion clinic. After earlier receiving tips that Moose was posting threats of violence against abortion providers and information about explosives on his Facebook page, the FBI set up a sting operation to capture him. Moose later pleads guilty to distributing information on manufacturing and use of an explosive and is sentenced to 30 months in prison.
Sept. 19, 2010
An antigovernment extremist with ties to the separatist Republic of Texas organization allegedly opens fire on an oil company worker and two sheriff’s deputies who show up at White’s property in West Odessa, Texas, to access an oil well to which the company has rights. Victor White, 55, allegedly wounds all three men before they retreat, and a 22-hour standoff follows. White eventually surrenders and is charged with three counts of attempted capital murder of a peace officer, one count of attempted capital murder, and aggravated assault.
Jan. 14, 2011
Federal agents in Arizona arrest Jeffery Harbin, a member of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement, for allegedly building homemade grenades and pipe bombs that he apparently intended to supply to anti-immigration groups patrolling the Mexican border. A prosecutor says that Harbin constructed the devices, using model rocket engines and aluminum power, "in such a way as to maximize human carnage." Harbin is indicted on two counts of possessing a destructive device and a third of transporting destructive devices. Jeffery Harbin is the son of Jerry Harbin, a Phoenix-area activist with past ties to the neo-Nazi National Alliance and the racist Council of Conservative Citizens.
Jan. 17, 2011
Bomb technicians defuse a sophisticated improvised explosive device (IED) found in a backpack along the Spokane, Wash., route of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade with 1,500 marchers. Using forensic clues found in the dismantled bomb, officials about two months later identify and arrest Kevin William Harpham, a long-time neo-Nazi. Harpham had posted more than 1,000 messages to the neo-Nazi Vanguard News Network since 2004, when he was a member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance. Harpham also had contributed to the white supremacist Aryan Alternative newspaper. He is indicted on one count of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and one count of possessing an IED. Later, federal hate crime charges are added.
March 10, 2011
Six members of the antigovernment Alaska Peacemakers Militia, including its leader Francis Schaeffer Cox, are arrested and charged with plotting to kill or kidnap state troopers and a Fairbanks judge. The group already has a large cache of weapons, including a .50-caliber machine gun and grenades and a grenade launcher. Cox earlier identified himself as a “sovereign citizen.”
May 14, 2011
Three masked men break into the Madrasah Islamiah, an Islamic center in Houston, and douse prayer rugs with gasoline in an apparent attempt to burn the center down. Images of the men are captured on surveillance cameras, but they are not identified. The fire is put out before doing major damage.
If you go to the web site mentioned above, you can download the full information as a PDF file. I recommend keeping this information to show people who may be skeptical that there is any non-Muslim terrorist threat in the USA.
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/publications/terror-from-the-right?ondntsrc=MBC110770NOE&newsletter=newsgen-20110726
Accessed July 26,2011
[As the article is too long to reproduce in this blog, here are just the items from the last two years.]
June 12, 2009
Shawna Forde — the executive director of Minutemen American Defense (MAD), an anti-immigrant vigilante group that conducts "citizen patrols" on the Arizona-Mexico border — is charged with two counts of first-degree murder for her alleged role in the slayings of a Latino man and his 9-year-old daughter in Arivaca, Ariz. Forde allegedly orchestrated the May 30 home invasion because she believed the man was a narcotics trafficker and wanted to steal drugs and cash to fund her group. Authorities say the murders, including the killing of the child, were part of the plan. Also arrested and charged with murder are the alleged triggerman, MAD Operations Director Jason Eugene "Gunny" Bush, and Albert Robert Gaxiola, 42, a local member of MAD. Authorities say that Bush had ties to the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations in Idaho, and that Forde has spoken of recruiting its members.
June 25, 2009
Longtime white supremacist Dennis Mahon and his brother Daniel are indicted in Arizona in connection with a mail bomb sent in 2004 to a diversity office in Scottsdale that injured three people. Mahon, formerly tied to the neo-Nazi White Aryan Resistance (WAR) group, allegedly left a phone message at the office saying that "the White Aryan Resistance is growing in Scottsdale. There's a few white people who are standing up." In a related raid, agents search the Indiana home of Tom Metzger, founder of WAR, but he is not arrested. On the same day, white supremacist Robert Joos is arrested in rural Missouri, apparently because phone records show that Dennis Mahon's first call after the mail bombing was to Joos' cell phone. Joos is charged with being a felon in possession of firearms.
Oct. 28, 2009
Luqman Ameen Abdullah, identified by authorities as a member of a black Muslim group hoping to create an Islamic state within U.S. borders, is shot dead at a warehouse in Dearborn, Mich., after he fires at FBI agents trying to arrest him on conspiracy and weapons charges. The FBI says Abdulla encouraged violence against the United States, adding that 10 other group members are being sought.
Feb. 18, 2010
Joseph Andrew Stack, who had earlier attended meetings of radical anti-tax groups in California, sets fire to his own house and then flies his single-engine plane into an Austin, Texas, building housing IRS offices. Stack and an IRS manager are killed, and 13 others are injured. Stack leaves a long online rant about the IRS and the tax code, politicians and corporations.
March 25, 2010
A man later identified as Brody James Whitaker opens fire on two Florida state troopers during a routine traffic stop on I-75 in Sumter County. Whitaker flees, crashing his vehicle and continuing on foot. He is arrested two weeks later in Connecticut, where he challenges the authority of a judge and declares himself a “sovereign,” not American, citizen. Sovereigns typically believe that police have no right to regulate road travel. Whitaker is later extradited to Florida to face charges of assaulting and fleeing from a police officer.
March 27-28, 2010
Nine members of the Hutaree Militia are arrested in raids in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana and charged with seditious conspiracy and attempted use of weapons of mass destruction. The group, whose website said it was preparing for the imminent arrival of the anti-Christ, allegedly planned to murder a Michigan police officer, then use bombs and homemade missiles to kill other officers attending the funeral, all in a bid to set off a war with the government.
April 15, 2010
Matthew Fairfield, who is president of a local chapter of an antigovernment “Patriot” organization called the Oath Keepers, is indicted on 28 explosives charges, 25 counts of receiving stolen property and one count of possessing criminal tools. Authorities searching his home discover a napalm bomb built by Fairfield, along with a computer carrying child pornography. Fairfield later pleads guilty to explosives charges, but still faces trial on other counts.
April 30, 2010
Darren Huff, an Oath Keeper from Georgia, is arrested and charged with planning the armed takeover of a Madisonville, Tenn., courthouse and “arrest” of 24 local, state and federal officials. Authorities say Duff was angry about the April 1 arrest there of Walter Francis Fitzpatrick III, a leader of the far-right American Grand Jury movement that seeks to have grand juries indict President Obama for treason. Several others in the antigovernment “Patriot” movement accuse Duff of white supremacist and anti-Semitic attitudes in Internet postings.
May 10, 2010
Sandlin Matthew Smith detonates a pipe bomb at a rear entrance to a mosque in Jacksonville, Fla., while worshippers are inside. Armed only with a fuzzy videotape, authorities only identify Smith, based on talking to witnesses to whom he admits the attack, a year later. They track Smith, a bus driver from Julington Creek, Fla., to a campsite near Fairview, Okla., where he resists arrest with a gun and is killed. A search of Smith’s two homes turns up explosive materials.
May 20, 2010
A father and son team of “sovereign citizens” who believe police have no right to regulate road travel murder West Memphis, Ark., police officers Robert Brandon Paudert, 39, and Thomas William “Bill” Evans, 38, during a routine traffic stop on an I-40 exit ramp. The incident begins when Jerry Kane, 45, starts to argue with the officers over his bogus vehicle paperwork and then pushes Evans into a roadside ditch. Kane’s 16-year-old son then kills both officers with an AK-47 before the pair flees. Authorities catch up with them about 45 minutes later. In the ensuing shootout, two more officers are badly wounded and both Kanes are killed. The pair had been traveling the country offering seminars in bogus sovereign techniques for avoiding foreclosure and related matters.
June 8, 2010
A bomb packed into a soda can is planted outside Osage Baptist Church in Carroll City, Ark., where a polling station for a Democratic Senate primary runoff between Sen. Blanche Lincoln and Lt. Gov. Bill Halter is located. The device does not explode, although authorities say it was capable of causing death or serious bodily injury. Officials later receive a tip from contractors who hired to clean out the foreclosed home of self-described “Patriot” Mark Krause, where they find bomb-making materials, manuals, and materials related to antigovernment militias. Krause, who earlier posted antigovernment messages to MySpace, eventually is arrested in Seattle.
July 18, 2010
An unemployed parolee with two bank robbery convictions, apparently enraged at liberals and what he sees as the “left-wing agenda” of Congress, allegedly opens fire on California Highway Patrol troopers who pull him over in Oakland. No one is killed, but two troopers are slightly injured and Byron Williams is shot in the arms and legs. Williams allegedly later tells authorities that he was on his way to attack offices of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Tides Foundation, a liberal organization that, although little known to most Americans, has been repeatedly pilloried on air by Fox News host Glenn Beck.
July 21, 2010
Attorney Todd Getgen is shot to death at a gun range in Cumberland County, Penn., and his weapon, a silenced AR-15 rifle, is stolen. Authorities arrest prison guard Raymond Peake nine days later, saying Peake was trying to accumulate weapons for an unnamed organization that intended to overthrow the government. Fellow prison guard Thomas Tuso is also arrested for allegedly helping Peake hide Getgen’s custom-built weapon.
Sept. 2, 2010
A pipe bomb is thrown through the window of a closed Planned Parenthood clinic in Madera, Calif., along with a note that reads, “Murder our children? We have a ‘choice’ too.” The note is signed ANB, apparently short for the American Nationalist Brotherhood. Six months later, law enforcement officials arrest school bus driver Donny Eugene Mower, who allegedly also threatened a local Islamic Center and has the word “Peckerwood,” a reference to a white supremacist gang, tattooed on his chest. Mower reportedly confesses to the attack.
Sept. 7, 2010
The FBI arrests 26-year-old Justin Carl Moose, a self-described “freedom fighter” and “Christian counterpart to Osama bin Laden,” for allegedly planning to blow up a North Carolina abortion clinic. After earlier receiving tips that Moose was posting threats of violence against abortion providers and information about explosives on his Facebook page, the FBI set up a sting operation to capture him. Moose later pleads guilty to distributing information on manufacturing and use of an explosive and is sentenced to 30 months in prison.
Sept. 19, 2010
An antigovernment extremist with ties to the separatist Republic of Texas organization allegedly opens fire on an oil company worker and two sheriff’s deputies who show up at White’s property in West Odessa, Texas, to access an oil well to which the company has rights. Victor White, 55, allegedly wounds all three men before they retreat, and a 22-hour standoff follows. White eventually surrenders and is charged with three counts of attempted capital murder of a peace officer, one count of attempted capital murder, and aggravated assault.
Jan. 14, 2011
Federal agents in Arizona arrest Jeffery Harbin, a member of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement, for allegedly building homemade grenades and pipe bombs that he apparently intended to supply to anti-immigration groups patrolling the Mexican border. A prosecutor says that Harbin constructed the devices, using model rocket engines and aluminum power, "in such a way as to maximize human carnage." Harbin is indicted on two counts of possessing a destructive device and a third of transporting destructive devices. Jeffery Harbin is the son of Jerry Harbin, a Phoenix-area activist with past ties to the neo-Nazi National Alliance and the racist Council of Conservative Citizens.
Jan. 17, 2011
Bomb technicians defuse a sophisticated improvised explosive device (IED) found in a backpack along the Spokane, Wash., route of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade with 1,500 marchers. Using forensic clues found in the dismantled bomb, officials about two months later identify and arrest Kevin William Harpham, a long-time neo-Nazi. Harpham had posted more than 1,000 messages to the neo-Nazi Vanguard News Network since 2004, when he was a member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance. Harpham also had contributed to the white supremacist Aryan Alternative newspaper. He is indicted on one count of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and one count of possessing an IED. Later, federal hate crime charges are added.
March 10, 2011
Six members of the antigovernment Alaska Peacemakers Militia, including its leader Francis Schaeffer Cox, are arrested and charged with plotting to kill or kidnap state troopers and a Fairbanks judge. The group already has a large cache of weapons, including a .50-caliber machine gun and grenades and a grenade launcher. Cox earlier identified himself as a “sovereign citizen.”
May 14, 2011
Three masked men break into the Madrasah Islamiah, an Islamic center in Houston, and douse prayer rugs with gasoline in an apparent attempt to burn the center down. Images of the men are captured on surveillance cameras, but they are not identified. The fire is put out before doing major damage.
If you go to the web site mentioned above, you can download the full information as a PDF file. I recommend keeping this information to show people who may be skeptical that there is any non-Muslim terrorist threat in the USA.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Right-Wing Extremism in Norway and America and Perceptions Thereof
This Friday just past (July 22nd,2011) certainly cannot be described as a "good-news day." First the continuing drip-drip-drip of Tea Party poison from Washington, with the House Republican leader John Boehner walking out on talks with the President on deficit and debt issues, because of the continuing refusal of the Republicans to consider ANY kind of revenue increase as part of a "grand deal" to reduce the debt and deficit. Then the sad and painful news of a massive bomb explosion in Oslo followed by the gunning down of teenaged Norwegians attending a summer camp sponsored by Norway's Social Democratic party.
Though I have been trying to reduce my exposure to news media to improve my spirits and tame my blood pressure level,I could not help but be transfixed by both of these news stories. Now, with some time to reflect on how these situations have been represented in the news media, I have some thoughts to share, though I fear that further exploring these issues will lead me and perhaps a few of my readers to experience such a precipitous rise in anger-and-frustration-driven blood pressure that our heads may erupt in agonizing showers of blood,something like what happens to a number of characters in the 1983 David Cronenberg film, "Videodrome." It may be wise to put a plastic covering over your computer to shield it from the inevitable, so that your heirs and/or debtors will be able to realize full value from your computer after you are gone. Or maybe not...
What strikes me is how in both cases, certain types of assumptions are privileged, and continue to be maintained, even when there is rather definite evidence to the contrary.
In the case of the breakdown of debt-ceiling/deficit/budget negotiations, an assumption of many in the news media is that this is a problem of "partisan politics," the failure of both sides to compromise. WHOA! Wait a minute there. This is a kind of fake structural, phony neutral analysis that pretends to achieve some kind of objectivity by simply blaming everyone involved without analyzing their roles and objectives in any meaningful way, also without considering the situation in any kind of historical perspective. This is NOT just a game of who's up and who's down, who will attain advantage in the next election, who will please Wall Street investors and who will not. This is NOT just a situation of two parties with points of view of quite equal value and justification asserting themselves and reaching an unfortunate deadlock.
There is ONE party, that of the Democrats,that is asking Congress to do a simple thing that it has done many times before as a routine matter, to raise the debt ceiling so that all hell does not break loose in our country from senior citizens not receiving their monthly checks to veterans not getting theirs to private companies that rely on government contracts being thrown into chaos and the international investment funds losing confidence in the USA and triggering a massive rise in interest rates and perhaps another 2008 stock market collapse. The Democrats are also refusing to accede to massive cuts in government programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that generations of poor, moderate-income and elderly Americans have depended on and need now, more than ever, in the face of the grueling, lingering recession that has driven so many out of their jobs and homes. That's right, that's what those crazy fucking Democrats are up to, those sick, unreasonable, America-hating fiends. Why oh why are they taking such an extreme, radical, dangerous, future-threatening stand? Why are they so stubborn? I'll tell you why. They are standing up not only to protect our economy but also to protect our form of government and way of life from some truly extreme, radical, dangerous and future-threatening folk, the Tea Party Republicans.
Yes, the Tea Party Republicans. Those god-fearing, flag-loving, super-duper-hyper-ultra patriotic-to-the-max American Tea Party Republicans (TPRs). They have used the debt ceiling issue to hold the country hostage, demanding incredibly massive cuts in government programs, cuts that have never been seen before and whose effects are agreed by most analysts to be potentially catastrophic for Americans who are not insulated by wealth and privilege. They insist that these cuts be done in the size, scale and way that they want, OR GRANNY* GETS IT! (Note: for *Granny, you may substitute any other vulnerable member of society and even the entire society in general.)That's right: their position on budget negotiations is AT LEAST 4 TRILLION BUCKS CUT WITH A CHAIN SAW OUT OF THE BIG EVIL GOVERNMENT BUDGET, OR ELSE! (Obama offered 3 trillion in cuts coupled with 1 trillion in new revenues; they said HELL NO!)
Now, to be fair, I don't begrudge these persons the right to advocate their views or advance them in negotiations. What is REALLY DIFFERENT about what they are doing is that they are (a) seeking EXTREME cuts like have never been seen before, cuts which are sure to cause major damage to many across the country) and(b) they are using the debt ceiling issue, an unrelated issue, to hold Obama and the Democrats hostage and force them to agree to the foresaid extreme and destructive budget cuts, which are far beyond anything previously discussed at a serious level in Washington.
What makes it all even crazier is that the TPRs claim to care deeply about the budget deficit, but refuse to acknowledge the obvious point that there are two (2) ways of dealing with such a deficit: (1) cutting spending, (2) raising revenues through increased taxes, closing of tax loopholes, or other such measures. If someone loses their job and is trying to raise a family, they can either seek new sources of income, such as finding a new job, or they can reduce their spending by such means as switching from three meals a day to one and learning to live without heat and electricity. The TPRs would rather see the American government become the equivalent of the family trying to exist on one meal a day and without heat or power than raise ANY revenues in ANY way. If they can't get this, 100% of an extreme demand, they are willing to let all hell break loose, even though a financial collapse will do nothing to resolve long-term budget and debt issues, which they CLAIM to really care about. I think they only care about those issues as a way of getting at their real goal: reducing government programs that they dislike out of ideological distaste for the public sector, as they tend to believe that most things in society are better handled by businessmen than government.
The Democrats in Congress, and even moreso Obama, have indicated willingness to agree to a "balanced approach" of some budget cuts and program alterations along with some increases in revenue. Opinion polls show most Americans agree with such an approach in principle.
So WHY then do many in the news media keep insisting that the problem is "partisan politics" and stubbornness on both sides? There is one side that is being reasonable, trying to be fair-minded and accept the other party's proposals to some extent, and one side which is both extreme in its demands and unwilling to negotiate.
The American public, reading, hearing and watching media blather about "partisan deadlock," is not being educated about the deeper issues at stake and the extreme right-wing,anti-government tilt that the Republican party has undergone with the rise of its now-dominant Tea Party faction. That is to say, the media is cooperating in concealing the extremeness of the right-wing movement in America, and as a result, the right-wing gains more and more power.
The same criticism applies to the President. He began to lose his temper in his press conference yesterday and to show his exasperation with the Republicans' unwillingness to budge from their extreme demands, but he still was not willing to call a spade a spade and say,"the Republicans are in the grip of an extreme right-wing ideology which I reject." He just can't do it. Instead, he said things like "both parties need to do their best..." This is like witnessing a crime on the street where a man with a knife takes out a knife and starts slashing people at random, and then telling the police, "We all need to be more concerned about violence on our streets and to consider sensible restrictions on how many people a knife-wielding gentleman is allowed to murder in one day," instead of telling who did what in plain terms, who is being harmed, and who is responsible.
The moral: one must NEVER EVER criticize right-wing, Tea Party Republicans or characterize them as right-wing or extreme. One must always be polite and obsequious to them. Obama makes snide, mocking references to progressives who criticize him for his rightward tilt on many matters, but he is always unfailingly respectful to the very right-wingers who are trying in every way to destroy him.
I see similar bias in the media coverage of the Norway attacks. How quick the media was to assume that this was the work of Al-Qaeda or similar Islamic terrorists,and how reluctant many media pundits were to let go of the Muslim boogie man and come to terms with the fact that the person responsible for this awful orgy of violence was a white, Christian, Norwegian farmer. Even when the news media began learning that this man was the prime suspect and was being questioned by police, they still kept muttering nonsense about possible Islamic connections. Just can't let go of it, can you? Because you know it FEELS SO GOOD to be SCARED of Muslims and to HATE them. Oh Yes, Baby, yes! Mmmmm!! More Muslim-bashing, PLEASE! More fear-mongering, PLEASE! I love being scared out of my wits about these demonic beings from the planet Allah! I love being a soldier in the "War on Muslims," I mean the "War on Terror!" Huh? What's that? A WHITECHRISTIANNORWEGIANFARMERDIDIT? No, that can't be right. Has to be a Muslim, got to be a Muslim, I wants me an evil dirty bearded Muslim, one just like Mamma used to hate, one that I can hate and fear and go to war against and kill Kill KILL with whoops of joy.
So now what? We have proof that the attacks were carried out by a white Christian Norwegian farmer. Do we now have a "War on Farmers?" a "War on Christianity?" a "War on White Norwegians?" Of course not. This Anders Behring Breivik guy was a one-in-a-million nut case, just a bad apple, just a crazy kook to be put away, so we can all go back to our lives without thinking. That's all there is to it, whew....!
Wait a minute, now you're telling me he may have either been influenced by or been associated with an extreme, anti-Muslim, right-wing, fundamentalist Christian movement? IMPOSSIBLE! Does not compute. Let me tell you a thing or two about terrorism, which I have learned from the media since 9/11 (blessings be upon that sacred date,and may all blasphemers be punished.). The term "terrorist" does not apply to white people, Christians, or right-wingers. If they engage in violence, it is nothing to get worked up about. Nothing to go to war about. Just a bad apple....like that Timothy McVeigh fellow.
Again, the media goes very soft and easy on right-wing misdeeds. Imagine if the killer had been a Muslim or an Arab or an African. What a shit-storm you would see!
Let's hope there will be some thoughtful discussion in our media about the dangers of right-wing extremism and Christian fundamentalism. Back in 2009, the FBI put out a report warning that the greatest terrorist threat would come from right-wing extremism, Timothy McVeigh-esque individuals and organizations. Since that time, with the rise to dominance of the right-wing Republicans in Washington and Obama's inexplicable eagerness to accommodate them, the FBI and Congress have backed away from taking any action on this threat. Maybe after what happened in Norway, they should get back on the case....if the American right-wingers will let them.
Wake up, America (and Norway, and Hungary, and...) Today's right-wing movements are extreme and dangerous, and also,sorry to say, often very effective in bullying their way to power. They will take hostages. They will resort to violence. Let's stop empowering them by offering them excuses and compromises. I truly believe that the right-wing tide can be turned back by exposing its extremeness and ugliness. It thrives on ignorance and cowardice.
Pagans have a role to play, too. Pagan religions can be twisted into justifications for racism and militarism, as the Nazis showed. If you see this happening, even to a small extent, speak up or get out. Reach out to others and you will find that there are indeed those who share your concerns and values. Don't let yourself be intimidated by racist thugs. Don't let your spirituality and traditions be hijacked by right-wing extremism.
Considering the quick move to scapegoat Muslims in light of the Oslo bombing, I also suggest that everyone who reads this try to be extra nice to Muslims that they know or meet, and if you hear someone spouting off with anti-Muslim rhetoric, remind them that Muslims are people, too. Trite as it may seem, reminding others that "we're all brothers and sisters" is a powerful message that is at the heart of every progressive movement for the last two thousand or more years and still has the power to cut through a lot of racist bullshit. Try it and see!
Though I have been trying to reduce my exposure to news media to improve my spirits and tame my blood pressure level,I could not help but be transfixed by both of these news stories. Now, with some time to reflect on how these situations have been represented in the news media, I have some thoughts to share, though I fear that further exploring these issues will lead me and perhaps a few of my readers to experience such a precipitous rise in anger-and-frustration-driven blood pressure that our heads may erupt in agonizing showers of blood,something like what happens to a number of characters in the 1983 David Cronenberg film, "Videodrome." It may be wise to put a plastic covering over your computer to shield it from the inevitable, so that your heirs and/or debtors will be able to realize full value from your computer after you are gone. Or maybe not...
What strikes me is how in both cases, certain types of assumptions are privileged, and continue to be maintained, even when there is rather definite evidence to the contrary.
In the case of the breakdown of debt-ceiling/deficit/budget negotiations, an assumption of many in the news media is that this is a problem of "partisan politics," the failure of both sides to compromise. WHOA! Wait a minute there. This is a kind of fake structural, phony neutral analysis that pretends to achieve some kind of objectivity by simply blaming everyone involved without analyzing their roles and objectives in any meaningful way, also without considering the situation in any kind of historical perspective. This is NOT just a game of who's up and who's down, who will attain advantage in the next election, who will please Wall Street investors and who will not. This is NOT just a situation of two parties with points of view of quite equal value and justification asserting themselves and reaching an unfortunate deadlock.
There is ONE party, that of the Democrats,that is asking Congress to do a simple thing that it has done many times before as a routine matter, to raise the debt ceiling so that all hell does not break loose in our country from senior citizens not receiving their monthly checks to veterans not getting theirs to private companies that rely on government contracts being thrown into chaos and the international investment funds losing confidence in the USA and triggering a massive rise in interest rates and perhaps another 2008 stock market collapse. The Democrats are also refusing to accede to massive cuts in government programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that generations of poor, moderate-income and elderly Americans have depended on and need now, more than ever, in the face of the grueling, lingering recession that has driven so many out of their jobs and homes. That's right, that's what those crazy fucking Democrats are up to, those sick, unreasonable, America-hating fiends. Why oh why are they taking such an extreme, radical, dangerous, future-threatening stand? Why are they so stubborn? I'll tell you why. They are standing up not only to protect our economy but also to protect our form of government and way of life from some truly extreme, radical, dangerous and future-threatening folk, the Tea Party Republicans.
Yes, the Tea Party Republicans. Those god-fearing, flag-loving, super-duper-hyper-ultra patriotic-to-the-max American Tea Party Republicans (TPRs). They have used the debt ceiling issue to hold the country hostage, demanding incredibly massive cuts in government programs, cuts that have never been seen before and whose effects are agreed by most analysts to be potentially catastrophic for Americans who are not insulated by wealth and privilege. They insist that these cuts be done in the size, scale and way that they want, OR GRANNY* GETS IT! (Note: for *Granny, you may substitute any other vulnerable member of society and even the entire society in general.)That's right: their position on budget negotiations is AT LEAST 4 TRILLION BUCKS CUT WITH A CHAIN SAW OUT OF THE BIG EVIL GOVERNMENT BUDGET, OR ELSE! (Obama offered 3 trillion in cuts coupled with 1 trillion in new revenues; they said HELL NO!)
Now, to be fair, I don't begrudge these persons the right to advocate their views or advance them in negotiations. What is REALLY DIFFERENT about what they are doing is that they are (a) seeking EXTREME cuts like have never been seen before, cuts which are sure to cause major damage to many across the country) and(b) they are using the debt ceiling issue, an unrelated issue, to hold Obama and the Democrats hostage and force them to agree to the foresaid extreme and destructive budget cuts, which are far beyond anything previously discussed at a serious level in Washington.
What makes it all even crazier is that the TPRs claim to care deeply about the budget deficit, but refuse to acknowledge the obvious point that there are two (2) ways of dealing with such a deficit: (1) cutting spending, (2) raising revenues through increased taxes, closing of tax loopholes, or other such measures. If someone loses their job and is trying to raise a family, they can either seek new sources of income, such as finding a new job, or they can reduce their spending by such means as switching from three meals a day to one and learning to live without heat and electricity. The TPRs would rather see the American government become the equivalent of the family trying to exist on one meal a day and without heat or power than raise ANY revenues in ANY way. If they can't get this, 100% of an extreme demand, they are willing to let all hell break loose, even though a financial collapse will do nothing to resolve long-term budget and debt issues, which they CLAIM to really care about. I think they only care about those issues as a way of getting at their real goal: reducing government programs that they dislike out of ideological distaste for the public sector, as they tend to believe that most things in society are better handled by businessmen than government.
The Democrats in Congress, and even moreso Obama, have indicated willingness to agree to a "balanced approach" of some budget cuts and program alterations along with some increases in revenue. Opinion polls show most Americans agree with such an approach in principle.
So WHY then do many in the news media keep insisting that the problem is "partisan politics" and stubbornness on both sides? There is one side that is being reasonable, trying to be fair-minded and accept the other party's proposals to some extent, and one side which is both extreme in its demands and unwilling to negotiate.
The American public, reading, hearing and watching media blather about "partisan deadlock," is not being educated about the deeper issues at stake and the extreme right-wing,anti-government tilt that the Republican party has undergone with the rise of its now-dominant Tea Party faction. That is to say, the media is cooperating in concealing the extremeness of the right-wing movement in America, and as a result, the right-wing gains more and more power.
The same criticism applies to the President. He began to lose his temper in his press conference yesterday and to show his exasperation with the Republicans' unwillingness to budge from their extreme demands, but he still was not willing to call a spade a spade and say,"the Republicans are in the grip of an extreme right-wing ideology which I reject." He just can't do it. Instead, he said things like "both parties need to do their best..." This is like witnessing a crime on the street where a man with a knife takes out a knife and starts slashing people at random, and then telling the police, "We all need to be more concerned about violence on our streets and to consider sensible restrictions on how many people a knife-wielding gentleman is allowed to murder in one day," instead of telling who did what in plain terms, who is being harmed, and who is responsible.
The moral: one must NEVER EVER criticize right-wing, Tea Party Republicans or characterize them as right-wing or extreme. One must always be polite and obsequious to them. Obama makes snide, mocking references to progressives who criticize him for his rightward tilt on many matters, but he is always unfailingly respectful to the very right-wingers who are trying in every way to destroy him.
I see similar bias in the media coverage of the Norway attacks. How quick the media was to assume that this was the work of Al-Qaeda or similar Islamic terrorists,and how reluctant many media pundits were to let go of the Muslim boogie man and come to terms with the fact that the person responsible for this awful orgy of violence was a white, Christian, Norwegian farmer. Even when the news media began learning that this man was the prime suspect and was being questioned by police, they still kept muttering nonsense about possible Islamic connections. Just can't let go of it, can you? Because you know it FEELS SO GOOD to be SCARED of Muslims and to HATE them. Oh Yes, Baby, yes! Mmmmm!! More Muslim-bashing, PLEASE! More fear-mongering, PLEASE! I love being scared out of my wits about these demonic beings from the planet Allah! I love being a soldier in the "War on Muslims," I mean the "War on Terror!" Huh? What's that? A WHITECHRISTIANNORWEGIANFARMERDIDIT? No, that can't be right. Has to be a Muslim, got to be a Muslim, I wants me an evil dirty bearded Muslim, one just like Mamma used to hate, one that I can hate and fear and go to war against and kill Kill KILL with whoops of joy.
So now what? We have proof that the attacks were carried out by a white Christian Norwegian farmer. Do we now have a "War on Farmers?" a "War on Christianity?" a "War on White Norwegians?" Of course not. This Anders Behring Breivik guy was a one-in-a-million nut case, just a bad apple, just a crazy kook to be put away, so we can all go back to our lives without thinking. That's all there is to it, whew....!
Wait a minute, now you're telling me he may have either been influenced by or been associated with an extreme, anti-Muslim, right-wing, fundamentalist Christian movement? IMPOSSIBLE! Does not compute. Let me tell you a thing or two about terrorism, which I have learned from the media since 9/11 (blessings be upon that sacred date,and may all blasphemers be punished.). The term "terrorist" does not apply to white people, Christians, or right-wingers. If they engage in violence, it is nothing to get worked up about. Nothing to go to war about. Just a bad apple....like that Timothy McVeigh fellow.
Again, the media goes very soft and easy on right-wing misdeeds. Imagine if the killer had been a Muslim or an Arab or an African. What a shit-storm you would see!
Let's hope there will be some thoughtful discussion in our media about the dangers of right-wing extremism and Christian fundamentalism. Back in 2009, the FBI put out a report warning that the greatest terrorist threat would come from right-wing extremism, Timothy McVeigh-esque individuals and organizations. Since that time, with the rise to dominance of the right-wing Republicans in Washington and Obama's inexplicable eagerness to accommodate them, the FBI and Congress have backed away from taking any action on this threat. Maybe after what happened in Norway, they should get back on the case....if the American right-wingers will let them.
Wake up, America (and Norway, and Hungary, and...) Today's right-wing movements are extreme and dangerous, and also,sorry to say, often very effective in bullying their way to power. They will take hostages. They will resort to violence. Let's stop empowering them by offering them excuses and compromises. I truly believe that the right-wing tide can be turned back by exposing its extremeness and ugliness. It thrives on ignorance and cowardice.
Pagans have a role to play, too. Pagan religions can be twisted into justifications for racism and militarism, as the Nazis showed. If you see this happening, even to a small extent, speak up or get out. Reach out to others and you will find that there are indeed those who share your concerns and values. Don't let yourself be intimidated by racist thugs. Don't let your spirituality and traditions be hijacked by right-wing extremism.
Considering the quick move to scapegoat Muslims in light of the Oslo bombing, I also suggest that everyone who reads this try to be extra nice to Muslims that they know or meet, and if you hear someone spouting off with anti-Muslim rhetoric, remind them that Muslims are people, too. Trite as it may seem, reminding others that "we're all brothers and sisters" is a powerful message that is at the heart of every progressive movement for the last two thousand or more years and still has the power to cut through a lot of racist bullshit. Try it and see!
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