Right-wingers are crazy
Posted by onRemember that report by the Department of Homeland Security that was released in April warning that right-wing extremism is on the rise throughout the country? Remember the outrage from the right wing? Remember how they demanded the report be retracted and that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano apologize and step down? Remember how they claimed that there is no threat from right-wing extremists like abortion activists, immigration activists, and white supremacists? Remember that?
The person who drafted the outrageous homeland security memo smearing veterans and conservatives should be fired.
The piece of crap report issued on April 7 is a sweeping indictment of conservatives. And the intent is clear. As the two spokespeople I talked with on the phone today made clear: They both pinpointed the recent “economic downturn” and the “general state of the economy” for stoking “rightwing extremism.”
There are no Timothy McVeighs out there right now. They’re making a big deal out of something that hasn’t happened and may not happen.
There’s the usual stuff about guns, illegal immigration, and disgruntled war veterans, plus the new wrinkle of our having elected an African-American President. The report concludes, unsurprisingly, that we have to worry more about “lone wolves and small terrorist cells” than anything else.
The report compares the current climate to the 1990s, “when right-wing extremism experienced a resurgence fueled largely by an economic recession, criticism about the outsourcing of jobs, and the perceived threat to U.S. power and sovereignty by other foreign powers.” It specifically cites concerns about disgruntled war veterans, anti-government activists, anti-abortion activists, anti-Semites, and anti-immigration activists who work alone of in small groups.
The right-wing insists that there is no threat.
Saturday, April 4, 2009:
Richard Poplawski shoots and kills 3 police officers in Pittsburgh, PA during a 4 hour stand-off with SWAT officers.
A devotee of the white supremacist Web site Stormfront, Poplawski believed that the United States was controlled by a secret Jewish cabal that had a master plan to abrogate freedom of speech and use the U.S. military to police Americans… As his friend, Edward Perkovic, told the Associated Press, Poplawski feared “the Obama gun ban that’s on the way” and “didn’t like our rights being infringed upon.”
Sunday, May 30, 2009:
Scott Roeder shoots and kills Dr. George Tiller in his church in Wichita, KS.
Those who know Roeder said he believed that killing abortion doctors was an act of justifiable homicide. “I know that he believed in justifiable homicide,” said Regina Dinwiddie, a Kansas City anti-abortion activist who made headlines in 1995 when she was ordered by a federal judge to stop using a bullhorn within 500 feet of any abortion clinic. “I know he very strongly believed that abortion was murder and that you ought to defend the little ones, both born and unborn.”
Wednesday, June 10, 2009:
James von Brunn, an 88-year-old gunman shoots and kills a security guard inside the crowded U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum before being shot by other officers on duty.
Brunn has been approvingly cited on Stormfront, a national white supremacist website. He is apparently the author of a tract called, “Kill the Best Gentiles,” which his website describes as “a new, hard-hitting exposé of the JEW CONSPIRACY to destroy the White gene-pool.” Brunn, a WWII veteran, also wrote a screed on President Obama’s citizenship that was re-posted to popular right-wing blog Free Republic.
Disgruntled war veterans? Check (x2) Anti-government activists? Check. Anti-abortion activists? Check. Anti-Semites? Check (x2). The only box unchecked is anti-immigration activist. How long until we get one of those? Maybe someone from The Minuteman Project will make their fantasies a reality and kill some immigrants crossing the border?
Oddly, Shepard Smith from Fox News sums it up nicely:
Discussing the shooting, Fox News’ Shepard Smith reminded the audience that when the Department of Homeland Security released a report warning of violent, right-wing extremists earlier this year, “the right went absolutely bonkers!” He called the report a “warning to us all,” and said DHS was “warning us for a reason.”
And yet many other right-wingers out there are doubling down on their position and are insisting that the DHS report is a disgrace and simply picking on conservatives and that Shep and the left-wing are fools for suggesting otherwise.
You right-wingers are all crazy! I hope you enjoy the political wilderness, because I don’t see you coming out for a while.