right wing violence

Firing Back on Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism

Sara Robinson — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:56:37 -0400

It's been a wild couple of weeks for those of us in the wingnutology business. Our services have been in tremendous demand as the mainstream media tries to sort out the meaning of what Scott Roeder and James von Brunn did. I've done an average of one radio show every day for the past two weeks trying to help various lefty talkers around the country make some sense of it all; and I'm generally gratified at how seriously people are starting to take this.

At the same time, I'm also appalled (though, sadly, hardly surprised) by the conservative myth-making that's going on around the very serious issue of right-wing domestic terrorism. So it's obviously time to pull together another "Firing Back" piece to give progressives what they need to separate fact from fiction when these talking points start flying.

I've actually had every one of the following myths pitched to me by on-air interviewers, phone-in callers, and/or online commenters over the last two weeks. Most of them have come up over and over, which suggests to me that you're likely to encounter them, too. So let's walk 'em through:

1. These are just "lone wolf" psychos who are acting alone. You can't hold anybody else responsible for what crazy people decide to do.

True and false. But mostly false.

It's true that every one of the nine right-wing terrorists who've made the news since January 20 had a history of mental illness, domestic violence, and/or drug abuse. Several were veterans who were having a really hard time adjusting to civilian life. None of these people could reasonably be considered sane; and, for whatever twisted reasons, they made a personal choice to do what they did.

But it's not true that they were acting alone. People who are dealing with these kinds of demons are often drawn into movements that offer a strong narrative that helps them make sense of a world that never seems to add up right for them. They're usually drawn into organizations like Operation Rescue or the Minutemen that are nominally non-violent; but which also indoctrinate them into a worldview that justifies and motivates people to commit terrorist acts. They come to believe that they must do this to save the world, to serve God, and to be the heroes they desperately want to be.

They're already walking sticks of dynamite. But it takes the heat of that apocalyptic, dualistic, eliminationist, pro-violence narrative to light their fuses and make them explode.

Unfortunately, these groups also make it easy to take that final step over the line, because they often have close ties to other more secretive groups that do advocate and plan terrorist violence as a solution. Operation Rescue teaches that killing abortion doctors is justifiable homicide; and then feeds its most extreme members into the Army of God. The Aryan Nations and several other white nationalist groups supplied the nine members of The Order, a racist terrorist group that killed two people (including left-wing talker Alan Berg) and stole over $4 million during a nine-month spree in 1984. Al Qaeda got many of its recruits from the nominally non-violent (but still radical) Hizb al-Tahrir. Of course, when violence actually occurs, these groups always denounce it—but they also usually have a very good idea of who was involved, because they've been hanging around with the perpetrators for quite a while themselves.

One of the things the public is finally beginning to understand is that the "lone wolf" story has never been accurate, because these guys are never really alone in the world. Every one of them was well-marinated in large, long-established subcultures that put them up to terrorism, and promised to make heroes out of them if they succeeded.

2. These terrorists are really left-wingers, not right-wingers. Because everybody knows that fascism is a phenomenon that only occurs on the left.

False does not even begin to cover the absurdity of this claim.

Fascism has always been a phenomenon of the right. Every postwar academic scholar of fascism—Robert Paxton, Roger Griffin, Umberto Eco, and onward—has been emphatically clear about this. Mussolini admitted as much. It's part of the very definition of the word.

Jonah Goldberg has gotten a lot of traction on the left for his argument that fascism is somehow a left-wing tendency; but in his badly argued, barely-researched tome Liberal Fascism, he gets here by taking logical leaps that no college professor would accept from the greenest freshman. The worst, perhaps, is the way he conflates "fascism" with "totalitarianism." There is such a thing as left-wing totalitarianism: Stalinism and Maoism both qualify. But they were communist, not fascist, movements. It's only when totalitarianism happens on the right that we call it fascism.

Still, this idea has caught on like wildfire, and is being widely promoted by right-wing talkers like Glenn Beck. If you want the full takedown on this, I refer you to Dave Neiwert's exhaustive series of debunking articles, which are linked to in the sidebar at Orcinus.

3. Public right-wing groups like Operation Rescue or the Minutemen don't advocate violence, so these acts have absolutely nothing to do with them.

As noted above: these groups may not engage in violence themselves, but they do provide the narrative and worldview that convinces people that terrorism is the only available means of getting what they want. As I wrote here, these narratives have a very specific structure that sets people up for terrorism:

Long before they turn dangerous, political and religious groups take their first step down that road by adopting a worldview that justifies eventual violent action. The particulars of the narrative vary, but the basic themes are always the same. First: their story is apocalyptic, insisting that the end of the world as we've known it is near. Second: it divides the world into a Good-versus-Evil/Us-versus-Them dualism that encourages the group to interpret even small personal, social, or political events as major battles in a Great Cosmic Struggle—a habit of mind that leads the group to demonize anyone who disagrees with them. This struggle also encourages members to invest everyday events with huge existential meaning, and as a result sometimes overreact wildly to very mundane stuff.

Third: this split allows for a major retreat from consensus reality and the mainstream culture. The group rejects the idea that they share a common future with the rest of society, and curls up into its own insular worldview that's impervious to the outside culture's reasoning or facts. Fourth: insiders feel like they're a persecuted, prophetic elite who are being opposed by wicked, tyrannical forces. Left to fester, this paranoia will eventually drive the group to make concrete preparations for self-defense—and perhaps go on the offense against their perceived persecutors. Fifth: communities following this logic will also advocate the elimination of their enemies by any means necessary, in order to purify the world for their ideology.

Once people have accepted these ideas as truth, terrorist violence begins to seem like an unavoidable imperative—and lone wolves, smelling blood, will start to hunt for targets.

4. This is just a minority movement that isn't really capable of changing anything. We don't really need to worry about it.

False. And evidence of tremendous denial.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of hate groups in the US is up 40% since 2000, with nearly 1000 such groups active across the country right now. Fueled by bone-deep racism, an unnatural terror of liberal government, frustration over the economic downturn, and fears about America's loss of world standing, they tell us, the militant right is rising again. You can find groups in every corner of the country, incidents of racist violence are rising; and the traffic on far-right websites is up, too.

Make no mistake: the right-wing radicals are angry, and there are enough of them out there to do some real damage. As noted, they're far more cohesive and better-connected than they've ever been. And they're only getting started.

5. It's not fair to hold right-wing media talking heads responsible for the things their listeners might do.

Riiight.

Advertisers will spend about $50 billion this year on TV ads, and another $15 billion on radio. That's a lot of money. These ads take up roughly one-third of every hour of airtime—and sponsors pay up gladly, because long experience has shown that broadcast ads are a very powerful way to influence consumer behavior.

But this argument asks us to believe that what happens during the other 40 minutes per hour has absolutely no effect on anybody, ever. Got that? Ads: Powerful influences on behavior. Featured content: No influence whatsoever. Absurd.

Furthermore: conservatives have railed against Hollywood for decades, claiming that movies, TV shows, music, and videogames are a powerful corrupting influence on the country's morals. They've howled even louder in recent years about Al-Jazeera's perceived negative effect on the political discourse in the Middle East. But when it comes to their own media—no, no, nothing to see here. Nobody's really listening to us, let alone acting on anything we might say. How could you even suggest such a thing?

As usual, they're trying to have it both ways. The religious right came to power almost exclusively on the persuasive (and fundraising) strength of cable TV shows. The conservative grip on the country's red counties is largely attributable to right-wing talk radio and FOX News. Obviously, conservatives strongly believe that other people's media have tremendous power to undermine their preferred narratives; and there's no denying that they've been very aggressive in using it to promote their own worldview for decades.

But now they're turning around and insisting that nope—nobody ever did anything because some talking head told them to. And that sound you hear? Don't worry—it's just the head of the ad sales department quietly having a stroke because we've completely undermined her ability to ever sell another spot.

6. All that crazy stuff you hear on the right—you can find the left wing saying things just as bad. They're equally culpable for how bad it all its.

False. There is no equivalency whatsoever to be drawn here.

It’s absolutely true that the commenters can get just as out of hand on liberal sites as they do on conservative ones. (And most of us who've been hanging around the Internets for a while have the flamethrower scars to prove it.) But the problem has nothing to do with the commenters. It has to do with the opinion leaders who are driving the conversation.

On the right, it's actually hard to name a single major voice who hasn’t called for the outright extermination, silencing, harassment, or killing of liberals. Rush. Bill O’Reilly. Ann Coulter. Sean Hannity. Laura Ingraham. Michelle Malkin. Michael Savage. Glenn Beck. Bernard Goldberg, who has been cited by at least one assassin as the inspiration for his actions. Michael Reagan, just yesterday. This kind of eliminationist language is stock in trade on the right. A lot of them literally cannot get through the week without it.

And I’m sorry—but you just don’t hear anything like this same murderous vitriol coming from any of the major voices on the left. Kos’ commenters may engage in that, but Kos himself does not. Nor does Arianna. Ed Schultz talks tough, but he's never called for liberals to silence conservatives. Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are flaming liberals—but they would choke on air before actually threatening anyone with bodily harm. Both of them have said repeatedly that they regard that kind of thing as a grossly irresponsible use of a media soapbox. Every reputable left-wing leader or talker wholeheartedly agrees.

Furthermore: you don’t see Volvos and Priuses out there sporting "conservative hunting licenses,” despite the fact that "liberal hunting licenses" have been a hot item on the right for years. We’re not the ones driving the huge surge in gun purchases, either. And most importantly: You don’t see us out there shooting up fundamentalist churches, crisis pregnancy clinics, conservative gatherings, or cops. You have to go all the way back to the 1970s to find anything like that kind of overt political terrorist violence coming from the left. But starting in the 1980s, we've had ongoing waves of it coming out of the right—now including the nine separate violent right-wing attacks on innocent Americans since Obama was inaugurated.

I agree that it’s time to dial this down. But since it's the right wing who gathers power by whipping up people’s fear and anger — and it's the right wing (and only the right wing) that's now actually taking up arms and killing people — then all I have to say is:

You first.

7. "Dial it down?" Don't you mean that you want to use the power of government to forcibly shut up right-wing hate talkers?

False. There are a few folks in Congress who tried to gin up support for some kind of legislation—but progressives should resist this impulse, and denounce it as the shameless grandstanding that it is. We believe in the First Amendment. And if we compromise it now, we're no better than the Bush-era conservatives who were so eager to shred the Constitution when they felt threatened. We are better than that—or should be.

Besides, we've already perfected a tried-and-true method that actually works. Even better: it's grounded completely in conservative free-market philosophy; so if when the right wing starts blustering about it, we get to fire right back and call them out as hypocrites. Big fun all around...and so much more elegant than wantonly trampling on people's civil rights.

Short and simple: we take our appeal to the advertisers. We note who the hate talkers are, what they're saying, what date and time they said it—and then we write letters to the CEOs of the companies that sponsored those shows. Do these people speak for you? Is this the kind of media you want your product associated with? If the answer is no, what do you intend to do about it?

Note that this is not a boycott—just a call for moral accountability. Being associated with hate speech is so bad for business in so many ways that no boycott should be required. It taints the brand. It usually violates the sponsors' own HR standards—any employee who said that stuff at the office would be canned on the spot. It's horrible PR, especially if some enterprising blogger decides to make an issue out of it. Simply pointing that out has often been enough to convince executives that it's a bad idea, and they need to get out before it blows up in their faces.

Don Imus lost his show this way. So did KSFO's Melanie Morgan. (There's even a verb for it —"spockoed"—referring to the blogger who used this technique to get Morgan and several other California hate talkers off the air.) It turns out that advertisers actually read these letters—especially when they're getting them by the hundreds. It doesn't take much of this before they pull back their ads; and when their major sponsors walk away, the talkers lose their shows. They may thrash a little—but usually, it's all over in a matter of just a few weeks.

Note, too, that both TV and radio stations are already losing revenue year over year at a rate that's starting to rival newspapers, so they're probably even more exquisitely sensitive to this kind of pressure now than they were just a couple years ago. If we want these people off this air, this is the way to get them gone for good—and make the cultural point that this garbage is no longer acceptable on the nation's airwaves.

8. But what you're suggesting is censorship! You're trying to censor free speech!

Oh, please. Anybody who argues this with a straight face shouldn't be allowed into a voting booth until they're sent back to eighth-grade civics for a basic refresher, because they apparently know less about the Constitution than the average immigrant who's had to take a citizenship test.

Follow me here: "Censorship" is strictly defined as "government suppression of free speech."

When citizens appeal directly to advertisers, that's not censorship, because the government isn't anywhere in the mix. It's just the Almighty Divine Hand of the Unfettered Free Market at work, y'all. The sponsors are voting with their dollars—which, in the conservative free-market utopia, is precisely how it's supposed to work.

9. What about that guy who shot the recruiters in Arkansas—isn't that proof that the left wing is just as bad as the right?

False. I mean: really, really false.

Abdulhakim Mohammed's assassination of two military recruiters was an act of Muslim terrorism, no different than 9/11 or the London subway bombings or Richard Reid and his amazing explosive sneakers. He didn't have a pile of Thom Hartmann books in his apartment. There have been no reports that his computer bookmarks linked to FireDogLake and Crooks & Liars. Near as we can tell, Mohammed was radicalized after being held and abused in a Yemeni prison—and had absolutely no association with the American left at all.

Yes, he said that he did it because he protested the war. (I actually fielded a radio caller who insisted that his opposition to the war was de facto proof that he's a raving liberal.) But here's a news flash, kiddos: You don't need to be a progressive to think the war was a bad idea. It may come as a surprise to learn that there are a lot of people in other parts of the world who also think it was a bad idea. An absolutely shocking number of them are Muslims and/or people who've spent time in the Middle East. Go figure.

It's a sign of how far detached from reality the right wing is that it no longer can tell the essential difference between Muslim terrorists and garden-variety American progressives. We're not wrong to ask: should people who are that thoroughly blinded by their prejudices be issued drivers' licenses?

♦ ♦ ♦
This is terrorism we're dealing with. We can't afford to let ourselves be distracted by spin. We will not be able to respond effectively until we're able to deal in facts. The sooner we shoot down these myths, the sooner we'll be able dispel fear, think clearly, and start having some real, honest conversations about the actual threats we face.

Memo to the Right Wing: Put Up or Shut Up

Sara Robinson — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:26:42 -0400

Dear Conservatives:

Your fellow Americans demand an answer -- and we want it now. Just one simple question:

Are you deliberately trying to start a civil war?

Just answer the question. Yes or no. Don't insult us with elisions, evasions, dithering, qualifications, or conditional answers. We need to know what your intentions are -- and we need to know NOW. People are being shot dead in the streets of America at the rate of several per month now. You may not want responsibility for this -- but the whackadoodles pulling the triggers make no bones about who put them up to this.

You did.

The assassins themselves are ratting you out. They're telling us, straight up, that they were inspired to act by the hate radio talkers that you empowered -- one of whom is now the de facto head of the Republican party. They got it from media outlets owned by your biggest donors. They got it from bloggers who receive daily talking points faxed in from the GOP. They got it from activists representing causes that would have never become causes in the first place if the issues hadn't been politically expedient for you.

Beyond that: You've already admitted your own complicity. When the Department of Homeland Security expressed their worries about right-wing extremist violence last April, practically every conservative pundit in the country went into a righteous fit. DHS never named anyone directly, so it was astonishing how many of you on the right were so quick to step up and claim that that memo was slandering you, personally and collectively. Since you were so eager to claim that that memo was all about you, now that the violence has come to pass, we're well justified in holding you to that.

And please don't insult our intelligence by saying that these acts are the work of lone wolves, and that you don't have anything to do with this, and that it's all the fault of the left. It's true that there have always been crazies in our midst. But by choosing to gain power through a politics that only motivates through hate and fear, you've recruited a good-sized army of those crazies, armed them up, and turned them into paranoid monsters that are now running loose on the American landscape.

We know you have absolute and utter contempt for the intelligence of the average American, but trying to blame the left for creating this situation is a fabrication so vast that it tells us you don't even have so much as a shred of respect for yourselves. Even you seem to know that your word is worth nothing to most Americans now -- and you don't seem to care.

You don't seem to give a damn about the future of this country, either. You're just in it to win the next election, increase profits for the next quarter, or boost your ratings in the next book. As long as selling hate accomplishes any of these goals, you'll do it -- without regard for the cultural sewage you're creating, without regard for the way you've polluted the political landscape, and now apparently without even a moment's regard for the innocent lives that are being lost because you seem bent on destroying every shred of trust required for our democracy to function.

But the bodies are piling up. We are demanding an accounting from you. We are demanding that you take responsibility for the situation you've created. We are looking you straight in the eyes and demanding a straight answer:

Are you deliberately trying to start a civil war?

If your answer is yes, then stop this cowardly half-assed screwing around. You speak the language of war and honor; but the honor code of the warriors you pretend to revere demands that you declare your intentions. If you really believe that the only way to get the America you want is to negate a fair election, shred the Constitution, and violently cleanse the country of everyone who doesn't agree with you, then man up and get on with it. If it's a shooting war you want, do not doubt that there are plenty of progressives who will oblige you. If this goal is so important that you're really willing to kill for it, please don't forget that you will also need to be willing to die for it. Because, like martyrs Greg McKendry and Steven Johns proved, we are willing to do whatever is necessary to stop you.

If your answer is no, then you have just one other choice. Knock off the tantrums, grow up, rebuild your party, come back to the table, and sit down and govern with us. (We know this will be a stretch, but we think some of you are capable of it.) You will need to learn, many of you for the first time, to get your way as adults do -- without fear-based politics, polarizing rhetoric, on-air threats against those who disagree with you, and repeating outrageous lies in the face of stone facts and irrefutable evidence.

And most of all: you need to stop feeding the crazies. You need to disavow them in every way possible -- sincerely, emphatically, and with full awareness that every time one of these people acts, it destroys the credibility of "conservatives," "Republicans," and "the right wing" in the eyes of the country. You cannot assassinate your way back to power. And don't doubt for a moment that the majority of Americans -- even those who agree with your ideas -- will abandon your cause forever once it realizes that's what you're trying to do.

Since you're the ones funding the violent radicals on your flank, you need to stop sending them money. Since you know far more about their activities than any one else, you need to be the ones who turn them in. Since you're the ones who make heroes and martyrs out of them, you need to be the ones who call them out as criminals. Until you do this -- consistently, wholeheartedly, and responsibly -- we can only conclude that these assassins are operating with your support and approval, and that you are intentionally trying to start an armed revolution in America.

That's your choice. Are you deliberately trying to start a civil war? Or are you willing to work for real civility, and return to your seat at the table, ready to help us choose the country's future?

Yes or No. Right now. The window is closing fast behind you. And once it closes, none of us -- not you, not us, not anyone -- will have the choice to avoid the catastrophe that will follow. It's your decision. And you need to make it now.

Tragedy at the Holocaust Museum: Stand Up To Terrorism

Sara Robinson — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:14:26 -0400

The storm I've been warning about is coming in faster now. It is time for the right to stand up against the escalating tide of violence fueled by its own rhetoric.

To get a sense of just how fast, you only need to take stock of what's been happening on the right wing since President Obama's inauguration:

Wednesday, January 21 -- the day after the inauguration -- 22-year-old Keith Luke goes on a violent spree in his Boston neighborhood. He rapes and kills one woman, and also kills the sister who tries to help her. He then goes out onto the street and shoots a passing homeless man. Police intercept him on his way to a local synagogue, where he tells them he intended to "kill as many Jews as possible during bingo night." He also says that he was fighting the extinction of the white race, and had stockpiled 200 round of ammunition to that end.

Tuesday, February 10 -- In Belfast, Maine, radioactive "dirty bomb" materials are found in home of James Cummings, who had been shot and killed by his wife after years of domestic violence. Cummings was an admirer of Adolf Hitler, and a large collection of Nazi memorabilia and a filled-out application for the National Socialist Movement were found on the scene.

Thursday, February 26 -- In Miramar Beach, FL, 60-year-old Dannie Baker walks into a neighboring townhouse where 14 Chilean students -- all in the US legally -- are gathered. He fires, killing two and wounding five. Those who know Baker describe him as a mentally ill man obsessed with fear that immigrants are taking over the country.

Sunday, April 5 -- Budding white supremacist and recently discharged veteran Richard Popalowski shoots and kills three police officers following a standoff in Pittsburgh. They were responding to a domestic disturbance call. He believed they had been sent by the Obama Adminstration to take away his guns.

Tuesday, April 28 -- US Army Reservist Joshua Cartwright shoots and kills two sheriff's deputies in Fort Walton Beach, FL. His wife escaped from him after he beat her, and called police from the emergency room. In the incident report, she reported that her husband believed the US Government was conspiring against him, and was severely disturbed that Barack Obama had been elected President.

Wednesday, May 6 -- Stephen P. Morgan of Middletown, CT kills former NYU classmate Johanna Justin-Jinich, whom he had been harassing since at least 2007. A diary found in his belongings included an entry: "I think it's ok to kill Jews and go on a killing spree" and "Kill Johanna. She must Die." Justin-Jinich was Jewish, and the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor.

Sunday, May 31 -- Dr. George Tiller is shot to death while ushering at his Lutheran church in Wichita, KS. His killer, Scott Roeder, is captured by police within hours. Roeder is found to have ties to several violent right-wing groups, including the Montana Freemen and the Sovereign Citizen movement. He had also been committing acts of vandalism against abortion clinics for years, most recently just days before the assassination.

Wednesday, June 10 -- Well-known anti-Semitic blogger James Wenneker von Brunn walks into the national Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC and opens fire. Two security guards are shot; one is dead and the other still guarded as of this writing. Von Brunn himself was killed in return fire. He had been prominent in Holocaust denier circles for several decades, and considered Holocaust museums to be a crime against white history.

Eight episodes of right-wing extremist violence in four-and-a-half months. We haven't gone four weeks since February without some deranged soul—always with a long history of mental illness; usually with a record of military service and/or domestic violence; and invariably jacked up on a toxic cocktail of white male privilege; us-versus-them enemy-seeking; fury at women, blacks and/or Jews; and a belief that the world as he knew it was ending unless he took up arms—taking out his gun and killing innocent Americans in a suicidal bid for glory.

For the record: This is not business as usual. True, there have always been occasional events, usually dismissed by the corporate media as "isolated incidents," the work of "lone wolf shooters" acting for reasons all their own. But you have to go back a long, long way in American history before you come to a place where you find incidents like this happening an average of once every two weeks. And the chattering classes are finally beginning to realize what those of us who've been faithfully watching the right wing for years have been telling them for a long while now: there's nothing isolated about any of this.

In fact, this is exactly how full-scale terrorism begins.

The thing that worries me most about this rash of shootings isn't just the threat to public safety posed by domestic terrorism -- though that's becoming a more serious consideration on the American home front with every passing week -- but where this kind of thing historically leads. Regular readers know I'm always stepping way back to get the big picture and look for the long-term patterns. This escalating level of violence is adding data points to a potentially emergent pattern that we need to be looking at and preparing for. So far, there are at least five things I'm particularly concerned about.

1. More and Faster. First, there's just the bald statistical increase in frequency of these attacks. Between January and April, we were seeing shootings on an average of once every 27 days. In May, the last three episodes came at an average interval of once every 15 days—a 40 percent drop. This is hardly a comforting trend, and it points to the likelihood of a long, hot summer.

2. Lone Wolves Join Packs. One of the things that's striking about the last two shooters is that they're not lone wolves. Scott Roeder was packed into the same extensive network of anti-abortion co-conspirators that successfully hid Eric Rudolph for over five years (and may have been counting on them to hide him, too). James von Brunn was at the core of the anti-Semitic movement in America. Their actions don't just speak for themselves; they're supported by a larger community of people who might not have pulled the trigger themselves, but facilitated their crimes and consider them heroes. This is new. And it should worry us.

As I've noted before, groups heading toward major acts of violence always inch up to it by degrees. As shootings become a more common—and by some twisted reckoning, more acceptable—form of political protest, the psychopaths are joined in arms by more rational rebels who feel that they don't have any other options left. (We saw some of this on the left during the 1960s, as the more psychopathic members of activist groups goaded, indoctrinated, or simply led others into committing acts of domestic terrorism that they might have contemplated, but probably would never have undertaken on their own.) As things accelerate, acts by lone wolves give way to coordinated actions pulled off by small packs acting together. Later on, these packs work in concert with other teams to commit bigger acts. Successes build, confidence grows, skills improve -- and before long, you've got Al Qaeda. Or the IRA. Or any of a dozen other terrorist organizations that started out walking this exact same path.

3. An Intention to Expand Operations. Plans are already afoot to expand into just this kind of group action. Back in February, the right wing went squealing nuts over this report by the state of Missouri, warning that state's law enforcement of the threat posed by right wing extremists. It's a useful read on where the militia movements are right now; but the most interesting part is the section titled "Training," which outlines specifically what militia groups are doing now to hone their individual and group fighting skills for domestic terrorism attacks.

And the resurgent militia movement isn't the only group making these kinds of plans. On the Dominionist fringe, Joel's Army is sending its sons to Iraq to give them the skills they'll need for a Christian takeover of the nation. Eric Rudolph was supported by the anti-abortion tactical Army of God. There are all kinds of large and small militant groups groups out there, each one arming and training up for their own unique reasons.

4. Making Common Cause. Another thing that's alarming those of us who watch the right wing is that the historical silos that divided the various right-wing extremist movements are morphing and crumbling. As the Missouri memo notes, the major strains in the past have included the Neo-Nazis; Christian Identity, the religious arm of white nationalism; the Sovereign Citizen movement; the militant anti-abortionists, the tax resistors and the anti-immigration movement. There's always been some cross-pollination between them, but the Web has made it possible for a broader fusing of all these ideologies into a common culture. Increasingly (as we saw with Roeder, for example), a terrorist who takes up arms for one of these causes may be just as willing to serve another as well.

5. The Tim McVeigh Finishing School. Dave Neiwert coined this phrase for the Iraq War, based on the fact that the most effective domestic terrorists (including McVeigh and Rudolph) have always been those with extensive combat training and experience. The right wing raised holy hell in early April when the Department of Homeland Security released its infamous report pointing out that right-wing extremist groups were aggressively recruiting veterans; but there was no need for DHS secretary Janet Napolitano to apologize. The facts are squarely with the DHS on this score.

As noted above, many of the right-wing groups saw the war from the very first as an opportunity to gain valuable combat skills that could be applied to domestic terrorism at home. In recent decades, the military has been very aggressive about identifying and ejecting these kinds of extremists, since their religious and racist excesses tended to devastate unit cohesion—and the last thing we need is well-armed nutcases running around our home towns with combat skills.

But this war was different. In part because of a growing fundamentalist takeover of the officer corps and in part because recruiters were desperate for warm bodies, the military has been looking the other way and letting these recruits stay and serve for the past several years now. The upshot is swastikas on the walls in Baghdad—and a new corps of well-trained, committed militia members who are also in prime position to seek out new recruits among the young kids who are far from home and overwhelmed.

Those seasoned veterans are coming home now. As with every war, most of them will successfully rejoin civilian life and become some of our most productive citizens. But, as with every war, there will be a handful who come home, struggle for a while, and then start applying everything we've taught them to the home front. That's what's got DHS worried. And today, even FOX News' Shepherd Smith admitted that DHS's concern might not have been wrongly placed after all:

Where does this end? One way that this could play out is that the extremist commandos go a bridge too far and finally succeed on a scale that scares the rational rebels into putting down their guns and bombs. This leaves the really crazy actors without their posse, busted back to the level of lone wolves. Oklahoma City was absolutely that event for the 1990s' militia incarnation. There's even a possibility that 9/11 may have been that event for Al Qaeda, but it's still too early to tell.

If the conservative movement does not take a stand against these extremists, they may find that their silence will give permission to actions that are far worse. Given the number of Americans, both left and right, who are understandably and thoroughly disgusted with the corporatocracy and increasingly convinced that Congress is too corrupt to deliver even the basics to anyone who's not rich enough to write their problem on the back of a check, it is possible to imagine a right-wing populist movement that sucks large chunks of the frustrated, desperate working and middle classes into more and larger terrorist acts.

Either way, the storm is upon us now. And it probably will be for at least another couple of years. The best thing progressives can do right now is stay in close touch with our base, and keep pressing for a progressive agenda that will restore average Americans' faith in their government. Now that the shooting has started, it's more important than ever that we stick together, and stand for the rule of law.

What Rhetoric Won’t Cure

OurFuture.org Staff — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:23:07 -0400

Why Clinic Violence is Obama's Problem

OurFuture.org Staff — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:33:46 -0400

Political Violence in America

OurFuture.org Staff — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:33:46 -0400

It's Not Just Rush

Terrance Heath — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 11:31:15 -0400

It's almost enough to make you feel sorry for Republicans. Trounced in November's election, faced a popular president, and a voting public that seems to have rejected their conservative politics, now they're stuck with Rush Limbaugh as the de facto head of their party.

No matter how much they deny it, the parade of conservative politicians kissing up to Rush after daring to criticize his rantings makes it pretty clear who's in charge.

The thing is, it's not just Rush.

One thing is certain: martial arts movie star Chuck Norris does not like President Obama. Not at all. Not one little bit. Norris dislikes Obama so much, in fact, that he discussed running for the office of president of Texas, which doesn't exist, as part of a larger move by him and a variety of other right-wing groups to overthrow the American government and return honor and decency to the country.

No, really, he said all that, and more. Read it yourself if you don't believe me. The best part is where he writes, "Remember the Alamo!" Great stuff.

...There's more. The owner of right-wing web forum Free Republic, Jim Robinson, was recently forced to post a truly deranged piece of apologia regarding the attention his web site recently earned from the Secret Service. "Unfortunately," wrote Robinson, "we are saddled with a communist sympathizer in the White House. I don't know whether or not he's an actual card carrying commie, but he's definitely an America-hating, anti-capitalist Marxist leftist who thinks communism is the way to go. So now comes the problem. If you feel it's your duty to call Obama a traitor and use salty language in your proposed resolution, ie, suggest the commie be keelhauled, walked off the plank, run up the yardarm, tarred and feathered and run out of Dodge, etc, etc, etc, you may be facing a visit from your friendly Secret Service."

"Keep," wrote Robinson in closing, "your powder dry." Yeah, O.K., good thinking.

...Last month, Fox News celebrity Sean Hannity ran a poll on his web site. It asked readers what kind of revolution they'd prefer: military coup, armed rebellion or war for succession? "#3 seems most realistic," opined Hannity, "since it does present an opportunity for more homogeneous states to sort of capitalize on their homogeneity. However, it would likely lead to mass migrations of the minority partisans out of the rebel states. Of course, that may be fine with those states. Yet it seems that the ultimate paradox in any rebellion for freedom from within is that the ultimate goal is to impose the will of the rebels on everyone else through force. It seems the very foundation of representative democracy is ****tered if we accept that we exchange the power of ideas for the power of the sword upon each other. Nevertheless, I am still very interested in your own preferred form of revolt."

That page has since been removed from Hannity's web site, surely due to some technical glitch, but before it was taken down, "armed rebellion" appeared to be the most popular choice of the three.

...Earlier this week, right-wing loudmouth Glenn Beck asserted during his radio show that President Obama's lifting of the ban on embryonic stem cell research would open the way for the genetic development of a new master race. "So here you have Barack Obama," said Beck, "going in and spending the money on embryonic stem cell research, and then some, fundamentally changing - remember, those great progressive doctors are the ones who brought us Eugenics. It was the progressive movement and it was science. Let's put science truly in her place. If evolution is right, why don't we just help out evolution? That was the idea. And sane people agreed with it! And it was from America. Progressive movement in America. Eugenics. In case you don't know what Eugenics led us to: the Final Solution. A master race! A perfect person. The stuff that we are facing is absolutely frightening. So I guess I have to put my name on yes, I hope Barack Obama fails. But I just want his policies to fail; I want America to wake up."

One assumes this forthcoming master race will enjoy minds of greater volume and depth than Mr. Beck's, because, well, people just can't get much dumber than this. It would be a profound waste of genetic material if we went out and created some master race that, like Messrs. Beck, Hannity and Robinson, was incapable of rational thought or speech. Just an idea.

There is even more out there like this, from all over the place, with each seemingly trying to out-weird the other. So, yeah, it appears a fair portion of America's hard-right population, along with most if not all of their spokespeople and commentators, have been driven absolutely, positively bat-poop crazy by the election of and policies by Barack Obama.

And those who haven't, have been driven right out of the republican party. Christopher Buckley is probably the biggest name, but the split became apparent with the nomination of Sarah Palin as the GOPs VP candidate last year. As the inevitable and now infamous Palin media interviews started up, so did a number of Republicans — appalled by what she and her nomination represented — calling for her to step down.

The problem is, they were fighting a fire that had already been lit (or re-lit, if you consider the "Southern Strategy"), and purposely so, by the GOP during the most recent Bush administration, and fanned with culture war rehtoric and spectacles (like the Schiavo affair) that — in light of the current crisis — seem like costly distractions.

David Frum is just the most recent to have been burned by those flames. It's almost easy to feel sorry for Frum, who looked around and — seeing how thin the ranks of the reasonable Republicans have become — took up the banner for one more quixotic charge in to the brick wall of today's brand of conservatism.

It wasn't a fight I went looking for. On March 3, the popular radio host Mark Levin opened his show with an outburst (he always opens his show with an outburst): "There are people who have somehow claimed the conservative mantle … You don't even know who they are … They're so irrelevant … It's time to name names …! The Canadian David Frum: where did this a-hole come from? … In the foxhole with other conservatives, you know what this jerk does? He keeps shooting us in the back … Hey, Frum: you're a putz."

...Levin had been provoked by a blog entry I'd posted the day before on my site, NewMajority.com. Here's what I wrote: President Obama and Rush Limbaugh do not agree on much, but they share at least one thing: Both wish to see Rush anointed as the leader of the Republican party.

...And for the leader of the Republicans? A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as "losers." With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence—exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party. And we're cooperating! Those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush's every rancorous word—we'll be seeing them rebroadcast for a long time.

Actually, if those cheering CPACers are rebroadcast for a long time — and they almost certainly will be, on televisions and computer monitors across the country — they will only be the latest and least sensational installment in an ongoing series. Because they don't tell us anything we didn't already know from the videos of the party faithful outside of McCain-Palin rallies across the country.

I posted a (rather long) two-part mashup of some of that footage in a couple of posts about the NY Post cartoon a while back, inspired by a conversation I had with a fellow blogger on election night.

On the night of the election ... I struck an impromptu conversation with one of my fellow bloggers covering the night’s events at NPR. She grabbed a video camera, and we tried to recreate the conversation, because something I said resonated with her.

It was this. I don’t know when it happened, and it’s probably impossible to tell. But at some point during the campaign, the election shifted towards being about more than just choosing a president. Maybe it was the candidacies of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton — made possible by the progressive movements that have worked to extend America’s promise to more Americans, often against the will of a great many of their fellow citizens. Maybe it was Obama’s speech, openly addressing the race issue that had bubbled (barely) below the surface of the campaign up to them. Maybe it was the cumulative effect of never ending wars, a collapsed economy, and rising inequality. Maybe it was the fact that where the 2006 had its “Macacca Moment,” this election had a million of them.

Whenever it happened, and whatever the catalyst was. At some point, we weren’t just choosing a president anymore. We were deciding what kind of country we want to be.

The videos were intended to show what American's (I hope) rejected on November 4th.

Watch A Mesage to the New York Post, Pt. 1 in News | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Watch A Message to the New York Post, Pt. 2 in News | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

It's not just Rush, and it didn't start with the McCain-Palin ticket's decision to play to the basest of their base, or the GOPs decision to put all of its eggs in the "20% basket" of the base that helped keep George W. Bush's approval ratings in the double digits. At the same time that this base was being fired up, the chickens came home to roost at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Church, and rhetoric of the right wing media machine rightfully shared part of the blame.

Anne Coulter:

“My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.”

Vester: You say you’d rather not talk to liberals at all?

Coulter: I think a baseball bat is the most effective way these days.

So for those of you who haven’t read any of my five best-selling books: Liberals are driven by Satan and lie constantly.

“I’d say something about John Edwards, but if you use the word ‘faggot’, you have to go to rehab.”

“We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens’ creme brulee. … That’s just a joke, for you in the media.”

“Patriotic Americans don’t have to become dangerous psychotics like liberals, but they could at least act like men. “

“I don’t know if he’s [Bill Clinton] gay. But [former Vice President] Al Gore — total fag.”

Sean Hannity:

“Governor, why wouldn’t anyone want to say the Pledge of Allegiance, unless they detested their own country or were ignorant of its greatness? “

“Is it you hate this president or that you hate America?

“‘I hate America.’ This is the extreme left. There is a portion of the left — not everybody who’s left — that does hate this country and blame this country for the ills of the world…”

“So I’m saying, for the sake of the nation, I think you Democrats should stay home. For you there’s no reason to vote.”

“I’ll tell you who should be tortured and killed at Guantanamo: every filthy Democrat in the U.S. Congress. “

“[Liberals] teach our children multiculturalism rather than American culture, revisionist history rather than American history, the thinly disguised religion of secular humanism and extreme environmentalism rather than capitalism. They train our young to criticize America, not celebrate it. They welcome condoms into the classroom but ban God and the Ten Commandments. They encourage tolerance for the teachings of the Koran but not for the teachings of Jesus Christ. They oppose the Pledge of Allegiance, tell us that ‘God is dead,’ that ‘Christianity is for losers,’ and that evangelical and Catholic conservatives are more dangerous than radical Islamic militants. They tell us that fuel-burning SUVs are bad for America, but flag-burning SOBs aren’t. But they are wrong. And it is time to ask: Why, particularly in time of war, should we entrust the education of our children to people who loathe and ravage so many of out core values and traditions?”

“[T]hey can have the Gay Scouts if they want, if they don’t like the values of the Boy Scouts.”

“This is the moment to say that there are things in life worth fighting and dying for and one of ‘em is making sure Nancy Pelosi doesn’t become the [House] speaker.”

Rush Limbaugh:

“The Clintons have a cat, but their nanny has a dog.”

“They are 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?” [To a caller who said black people need to be heard.]

“…If you want to know what America used to be — and a lot of people wish it still were — then you listen to Strom Thurmond.”

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

“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.”

“In order for me to believe that God was sending America a message, I would need to be shown that the people who died Tuesday were all members of the NOW gang, or abortionists, civil libertarians, et cetera.” [9-18-2001]

“Because we are sympathetic, we are compassionate people, we have responded by letting our government literally feed these people to the point of obesity. At least here in America, didn’t teach them how to fish, we gave them the fish. Didn’t teach them how to butcher a — slaughter a cow to get the butter, we gave them the butter. The real bloat here, as we know, is in — is in government.”

“[I]t sounds just like the DNC (Democratic National Committee) is writing his scripts now.” [On a videotape released by then Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqwi.]

Bill O’Reilly:

“And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we’re not going to do anything about it. We’re going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.”

“Everybody got it? Dissent, fine; undermining, you’re a traitor. Got it? So, all those clowns over at the liberal radio network, we could incarcerate them immediately. Will you have that done, please? Send over the FBI and just put them in chains, because they, you know, they’re undermining everything and they don’t care, couldn’t care less.”

“I just wish Katrina had only hit the United Nations building, nothing else, just had flooded them out, and I wouldn’t have rescued them.”

“Americans will respect your beliefs if you just keep them private. “

“I’ve been to Africa three times. All right? You can’t bring Western reasoning into the culture. The same way you can’t bring it into fundamental Islam.”

“That’s my advice to all homosexuals, whether they’re in the Boy Scouts, or in the Army or in high school: Shut up, don’t tell anybody what you do, your life will be a lot easier.”

“You want to have two guys making out in front of your 4-year-old? It’s OK with them. A guy smoking a joint, blowing the smoke into your little kid’s face? OK with them. And I’m not exaggerating here. This is exactly what the secular movement stands for.”

“Evil cannot be “treated” — nor should it be. Evil has to [be] confronted and destroyed and it matters not why the evil is in play. Society has no obligation to try to rehabilitate evil.”

“Conservative people tend to see the world in black and white terms, good and evil. Liberals see grays. In any talk format, you have to pound home a strong point of view. If you’re not providing controversy and excitement, people won’t listen, or watch.”

“Many parents are worried in America about the gay agenda and indoctrination of their children to see homosexuality in a certain way.”

“I don’t want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there’s evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels.”

Pat Robertson:

“If anyone understood what Hindus really believe, there would be no doubt that they have no business administering government policies.”

“How can there be peace when drunkards, drug dealers, communists, atheists, New Age worshippers of Satan, secular humanists, oppressive dictators, greedy money changers, revolutionary assassins, adulterers, and homosexuals are on top?”

“When lawlessness is abroad in the land, the same thing will happen here that happened in Nazi Germany. Many of those people involved with Adolph Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals–the two things seem to go together.”

“Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.”

“Maybe we need a very small nuke thrown off on Foggy Bottom to shake things up.” [Speaking about bombing the State Department]

Michael Savage:

“Oh, you’re one of the sodomites…You should get AIDS and die, you pig. How’s that? Why don’t you see if you can sue me, you pig? You’ve got nothing better to do today, go eat a sausage and choke on it.”

“I am a White Male. You see, liberals had destroyed my future to make a future for less qualified people. My babies were crying…”

“And I say also, No. 2, to the politicians, I warn you personally. You will not be re-elected. If you take to the streets with the vermin who are trying to dictate to us how we should run America, even though they’re not even entitled to vote or be here, you’re going to be thrown out of office. The people will throw you out of office. There are not enough of them to re-elect you. You will be out of a job. You will not have a living. You will be hunting for a job. Maybe, you’ll be picking the vegetables.”

“You know something; I’m voting for Bush, I just made up my mind. There’s nothing in this for me. I’m a white male, I’m a white, male, married heterosexual — I don’t want the Democrats. Everywhere I turn, there’s another hot coal in my eye. For example, today’s DNC calendar of public events included lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender meeting, the disability meeting, the ethnic meeting, the American Indian meeting, the Asian/Pacific Islander meeting, the Hispanic meeting, and the African American meeting — God bless ‘em, they’re entitled to their meeting, I’m entitled to my vote, they’re not my party, end of story. And that’s it. I’m not voting for a party of ethnic minorities and women and immigrants. I will not do it. And if I thought for a moment that they had changed their direction, if I thought for a moment there was a new Democrat Party that was more centrist and more focused on the real issues of today, I would have considered, well, maybe sitting the election out, or voting for Kerry — no, I’m not. “

“I can guarantee you [liberals], you wouldn’t be in business too long. I can guarantee you you’d be arrested for sedition within six months of my taking power. I’d have you people licking lead paint, what you did to this country.”

“To fight only the al-Qaeda scum is to miss the terrorist network operating within our own borders… Who are these traitors? Every rotten radical left-winger in this country, that’s who.”

“But the question is what’s good enough for you? You wanna live in a country like this? Where a gang of liberal judges hijack any law they don’t like? And hold you hostage to it? They make homosexual wedding the law of the land, when 90 percent of the American people find it repugnant! And sickening! And disgusting! And don’t wanna accept it! And don’t wanna live in a degenerate nation!”

“Carl Levin and Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton, The New Yorker, CBS have destroyed the war effort against terror. And if, God forbid, a suitcase bomb goes off you’ll know who to blame. I’m — hey I’m not going to mince words, there’s no grey zone here. It’s black and white, it’s them versus us and the enemy within on their side.”

“I don’t know why we don’t use a bunker-buster bomb when he comes to the U.N. and just take [Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] out with everyone in there.”

“My fear is that if the Democrats win [in the November midterm elections], and I’m afraid that they might, you’re going to see America melt down faster that you could ever imagine. It will happen overnight, and it could lead to the breakup of the United States of America, the way the Soviet Union broke up.”

Randall Terry:

“I want you to let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good.”

“America should function as a Christian nation.”

“The world will not know how to live or which direction to go without the Church’s Biblical influence on its theories, laws, actions, and institutions.”

“Overnight you’ll have the court saying…homosexual marriage is a protected right. I would callit a bliztkrieg of the homosexual juggernaut. It’s not an erosion. It’s a frontal assault on decency and morality.”

“If the militant homosexuals succeed in their campaign”

It is not just Rush. Back in 2007, it was Ann Coulter, calling John Edwards a faggot and causing conservatives concern. (Even my ultra-conservative hometown paper dropped Coulter, but only to turn around and add Michelle Malkin.) But she's still popular enough with conservatives to sell her books, and there's a reason why.

The Coulter/Hannity/Limabugh-led right wing is basically the Abu Grahib rituals finding full expression in an authoritarian political movement. The reason people like Rush Limbaugh not only were unbothered, but actually delighted and even tickled by, Abu Grahib is because that is the full-blooded manifestation of the impulses underlying this movement - feelings of power and strength from the most depraved spectacles of force. The only real complaint from Bush followers about the Commander-in-Chief is that he has not given them enough Guantanamos and wars and aggression and barbaric slaughter and liberty infringement. Their hunger for those things is literally insatiable because they need fresh pretexts for feeling strong.

And that is where Ann Coulter comes in and plays such a vital - really indispensible - role. As a woman who purposely exudes the most exaggerated American feminine stereotypes (the long blond hair, the make-up, the emaciated body), her obsession with emasculating Democratic males - which, at bottom, is really what she does more than anything else - energizes and stimulates the right-wing "base" like nothing else can. Just witness the fervor with which they greet her, buy her books, mob her on college campuses. Can anyone deny that she is unleashing what lurks at the very depths of the right-wing psyche? What else explains not just her popularity, but the intense embrace of her by the "base"?

It's not just Rush, though he's doing pretty much the same thing.

Limbaugh has been plowing the field of moral outrage for decades, but unlike Billy Sunday and the other hot-headed radio preachers who cashed in on social resentment in the Great Depression, Limbaugh threw out God. With no religious tradition to anchor himself, he can swing wider. Anything Limbaugh judges against is condemned, not by scripture, but simply by him being pissed off. Whatever Limbaugh hates -- however petty, personal, and arbitrary his animus -- is ipso facto wrong.

...The Limbaugh effect fueled the anti-morality of the Bush years. Under ordinary morality, the wretched plight of illegal immigrants, for example, must be considered along with the fact that they are breaking the law. Being poor, illiterate, and desperate, their human condition makes them more sympathetic than ruthless lawbreakers would be. But under anti-morality, if you hate immigrants because they are foreigners who don't look American enough, the argument is over. Your anger strips away tolerance, sympathy, and regard for "the other." Hence the almost imperial bearing of Limbaugh, the bland certainty that because he never stops being angry, he never stops being right.

...By any sane account, Rush Limbaugh is dead weight when it comes to finding a solution to anything. Like Sarah Palin, his spiritual bride, he lurks in the shadow of the human psyche, expressing the dark anger, resentment, jealousy, and vindictiveness that society can never escape. ...

It's not just Rush Limbaugh, but in recent years the GOP itself — in the policies it's promoted and the pundits and politicians that it's elevated to national status to become its standard bearers (remember, the elevation of Sarah Palin to the national ticket in 2008 gave birth or at least a new name to a "Palin Wing" of the Republican party, causing "civil war" within the party, and all but guaranteeing we haven't heard the last of her) — has chosen to appeal to that very same "dark anger, resentment, jealosy, and vindictiveness," that Deepak Chopra may say we can never escape, but at this juncture can ill afford.

Frum writes:

All of this began even before Obama took office. In his broadcast on Jan. 16, Limbaugh told listeners he had been asked by a major publication for a 400-word statement about his hopes for the new administration:

I'm thinking of replying to the guy, "OK, I'll send you a response, but I don't need 400 words. I need four: I hope he fails." … See, here's the point: everybody thinks it's outrageous to say. Look, even my staff: "Oh, you can't do that." Why not? Why is it any different, what's new, what is unfair about my saying I hope liberalism fails? Liberalism is our problem. Liberalism is what's gotten us dangerously close to the precipice here … I would be honored if the Drive-By Media headlined me all day long: "Limbaugh: I Hope Obama Fails." Somebody's gotta say it.

Notice that Limbaugh did not say: "I hope the administration's liberal plans fail." Or (better): "I know the administration's liberal plans will fail." Or (best): "I fear that this administration's liberal plans will fail, as liberal plans usually do." If it had been phrased that way, nobody could have used Limbaugh's words to misrepresent conservatives as clueless, indifferent or gleeful in the face of the most painful economic crisis in a generation. But then, if it had been phrased that way, nobody would have quoted his words at all—and as Limbaugh himself said, being "headlined" was the point of the exercise. If it had been phrased that way, Limbaugh's face would not now be adorning the covers of magazines. He phrased his hope in a way that drew maximum attention to himself, offered maximum benefit to the administration and did maximum harm to the party he claims to support.

But Limbaugh, in that case, was giving voice to what the actions and (and inaction) of conservatives have been saying since Americans began feeling the pinch of the economic down turn. Before him it was Phil Gramm, with his "nation of whiners" comment. Rush was almost eclipsed by the now famous Rick Santelli Rant.

They're not policymakers, but the consevative policymakers aren't much better. In the face of a financial sector and entire industries about to crash, conservative politicians seriously asked "For the sake of the altar of the free market system, do you accept a Great Depression?", because they'd rather "let the markets crash," and let the auto industry "drop dead" (and the jobs that would go with it).

Most recently the Republican governors of some the states hit hardest by the economic downturn — where unemployment is high, but unemployment benefit funding is drying up — have rejected stimulus funding that might help people who are hurting in their states. And the best answers they can offer their constituents would laughable but for the economic pain they're responding to.

CALLER: I hope you all are not playing politics with this. People in South Carolina are hurting. You know how unemployment rates are high right now and going up higher. We are running out of money in the unemployment bank - we need money for that, the people that need help. And I’m one of them, I can’t get no help. [...]

SANFORD: Well I’d say hello to Charleston because its home and I’d say hello to this fellow this morning and say that my prayers are going to be with him and his family because it sounds like he is in an awfully tough spot.

"Clueless, indifferent or gleeful in the face of the most painful economic crisis in a generation"? Sure sounds that way.

By comparison, the silent, do-nothing indifference of the George W. Bush administration in the build-up to and beginning of the current crisis would almost be a comfor to the brand of "Drop Dead" Conservatism that's all the GOP seems to be left with.

High on delusion, denial, and derision, it’s the face of a conservatism unequipped to recognize — let alone meet — the challenges America and the world now face, and blind to the possibility drowning itself in irrelevance. It’s the face of a conservatism that, facing the failure of its ideology, has more anger than answers.

No, it's not just Rush. It's a whole movement and a whole political philosophy that the GOP has to find the will and strength to reevaluate if it wants to find a way out of the wilderness soon. Otherwise, hard as it may be to imagine, the party may have much, much bigger problems than Rush Limbaugh.

Redefining "Moral Clarity"

Sara Robinson — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 18:00:19 -0500

They keep using those words. It turns out that they don't mean what we think they mean.

On Thursday night, for the first time since 9/11, I actually sat down and watched George Bush speak. (At this late date, I figured there was absolutely nothing the man could say that could quench the deep satisfaction of knowing that this was the last time we'd ever have to endure The Smirk.) There was one passage, in particular, that rang in my ears long after his final goodbye. It probably went over most Americans' heads—but it went right to the heart of Our Problem With George:

As we address these challenges - and others we cannot foresee tonight - America must maintain our moral clarity. I have often spoken to you about good and evil. This has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two there can be no compromise. Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere. Freeing people from oppression and despair is eternally right. This nation must continue to speak out for justice and truth. We must always be willing to act in their defense and to advance the cause of peace.

That phrase "moral clarity"—conservatives use it a lot. And it always sounds absurd to progressive ears, coming as it does from members of an administration that shredded the Constitution, deprived people of due process, committed horrific acts of torture, and lied the country into the worst military debacle in its history. It's always bewildering to listen to such people lecture the rest of us on "moral clarity." What in the hell are they talking about?

They keep using those words. It turns out that they don't mean what we think they mean.

This was brought home to me over the holidays, when I devoured J. Peter Scoblic's U.S. Vs. Them as part of my vacation reading. Scoblic's book looks at the way the conservative penchant for "othering" (a word I coined to describe their perpetual need for someone to project their own demons onto, and then hate on) has shaped U.S. foreign policy from the beginning of the Cold War through the current administration.

Throughout the book, Scoblic traces the roots of this recurring phrase—"moral clarity"—and discusses the very specific and narrowly-defined meaning it has to conservatives. The phrase first appeared in describing the Manichean worldview of the anti-communist right in the 1950s. To William F. Buckley, Frank Meyer, Whittaker Chambers and other National Review writers, "moral clarity" meant fully understanding and accepting the essential good-versus-evil nature of foreign affairs. People with "moral clarity" recognized the ultimate existential evil of Communism, and were constantly on guard against its unceasing efforts to bring down the capitalist world by any means necessary. To these early movement conservatives, having "moral clarity" meant that you weren't the kind of weakling who would be deceived into negotiation with the Commies, or consent to arms control, or be duped into merely containing their relentless march across the globe. It meant that you had the intestinal fortitude (or pure enough vital bodily fluids, as you wish) to do whatever had to be done to permanently exterminate America's implacable enemies—whether it was to send in the Marines or drop the bomb.

This definition of "moral clarity" has been a major factor in U.S. foreign policy ever since. From that day unto this, the conservative movement has never been without a demonized Other to focus its vaunted "moral clarity' on. "Moral clarity" is why conservatives hate summit meetings; why they've scuttled every attempt at arms control and non-proliferation; why every problem in the world can only yield to a military solution; and why defense is the only valid government expense. To people with "moral clarity," these choices are obvious. Those who disagree (like those progressive pantywaists who refuse to acknowledge the threat, or are willing and eager to coddle Pure Evil by parleying with it) are, perforce, inherently weaker and less morally serious. If you've ever marveled at the depths of conservative moral self-righteousness, now you know the deep well from which it springs.

When the Soviet Union crumbled to dust, it looked for a few years there like this brand of "moral clarity" was going to fade away with it. Finding a new boogeyman became Job One for conservatives in the early 90s; and they quickly seized on the entire Muslim world (all 1.5 billion of them certifiable terrorists, they assured us) as the best possible candidate. Dick Cheney updated the old anti-communist definition for a post-9/11 world when he said:

We cannot deal with terror. [The war on terrorism] will not end in a treaty. There will be no peaceful coexistence, no negotiations, no summit, no joint communique with the terrorists. The struggle can only end with their complete and permanent destruction and in victory for the United States and the cause of freedom.

Whenever you hear a conservative go on about "moral clarity," this is precisely what they're saying. There is always an enemy. They are always out to get us. They will stop at nothing. You cannot coddle them or negotiate with them; you can only survive by annihilating them. And people who see the moral world clearly will not waste time or breath questioning these essential truths.

It's pretty stunning stuff when you read it that way. It really makes you realize that conservatives live in a world of paranoia, xenophobia, and seething aggression that most progressives can't even fathom. And their entire moral universe has been twisted to serve their externalized fears; to take that will to project their own demons onto someone else and then destroy them, and elevate it as the highest possible moral good. It's a definition of "morality" that renders the rule of law meaningless, but readily justifies genocide and torture as moral acts of self-preservation.

Once we understand what they're really saying, it becomes pretty obvious that one of the first things we're going to need to do in this new era is challenge this horrific definition of "moral clarity" and overwrite it with one of our own. Fortunately, on the same day Bush gave his final speech, Attorney General candidate Eric Holder appeared before Congress, and gave the country a cooling blast of what real progressive moral clarity might look like. According to Holder:

1. The President is not exempt from FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
2. Guantanamo will be closed, and its prisoners remanded to appropriate courts for due process.
3. Waterboarding is, unequivocally, torture.

That's what moral clarity looks like when progressives run the show. We believe moral clarity is defined by the Constitution, embodied in the rule of law, and on display wherever the dignity of other people—including those whose interests oppose ours—is upheld. And, in case there's any question about where the real moral clarity lies here: Ours is the morality America was founded on. Theirs is one that almost put that light out forever.

The next time a conservative starts talking about "moral clarity," let's not just stand there scratching our fuzzy liberal heads. It's not a joke, and not a piece of idle cant. Their use of the phrase to is a fundamental challenge to our entire view of society and government, and to everything we value. We need to call them out on this murderous and hateful "morality," and challenge them to reconcile it with the values of Enlightenment humanism. The conservatives have cherished this belief for nearly 60 years, but it has no place in the 21st century. It should have died when the Berlin Wall fell. Now that we understand what they're really saying, let's show some true "moral clarity" and bury this toxic idea for good.