Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Terror in Arizona: Just another 'isolated incident'? Funny how that list keeps mounting | Crooks and Liars

Terror in Arizona: Just another 'isolated incident'? Funny how that list keeps mounting | Crooks and Liars.
-- July 2008: A gunman named Jim David Adkisson, agitated at how "liberals" are "destroying America," walks into a Unitarian Church and opens fire, killing two churchgoers and wounding four others.

-- October 2008: Two neo-Nazis are arrested in Tennessee in a plot to murder dozens of African-Americans, culminating in the assassination of President Obama.

-- December 2008: A pair of "Patriot" movement radicals -- the father-son team of Bruce and Joshua Turnidge, who wanted "to attack the political infrastructure" -- threaten a bank in Woodburn, Oregon, with a bomb in the hopes of extorting money that would end their financial difficulties, for which they blamed the government. Instead, the bomb goes off and kills two police officers. The men eventually are convicted and sentenced to death for the crime.

-- December 2008: In Belfast, Maine, police discover the makings of a nuclear "dirty bomb" in the basement of a white supremacist shot dead by his wife. The man, who was independently wealthy, reportedly was agitated about the election of President Obama and was crafting a plan to set off the bomb.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

5 comments:

  1. While you have some legitimate examples of toryist-xenophobic-military-right-wing extremism, there are facts related to Jared Loughner that are important that the media hasn't mentioned. Importantly, Jared was described by those who knew him as a "left-wing pothead." Also, his mother, Amy Loughner, at least, haven't found out about the rest of his family, was a member of the same Reform Synagogue as Giffords. This was a case of a left-wing psychopath who attacked members of his own religious community, who was tackled and stopped by someone who said "I carry a gun, so I knew what to do."

    If people were allowed bring their self defense to political events like this, then Jared would have only got of a few shots before being taken out by the multitudes of nameless civilian heroes who carry to protect those around them everyday.

    It is true that carrying a gun won't save you if an unknown stranger is after you, but it will help society if a stranger is after someone else.

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  2. This was in response to the "we aren't violent" mantra of the hard right. Generally, a"pothead" is the farthest thing from violent so I would have to question that description.The 'shooter' is not the problem(anymore) but the emotional environment, that those that listen to twisted information in an angry voice for hours on end become that which we would call despicable. Some call it brain washing. On any level, by any side, it is disgraceful.
    And I would agree that had another gun been present less trauma may have ensued, or it could have been more. You can't always assume the one with the gun will have good aim, only good intentions!

    By the way, I read your article. I have a lot to study.

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  3. I may be grasping too far, as there isn't any hard proof on "Manchurian Candidate" type brainwashing, but I think there is enough to be suspicious. In that 1962 novel, it was a member of a prominent political family brainwashed into being an assassin.

    In the real world, in 1981 another truly crazy person shot Reagan and was a member of the prominent Hinkley family which had been associated with the Bush family for decades. I think the real reason was because Bush wanted power right away.

    Other similar assassinations by crazy people that seem to be suspiciously crazy would be the murderers of Bobby Kennedy, John Lennon, Dimebag Darrell, and now Judge John Roll. (Separately, JFK, JFK Jr., or MLK because we don't know who their real killers were.) Bobby Kennedy, JFK, MLK, and John Lennon were on FBI director J. Edgar Hoover's most hated list. Why target Judge Roll? Because he was pro-gun and anti-Patriot Act. Why do I include Dimebag Darrell? His shooter, like Jared Loughner, were "rejected" by the military at different points. If Dimebag should be on the same list, my guess is because powerful people didn't like what his nickname promoted.

    Back to the main point, a Manchurian Candidate theory is at least as good as blaming Rush Limbaugh and Co., as much as I despise them. Talk radio doesn't brainwash people any differently than a public school does, just by spreading bad ideas. The military, FBI, CIA, and NSA do by bad ideas and the most extreme forms of pain and physical violence.

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  4. If it is hours upon hours and day in day out without a counter to the information,call it what you will, it is brain washing. Brainwashing:

    Systematic effort to destroy an individual's former loyalties and beliefs and to substitute loyalty to a new ideology or power. It has been used by religious cults as well as by radical political groups. The techniques of brainwashing usually involve isolation from former associates and sources of information; an exacting regimen calling for absolute obedience and humility; strong social pressures and rewards for cooperation; physical and psychological punishments for noncooperation, including social ostracism and criticism, deprivation of food, sleep, and social contacts, bondage, and torture; and constant reinforcement.

    People rarely seek beyond what is fed them, unfortunately. Yes, public school would be in the same boat. The skewed history of the white man is repeated as truth and therefore accepted after years of 'testing'.
    Hermann Goering knew:
    "Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on
    a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of
    it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people
    don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in
    Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the
    country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to
    drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist
    dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no
    voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
    That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked,
    and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the
    country to danger. It works the same in any country." You are assaulted , verbally or otherwise( hours of TV ) , into submission for the task at hand. As you say the military use Video games to perfect the new recruit as well as verbal contact.
    While we try to guide our children, perhaps open them to seeking truth and knowledge, this is not the focus of the public schools. This is in part why we home educate.
    I must ask , if Jared was 'left wing' why would he WANT to join the military? Again , it is an unlikely pairing.Maybe his 'left' comments were his need to make up for his need to belong to the other side.
    As to Dimebag, powerful people did not like what Bob Marley represented either nor Fred Jackson. Truth is stranger than fiction.

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  5. [...] Pollinators of all kinds are decimated by Big Agra and Big pharma. We will not survive without  bees.  The EPA is NOT looking out for ´the people´  just corporate. Neonicotinoid pesticides (synthetic derivatives of nicotine) are probably the most serious man-made danger to bees, birds and other wildlife ever introduced into the environment: they are more than 7,000 times more toxic than DDT, according to recent research. Biobees [...]

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Impressions from friends, thanks.