over the past two years. It's pretty jaw dropping to see all this in one place:
http://www.csgv.org/issues-and-campaigns/guns-democracy-and-freedom/insurrection-timelineOn June 26, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court embraced the National Rifle Association's contention that the Second Amendment provides individuals with the right to take violent action against our government should it become "tyrannical." The following timeline catalogues incidents of insurrectionist violence (or the promotion of such violence) that have occurred since that decision was issued:
July 27, 2008—Jim Adkisson shoots and kills two people at a progressive church in Knoxville, Tennessee, wounding two. Adkisson calls it “a symbolic killing” because he really “wanted to kill…every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book,” but was unable to gain access to them.
...
December 9, 2008—FBI teams investigating the murder of white supremacist James Cumming, 29, a resident of Belfast, Maine, find supplies for a crude radiological dispersal dervice and other explosives in his home. Cumming's wife, who shot him to death after being abused by him repeatedly, explains, "His intentions were to construct a dirty bomb and take it to Washington to kill President Obama. He was planning to hide it in the undercarriage of our moter home."
February 5, 2009—FOX commentator Glenn Beck hosts an hour-long special on Fox called “We Surround Them,” a “grassroots effort to wake up our Nation's leaders and let them know what many, if not most, Americans truly believe in and stand for.”
February 20, 2009—FOX commentator Glenn Beck hosts a program that games a 2014 civil war scenario called “The Bubba Effect.” It involves citizen militias in the South and West taking up arms against the U.S. government.
That was just the first six months since the SCOTUS decision, and only a few weeks into Obama's election. Much more jaw-dropping connections between political violence and media inciting violence continue on the website's timeline. Most of them were covered on DU as isolated incidents, and we have seen the patters and connections here, but discussing each individual incident doesn't have the same impact as putting them all together like this.
We've got the media raising the possibility of violence, and supporting the militia groups' right to fight Tyranny. Beck doesn't seem to be doing anything that the SCOTUS hasn't backed up in its NRA-sponsored majority decision. That's not to excuse Beckkk, as much as it is to shine a light on the role Scalia and co. are playing in this. They're giving people permission and reasons to commit violence.
Then we have the militia groups and individuals who see "tyranny" in every decision Democrats make. They're armed and they're open about their intentions. So they have the means. Beck & Co. gives them the motive. All they need is an opportunity.
It should be no surprise there are people within this group who are more inclined than others to use violence. It's like getting a new chainsaw, keeping it in your garage and looking for a reason to use it. They're targeting places close to them that are symbolic of whatever "tyranny" they're imagining. There is real tyranny around us, and I think we all feel it from time to time on various frustrating levels. The feelings may be justified, but naming the source can be quite difficult and easily misdirected. When these feelings boil over, some are going to find an opportunity to use the Second Amendment remedies they're reserved for themselves. The people who commit these acts of violence have all done it in their own communities. Their targets are security guards, doctors, police officers, low-level public servants - just regular people doing their jobs. This to me is cause for a serious response to this wave of violence. There are people who may see you and me as the enemy for what we say and do, but also what we may symbolize to them. Innocent people are dying, and they must no longer treat these as isolated incidents.
In each resulting incident, we never see the perpetrator outright say "Glenn Beck told me to do shoot so-and-so." That's because the Becks and Palins do two things: They'll encourage violent acts against unspecified tyranny, and they'll name people who are "tyrants", but they'll never do both of those things together. They deliberately use vague, undefined words like "tyranny" "terrorism" "socialism" to name the symbolic enemy to fight. I used to think they were misusing these terms because they were careless with their words. I now realize these words are very deliberately left undefined, so the people receiving them can fill in the blanks however they see fit, and they always have the "Constitution" (aka the Second Amendment) to justify their intentions.
The Glenn Becks, Chuck Norrises, and Sarah Palins are slick. They're never going to be directly connected to inciting specific acts of violence like Hal Turner has done. But their rhetoric is creating an environment that allows these things to happen and be quickly forgotten afterward as long as we treat them as isolated incidents. Blood is on their hands - and they know it. This is what they're trying to do - call it "tyranny", then give their followers permission to resolve it on their own terms.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
