Don't Feed The Terrorists

I was reading a New York Times OpEd piece regarding an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security warning that "current conditions resemble those in the early 1990s—a time marked by an upsurge of right-wing extremism that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing."

Well, it seems that report got the Conservative's granny pants in a twist; they were outraged, which, really when you think about it, is about all they do anymore. Become outraged. Whether it's Obama at Notre Dame or Palin ranting about Letterman the Molester, all they do is outrage.

Is that their plan for America: outrage? But it's more dangerous than that, I think; far more dangerous. Their outrage is feeding the anger of the disenfranchised who blame Obama for everything from the economy to global warming. That outrage gets into the heads on angry people and festers like an open sore until they can think of nothing else but reacting with violence.

Even the RNC--Repug National Committee--chairman called the report, get this, "an attempt to 'segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration' and label them as terrorists."

Am I wrong or did he just say Homeland Security was comparing conservatives to terrorists? I don't think that's the case at all, because the report was talking about, and pay attention Repugs, "Right-Wing Extremism." See the difference? No? Didn't think you would. But there is a difference between those who have a conservative ideology and those who have an extremist ideology.

Let's take a gander at recent events, for example. We had the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller, after which many conservatives and right-wingnuts rejoiced. Rejoiced; over the murder of a human being. When you have people sing the praises of a murderer, you are giving rise to the notion, in some minds, that murder is the answer to life's problems. It isn't.

And just weeks after Tiller's murder, we witnessed the shooting death of a Black guard by a White supremacist at the Holocaust Museum. And once again, it comes to light that the murderer has a long history of violence and hatred and bigotry that is nurtured by many in the media until he snaps, takes a gun, and heads outside.

So, it does seem, to me, as though there might be an increase in this kind of American-ized, homeland terrorism. And how will we handle that? When it was Muslims flying planes into buildings we had a "them" to denounce and hate. But this is gosh-darned-real Americans terrorizing folks. Who we gonna hate now, y'all?

The Times piece: "Now, for the most part, the likes of Fox News and the R.N.C. haven’t directly incited violence, despite Bill O’Reilly’s declarations that “some” called Dr. Tiller “Tiller the Baby Killer,” that he had “blood on his hands,” and that he was a “guy operating a death mill.” But they have gone out of their way to provide a platform for conspiracy theories and apocalyptic rhetoric, just as they did the last time a Democrat held the White House. "

The NYT then takes a closer look at some interesting, telling details about how perhaps, say, Fox News, is "mainstreaming right-wing extremism." They shine a light on rising Fox asshat Glenn Beck who, in one instance, has warned America that the Federal Emergency Management Agency--FEMA--might be building concentration camps as part of the Obama administration’s “totalitarian” agenda.

Now, Beck did eventually say that nothing like this was happening, but forgive me, isn't his reporting of that story, then, a lie? But he didn't apologize for his lie, he simply made a concession that the story was incorrect.

Which makes me wonder further. Lots of folks get their news from Fox News and so they listen to Glenn Beck and what he has to say. And the problem, as I see it, is they don't listen, or hear, or believe, his concession speech that his stories are false. So they get angry about Obama and his agenda, be it socialist or fascist or totalitarian or whatever. They get mad. They want to get even. And if you get enough people mad enough, they may do something to express their anger like killing a doctor or taking a gun to a museum. It's irresponsible journalism at best, and food for terrorists, whether foreign-born or home-grown, at the worst.

The Washington Times, which many people saw as the ass-kissing newspaper of the Bush/Cheney regime, just ran its own opinion piece about how President Obama “not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself,” and that in any case he has “aligned himself” with the radical Muslim Brotherhood. Apparently, someone at The Washington Times doesn't see this kind of journalism as dangerous, which it is, because it feeds the anger of those who are angered by the new administration, whether because of Obama's race, or his faith, or his politics. It's a dangerous line to walk.

And let us not forget radio blowhard and drug addict Rush Limbaugh. He rants today just like he did when Clinton was in office, and yet no one tells him to keep quiet. In fact, there are many Repugs who consider him, yes, him, the leader of the party. They pin their hopes on a man who publicly says he wants the president to fail, a man who is the lowest of conspiracy theorists, who even suggested that the fears over swine flu were being hyped “to get people to respond to government orders.” Yes, Rush Limbaugh said the Obama administration was using fear to keep people in line so they could work their evil on the country.

Sound familiar? Bush and his Axis of Evil? Cheney and his Iraq and Al Qaeda tie-ins? Fear to keep us in line.

So, should we be surprised that the RNC says “the Democratic Party is dedicated to restructuring American society along socialist ideals.” Should we be appalled when actor, Jon Voight, speaking at a Repug fundraiser, calls Obama a “false prophet” and declares that “we and we alone are the right frame of mind to free this nation from this Obama oppression.”

We and we alone? Does he say that we can free ourselves of the so-called 'Obama Oppression' by, I don't know, voting him out of office in 2012, or is he suggesting that we take action by our own hands? And, for the record, Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, thanked Voight for his remarks, saying that he “really enjoyed” them. So now you have a politician agreeing that we need to free ourselves from Obama.

Now, just to be fair and balanced, it isn't all conservatives jumping on this extreme-speech. The NYT piece singles out Shepard Smith and Catherine Herridge, who "debunked the attacks on that Homeland Security report two months ago" so not everyone at Fox News goosesteps along with the likes of Limbaugh and Beck, or Hannity.

But still, we have the RNC and Fox News and actors with too much time on their hands talking recklessly and dangerously about what to do to, in their words, get the country back on track. We even have Southern Baptist preachers, yes, you, Wiley Drake, who pray for the death of the President of the United States. This is a man who says that the murder of George Tiller was also an answer to his prayers.

How can we, as a country, expect to move forward and work together to get the economy moving and the environment cleaned up, and health care working and people keeping their houses, when so many of the conservatives, and right-wing extremists, are talking about removing the president, of hoping he fails, of praying he dies? How is that America any different than any terrorists group out there today?

The NYT ends its piece by reminding us that the worst "terrorist attack in our history was perpetrated by a foreign conspiracy. But the second worst, the Oklahoma City bombing, was perpetrated by an all-American lunatic."

We shouldn't be feeding that kind of terror in our own country.