Take Them Seriously
Seeing the Forest has a couple of paragraphs worth considering...
Good point. We call them nuts because ... well, because they're nuts. At the moment there's a tiny seditious minority, but in the age of the soundbite they can get a lot of attention and do a lot of damage.
I'm not sure if this blog post is a response to Krugman the other day, but the two go together, hand in glove.
We're all laughing at the right's nuttiness, especially the teabagging campaign. They say Obama isn't an American, that he is a communist, that in ten weeks he is responsible for the bush deficit, that he is planning to put everyone in concentration camps, that he is going to replace the dollar with a world currency, that he is gutting the military... And he has only been in office ten weeks.
In fact they're back to being as crazy and paranoid as they were when Clinton was President. Remember the accusations that Clinton and Hillary were murderers, that Hillary personally killed Vince Foster, that Clinton ran a drug-smuggling operation out of an airstrip, that he was looking through FBI files, that he fired the travel office to put a cousin in, that he "sold" plots in Arlington cemetery, that he held up runway traffic to get a $500 haircut, that he used cocaine in the White House, that he hung obscene ornaments on the White House Christmas tree and the other fabrications that came daily?
We laughed then, too, and how did that work out? They took over the Presidency, the House and the Senate. Then they started wars. They tortured people. They appointed corporate lobbyists to run every agency. They filled the courts with Federalist Society judges that rule for the corporations and religious right every time. They stole billions -- in one documented case actually having the Fed ship truckloads of pallets of hundred dollar bills directly to Iraq to be distributed to Bush cronies. They destroyed the economy of the world. And they worked hard to destroy the world itself -- the arctic is melting, the fisheries are depleted, the resources are plundered... And they get away with it -- who is being held accountable for any of that? Take The Right Seriously, Please
Good point. We call them nuts because ... well, because they're nuts. At the moment there's a tiny seditious minority, but in the age of the soundbite they can get a lot of attention and do a lot of damage.
I'm not sure if this blog post is a response to Krugman the other day, but the two go together, hand in glove.
posted by JimK at 10:01 AM
17 Comments:
Andrea- not anon
I take them seriously- in our society, we should have learned by now that just because someone sounds crazy- it doesn't mean they aren't harmful. In fact, they are very likely to be harmful- if only that they may convince others that their spewing is true- and much worse can be true. Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Savage- media whores, of course- ranting for ratings and book sales and speech fees- but also pretty darn anti- American right now.
As for me and mine- we support President Barack Hussein Obama (and his not so little dog Bo!)
"we should have learned by now that just because someone sounds crazy- it doesn't mean they aren't harmful"
that's true
look at all the people who voted for Obama
"Anonymous"
"Everyone but me and thee is crazy...and sometimes I worry about thee"
Bloggers aren't the only ones taking these threats seriously. So is the Department of Homeland Security.
Recession fueling right-wing extremism, U.S. says
MIAMI (Reuters) – Right-wing extremists in the United States are gaining new recruits by exploiting fears about the economy and the election of the first black U.S. president, the Department of Homeland Security warned in a report to law enforcement officials.
The April 7 report, which Reuters and other news media obtained on Tuesday, said such fears were driving a resurgence in "recruitment and radicalization activity" by white supremacist groups, antigovernment extremists and militia movements. It did not identify any by name.
DHS had no specific information about pending violence and said threats had so far been "largely rhetorical."
But it warned that home foreclosures, unemployment and other consequences of the economic recession "could create a fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists."
"To the extent that these factors persist, right-wing extremism is likely to grow in strength," DHS said.
The report warned that military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with combat skills could be recruitment targets, especially those having trouble finding jobs or fitting back into civilian society.
The department "is concerned that right-wing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to boost their violent capabilities," the report said.
DHS spokeswoman Sara Kuban said on Tuesday the report was one of an ongoing series of threat assessments aimed at "a greater understanding of violent radicalization in the U.S."
A similar assessment of left-wing radicals completed in January was distributed to federal, state and local police agencies at that time.
"These assessments are done all the time, this is nothing unusual," Kuban said.
The Department of Homeland Security was formed in response to the September 11 attacks of 2001 and has focused largely on threats from Islamist extremists.
The report said domestic right-wing terrorist groups grew during the economic recession of the early 1990s but subsided as the economy improved.
Government scrutiny disrupted violent plots following the April 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City by Army veteran Timothy McVeigh which killed 168 people.
LONE WOLVES
"Despite similarities to the climate of the 1990s, the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years," the report said.
The Internet has made it easier to locate specific targets, communicate with like-minded people and find information on bombs and weapons, it said.
Extremist groups are preying on fears that President Barack Obama, the first African American U.S. president, would restrict gun ownership, boost immigration and expand social programs for minorities, the report said.
It said such groups were also exploiting anti-Semitic sentiment with accusations that "a cabal of Jewish financial elites" had conspired to collapse the economy.
"This trend is likely to accelerate if the economy is perceived to worsen," the report said.
left-wing groups are just as much a threat
remember that guy that used to pal around with Sir B.O., Bill Ayers, who thinks he didn't bomb enough buildings in his younger days?
or the lunatic fringers who were attacking and threatening churches after Prop 8 in California?
or the extremists that create violent protests at all the G-20 meetings?
meanwhile, if you heard phrases like:
"did not identify any by name"
"had no specific information about pending violence and said threats had so far been "largely rhetorical.""
"could create a fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists"
about any left wing groups, TTFers would be howling like it was a full moon
as a matter of fact, TTFer did howl when they found out the State of Maryland was watching dissident groups on the left just last year
read Mark Rudd's new book for an example of a dangerous left-wing radical
"Anonymous"..."read Mark Rudd's new book for an example of a dangerous left-wing radical" Would that be a reference to the infamous Timothy McVey by any chance??
as a matter of fact, TTFer did howl when they found out the State of Maryland was watching dissident groups on the left just last year
Marylanders including TTFers were right to sound the alarm about that illegal, politically motivated spying on law abiding Maryland citizens and reporting them as "terrorists." Since then we've learned:
...Maryland officials now concede that, based on information gathered by Lucy and others, state police wrongly listed at least 53 Americans as terrorists in a criminal intelligence data base -- and shared some information about them with a half-dozen state and federal agencies, including the National Security Agency.
Among those labeled as terrorists: two Catholic nuns, a former Democratic congressional candidate, a lifelong pacifist and a registered lobbyist. One suspect's file warned that she was "involved in puppet making and allows anarchists to utilize her property for meetings."
"There wasn't a scintilla of illegal activity" going on, said David Rocah, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a lawsuit and in July obtained the first surveillance files. State police have released other heavily redacted documents.
Investigators, the files show, targeted groups that advocated against abortion, global warming, nuclear arms, military recruiting in high schools and biodefense research, among other issues.
"It was unconscionable conduct," said Democratic state Sen. Brian Frosh, who is backing legislation to ban similar spying in Maryland unless the police superintendent can document a "reasonable, articulable suspicion" of criminal activity.
Time to quote the unattributable:
Go Brian.
Looks like someone's got an easy re-election in his future!
Serving your constituents has that effect in a democracy.
Bea, if you ever any sense, you might be scary.
If you still wonder why we refer to you as a crazy old bat, re-read your last post.
Or, have one of your flying monkeys read it to you.
if you ever [make] any sense
You should probably wonder about whether the instigators of today's Rich Republican's Tax Protest -- Dick Armey, every GOP 2012 Presidential candidate wannabe, FOX News, and the GOP -- make any sense. I guess they're all in the highest tax bracket so protesting a tax hike for the very richest among us makes sense to them. I do wonder about their astroturf lemmings, though. Personally I find that the timing is off, way off. Just in time for today's protest, the venerable Gallup Poll has released a new poll,
Views of Income Taxes Among Most Positive Since 1956
by Jeffrey M. Jones
PRINCETON, NJ -- A new Gallup Poll finds 48% of Americans saying the amount of federal income taxes they pay is "about right," with 46% saying "too high" -- one of the most positive assessments Gallup has measured since 1956. Typically, a majority of Americans say their taxes are too high, and relatively few say their taxes are too low.
These results are based on the Gallup Economy and Personal Finance poll, conducted each April, including April 6-9 of this year.
Since 1956, there has been only one other time when a higher percentage of Americans said their taxes were about right -- in 2003, when 50% did so after two rounds of tax cuts under the Bush administration.
The slightly more positive view this year may reflect a public response to President Barack Obama's economic stimulus and budget plans. He has promised not to raise taxes on Americans making less than $250,000, while cutting taxes for lower- and middle-income Americans. The latter has already begun, as the government has reduced the withholding amount for federal income taxes from middle- and lower-income American workers' paychecks.
In this year's poll, slim majorities of both lower- and middle-income Americans say they pay about the right amount of taxes, while upper-income Americans tend to think they pay too much. The views of upper-income Americans have not changed in the past year, while both middle- and lower-income Americans are more likely to say they pay the right amount of tax.
As is usually the case, there are partisan differences in views of taxes -- most Democrats think the taxes they pay are about right, while most Republicans say their taxes are too high. Independents are about evenly divided. Compared with last year, each group is slightly more likely to say its taxes are about right.
Six in 10 Continue to Say Taxes are Fair
The poll also finds 61% of Americans saying they regard the income taxes they have to pay this year as fair. There has been very little change on this measure in the last six years.
Generally speaking, Americans seem to take a more positive view of their taxes when the country is at war. From 1997 through 2001, the percentage saying their taxes were fair ranged from 45% to 51%. In early 2002, after the United States had begun military operations in Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, 58% said their taxes were fair. After the Iraq war began in 2003, the percentage increased to 64%, and it has been above 60% ever since.
Going back even further, Gallup asked the same question in the 1940s. While the country was still fighting World War II, 85% or more of Americans said the taxes they paid were fair. The first postwar measurement, in 1946, saw this percentage tumble to 62%.
Implications
As the remaining U.S. tax filers prepare to send their income-tax returns before the April 15 deadline, Gallup finds Americans' views of their federal income taxes about as positive as at any point in the last 60 years. This may reflect the income-tax cut that was part of the $787 billion economic stimulus plan, as well as a continuing sense of patriotism with the country fighting two wars.
Obama has promised not to raise taxes on all but the wealthiest Americans. There are concerns that his proposed budget relies too much on borrowed money, and the president may be forced to raise taxes on a greater percentage of Americans, or to scale back his plans to reform the healthcare system and invest in education and alternative energy.
From Reuters, quoted above:
"The report warned that military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with combat skills could be recruitment targets, especially those having trouble finding jobs or fitting back into civilian society."
The economic chaos of Germany in the wake of World War I enabled a disgruntled (and insane) German war veteran to play on fears and resentments to plunge his country, and then the world, into the hell of Naziism. This is one reason why it is essential that we get our economy back on track as quickly as possible.
The "mainstream" Republican right has chosen to be offended by this warning from Homeland Security, identifying themselves with groups such as Neo-nazis and white supremecist groups. Unh?
you run into many neo-Nazis or white supremacist groups lately, Robert?
why don't you lay down on the sofa and tell the nice doctor all about it
"The economic chaos of Germany in the wake of World War I enabled a disgruntled (and insane) German war veteran to play on fears and resentments to plunge his country, and then the world, into the hell of Naziism."
You forget the contribution made by the lack of standards of morality in the Weimar Republic. Hitler was probably gay and the head of the military wing of his party definitely was.
Your implication that American soldiers with economic troubles have the potential to turn into Nazis is offensive. We didn't see that after Vietnam during the Jerry Ford-Jimmy Carter economic collapse.
Your implication that American soldiers with economic troubles have the potential to turn into Nazis is offensive. We didn't see that after Vietnam during the Jerry Ford-Jimmy Carter economic collapse.
In 1995, we all saw an American soldier with economic and other problems who turned into the worst American domestic terrorist ever. Timothy McVeigh, a first Iraq war vet, brought down Oklahoma City's Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 and injuring over 800 innocent civilians on April 19, 1995.
McVeigh spoke just like teabaggers do today:
Taxes are a joke. Regardless of what a political candidate "promises," they will increase. More taxes are always the answer to government mismanagement. They mess up. We suffer. Taxes are reaching cataclysmic levels, with no slowdown in sight ... Is a Civil War Imminent? Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system? I hope it doesn't come to that. But it might.
Apparently Homeland Security fears additional acts of domestic terrorism now that there's another Democrat, an African American Democrat no less, in the White House. Through 2006, law enforcement officials [had already] foiled 60 domestic terror plots since the Oklahoma City bombing, including one in Texas in 1997 in which four suspects allegedly plotted to blow up a natural gas processing plant. Hate group membership has grown exponentially since the 2008 election.
Here's more information from AOL News on the Homeland Security Department's report on domestic terrorism:
Feds Warn of Right-Wing Extremists
By EILEEN SULLIVAN, AP
WASHINGTON (April 15) - Homeland Security officials are warning that right-wing extremists could use the bad state of the U.S. economy and the election of the country's first black president to recruit members to their cause.
In an intelligence assessment issued to law enforcement last week, Homeland Security officials said there was no specific information about an attack in the works by right-wing extremists.
The agency warns that an extended economic downturn with real estate foreclosures, unemployment and an inability to obtain credit could foster an environment for extremists to recruit members who may not have been supportive of these causes in the past.
Homeland Security spokesman Sean Smith said the report is one in a series of assessments issued by the agency's intelligence and analysis unit. The agency describes these assessments as part of a series published "to facilitate a greater understanding of the phenomenon of violent radicalization in the United States."
In February, the department issued a report to law enforcement that said left-wing extremist groups were likely to use cyber attacks more often in the next 10 years to further their cause. And in September, the agency issued a report that highlighted how right-wing extremists over the past five years have used the immigration debate as a recruiting tool.
The latest assessment started making its way into the mainstream press after conservative blogs got wind of the analysis. In this report, the agency warns that imposing new restrictions on firearms and returning military veterans who have difficulties assimilating back into their communities could lead to terror groups or individuals attempting to carry out attacks. The returning war veterans have skills and experience that are appealing to right-wing groups looking to carry out an attack, according to the report.
The agency cites the April 4 killings of three Pittsburgh police officers as an example of a the type of violence spurred by right-wing rhetoric.
"Despite similarities to the climate of the 1990s, the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years," the report said.
In the 1990s, the report said, a resurgence in right-wing extremism was brought on by the poor economy and the outsourcing of jobs, with extremist groups targeting government facilities, law enforcement officers and banks.
The growth was slowed after intense government scrutiny of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombings, according to the report, but the Internet now gives extremists more access to information about making bombs and weapons training. The new technologies also make it easier for extremists to communicate, the report said, and make it more difficult for law enforcement to detect or prevent an attack.
In November, after Barack Obama's election, law enforcement officials were seeing more threats and unusual interest against a president-elect than ever before.
One of the most popular white supremacist Web sites got more than 2,000 new members the day after the election, compared with 91 new members on Election Day, according to an Associated Press count. The site, stormfront.org, was temporarily off-line Nov. 5 because of the overwhelming amount of activity it received after Election Day.
Anon writes:
"Hitler was probably gay and the head of the military wing of his party definitely was."
If true, and maybe it was, then that is further evidence that suppression of one's sexual orientation is very dangerous.
"Your implication that American soldiers with economic troubles have the potential to turn into Nazis is offensive."
Yes, I heard that line being pushed by Joe Scarborough this morning. And, frankly, that line is preposterous. It is not just veterans who could fall prey to demogogues, but people across the board. If the 20th Century teaches us anything, it is that otherwise moral people can be turned into monsters in times of chaos. It happened in Germany; it happened in Cambodia; it happened in Serbia; it happened in Rwanda.
Your predictable response is an example of what makes reasoned discourse more difficult. The point of discussion in the public square is not to play a game of shallow "gotcha," but to examine difficult issues from different perspectives, in the hope that we all might learn something that will help our society as we move into the future.
The last post was mine.
David Fishback
David
Our country has been through tough times before. Fascism is not in the card. We're a million miles from the character of Germany in the early 20th century.
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