Tucson Terror, Right-Wing Demagogues, and Targeting Democrats
Chip Berlet printable version print page     Bookmark and Share
Sat Jan 15, 2011 at 02:41:39 PM EST
“There is a vast left-wing conspiracy in this country and these liberals are working together to attack every decent & honorable institution in the nation.”

Who said this? It is the same person who said that the Democrats "are all a bunch of traitors" and that the "worst problem America faces today is liberalism."

More of this statement follows. See if you can figure out who it is.

The worst problem America faces today is liberalism. They have dumbed down education, they have defined deviancy down. Liberals have attacked every major institution that made America great [from] the Boy Scouts to the military, from education to religion. The major news outlets have become the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party. Liberals are evil, they embrace the tenets of Karl Marx, [they are] Marxists, socialists, communists.

I hate the damn left-wing liberals. There is a vast left-wing conspiracy in this country and these liberals are working together to attack every decent and honorable institution in the nation, trying to turn this country into a communist state. Shame on them....

About Code Pink, the Unitarian Universalist Church, Move On, and other "un-American groups" on the Left:

Those people are absolute hypocrites. They embrace every pervert that comes down the pike, but if they find out you are a conservative, they absolutely hate you.

The Democrats have done everything they can do to tie our hands in the War on Terror. They are all a bunch of traitors.

Who said all these things? Sure they sound familiar. You can hear these sentiments on Fox News. When I drive around the country on assignments I turn on AM talk radio and hear these same phrases. Think about where you have heard these kinds of statement.

Follow the trail of targets below to where I will identify who wrote these lines.

 

Before I identify the person who wrote the above manifesto, let me add the solution offered by the writer:

Kill Democrats.... Liberals are a pest like termites. Millions of them. Each little bite contributes to the downfall of this great nation. The only way we can rid ourselves of this evil is to kill them in the streets. Kill them where they gather. I'd like to encourage other like minded people to do what I've done. If life aint worth living anymore don't just kill yourself. do something for your Country before you go. Go Kill Liberals."

It's criminal what they're getting away with, They're traitors! They Must be Stopped. I'm protesting the DNC running such radical leftist candidate. Osama Hussein OBama, yo mama. No experience, no brains, a joke. Dangerous to America, Hell, he looks like Curious George!

This was a symbolic killing.

Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book. I'd like to kill everyone in the mainstream media. But I know those people were inaccessible to me. I couldn't get to the generals & high ranking officers of the Marxist movement so I went after the foot soldiers, the chickenshit liberals that vote in these traitorous people. Someone had to get the ball rolling. I volunteered. I hope others do the same. It's the only way we can rid America of this cancerous pestilence."

Know this if nothing else: This was a hate crime....."

This particular manifesto against liberals was penned by Jim David Adkisson, convicted of walking into a Unitarian Universalist congregation in July 2008 in Knoxville, Tennessee and killing Greg McKendry and Linda Kraeger, and wounding six others, in a shooting spree he dedicated to exterminating liberals.

Back in February 2009 Sara Robinson wrote about Adkisson and warned of more violence against liberals, leftists, and Democrats in a post for the Campaign for Americas Future. Among all of us issuing these warnings, Sara has been among the most consistent and clear-voiced. Here are some of her warnings:

Adkisson told us himself—in his own words—just how central right-wing eliminationism was in driving him to his shooting spree. Shortly after he was sentenced yesterday, he released a four-page handwritten "manifesto"—which he'd intended to be his suicide note—to the Knoxville News…. In it, he unleashes the full measure of his hatred for liberals—and encourages other would-be right-wing warriors to take up arms and follow him into battle.

[W]hen police searched Adkisson's apartment and found it filled with books and newsletters penned by Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and other right-wing hate talkers.

Adkisson's "manifesto" should end any doubts we ever had about how virulent and dangerous hate talk is, or whether or not that talk will eventually translate into action.

Read the handwritten note left by Adkisson before his killing spress at the website of the Knoxville News.

To the names Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity we can add Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Lou Dobs, Sarah Pailn, Bill Bennett, Frank Gaffney, Tim LaHaye, and others who demonize liberals, leftists, Democrats, Muslims, Mexicans, gay people, reproductive rights activists, or immigrants.

All of these right-wing demagogues refuse to take responsibility for their rhetoric possibly leading to violence. This is not about legal liability but about moral responsibility. This is about the targeting of scapegoats through villification and demonization.

The way right-wing bloggers tried to spin the terror attack in Knoxville was covered by John Dolan on Alternet.

We need to speak out about the avalanche of right-wing demagoguery burying our democracy in a suffocating blanket.

We may never fully understand why Jared Lee Loughner shot Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Arizona; but we do know that demonizing rhetoric leads some people to take action against the named scapegoats of demagoguery.

Here is one small way to begin this task.

Petitions by Change.org|Start a Petition »


Note: minor spelling, punctuation, and capitalization changes were made in the manifesto along with re-arranging the order of paragraphs. This post reflects the personal views of the author. In the original I botched the name of Jared Lee Loughner Apologies. As I said on Facebook to folks who pointed it out: "Thanks, Just watched a movie featuring Jennifer Jason Leigh." It was "Road to Perdition"--about a killer.




Display:

Thank you for the information, and I do get your point. I think all of us who read this page get the point. But...does it really help us toward a more reasonable future to stoop to using those surveyors' marks - or whatever they are? The bulls-eye things?

Yes, hate speech fuels hateful actions, and I really don't believe you want your readers revved up to go kill people in Arizona.

With respect,

RedBird

by Khalila RedBird on Sun Jan 16, 2011 at 01:17:21 AM EST
Gabrielle Giffords
John F. Kennedy
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Robert Kennedy

The picture is built around what you see through an actual rifle scope.

My point was that people were already shot after being demonized.

_ _ _

Chip Berlet: Research for Progress - Building Human Rights
by Chip Berlet on Sun Jan 16, 2011 at 10:31:33 AM EST
Parent

That infers that progressives are equal to conservatives, and nothing could be further from the truth.

Conservatives have a vested interest in demonizing liberals/progressives, because when people realize that we're the ones on their side and the conservatives only serve the rich and powerful, they would vote for us.

That also implies that progressives are just as prone as conservatives to violence, and that also cannot be supported.

by ArchaeoBob on Sun Jan 16, 2011 at 11:28:17 AM EST
Parent




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