I wrote on June 3 about the murder of Dr. George Tiller in a Lutheran church in Wichita, Kansas. This week another right-wing terrorist – a notorious hater revered in places like Free Republic and Red State but labeled far too extremist by the neo-nazi group Stormfront – walked into the Holocaust Museum in the nation’s capital and opened fire, killing a security guard. In April of this year a younger neo-nazi wingnut hater killed three Pittsburgh police officers in a suicidal shoot-out because he was afraid Barack Obama was going to take away his guns.

Right wing domestic terrorism is all too familiar in this country. Timothy McVeigh was the most notable in terms of body count, but certainly was not the first or last of his ilk. The problem is present at all times, but the most deadly attacks happen more frequently when there’s a Democrat in the White House. The right wing propaganda machine (a.k.a. FoxNews) provides the verbal incitement, the loyal-but-stupid wannabe Rambos among Fox’s white sheet and dunce cap fan base do the shooting and bombing.

Also back in April the Department of Homeland Security [DHS] issued a report on the rising danger of right wing extremism/terrorism, drawing predictable outcries of persecution from the Fox talking heads and conspiracy theorists. Despite the now obvious to everyone correctness of the DHS intelligence assessment. As if law enforcement suddenly remembered that there actually ARE laws in this country against yelling ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater, neo-nazi hate radio icon Hal Turner was arrested last week in New Jersey for issuing assassination orders to his fan base against two Connecticut lawmakers and a state official. Turner, who was exposed as a paid FBI informant and agent provocateur in 2007, was arrested by the NJ Capitol police and held for extradition, apparently because the FBI that has actual jurisdiction in crimes that cross state lines was reluctant to rein in their puppet.

What the hell is going on here? When will we see the familiar ugly mugs of Rupert Murdoch’s pro-terror spin machine frog marched off to prison where they belong for their roles in inciting murder? How long is it going to take to turn the law enforcement machinery in this country back to enforcing the laws? How many more innocent people have to die because Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh or any of a dozen other hate-mongers don’t like their skin color or their religion or their birth place or their politics?

America has always been a violent place. Mass murder and genocide have always been the tools of state and law for the purpose of taking and holding the territory. Enforced social and economic inequalities, brutal slavery, indentured servitude and a serious lack of opportunity for at least a third of the population have been endemic from the beginning. And whole bodies of research in sociology and psychology have amply demonstrated for a full century that those inequalities are what lead to this nation’s reputation as Murder Capitol of the World. It is becoming perfectly clear that none of this will change under the Democratic leadership now firmly in control even as the world faces at least a decade of major economic depression. Something’s gotta blow, it’s going to blow soon, and it’s not going to be pretty.

So I’m going to say it right now, even though I don’t have a wingnut fan base or any reason to light the fuse on this overloaded powder keg – it’s not just fascistic neo-nazi FoxBots who value the second amendment and exercise it with responsible gun ownership. We lefty-type ’socialists’ are as likely to be armed as anyone else, we just aren’t famous for using those weapons against innocent people for no apparent reason. If the paranoid right-wing groupies really want to start something, there are plenty on this side of the barricades who can finish it.

So unless the machine that is our erstwhile government starts doing its job of protecting and defending We the People (of the US, not Dubai or Saudi Arabia), it’s going to find itself smashed into pieces so numerous and so tiny that it’ll never be whole again. Perhaps that it’s karmic due for being as corrupt as it is and has always been, but it’s not something the vast majority of us ever really want to see happen.

So wake up, America! Rupert Murdoch isn’t even a citizen of this country, he should not be allowed to control the propaganda or foment armed insurrection 24-7 on his cable network or in his big city newspapers. His puppets on Fox and Clear Channel radio need to be retired post haste to whatever off-shore haven they’ve banked their millions.

Because despite the violence endemic to our national nature and the sleight of mind distractions designed to keep the population cowering in abject terror of terror organized against us (this is called “state-sponsored terrorism,” like when the FBI pays people such as Turner to incite murder), some of us have NOT forgotten that this was once not just the land of the free, but also the home of the brave.

And we are not afraid.

We know these murdering terrorists all too well, as Tiller isn’t the first doctor they’ve attacked and/or killed. The goal of killing doctors who provide legal medical services is not to end abortion. Abortion is as old as the hills. Safe medical abortion is relatively new.

Humans of course have more choices than bears and deer and burrowing critters who consume certain plants to induce abortion. Humans decide to have sex (most of the time), then they decide to have or not have a baby. It is apparently the freedom to choose that the antis so vehemently disagree with, so they engage in acts of terrorism with the intent to scare doctors away from providing the safe medical procedure.

Now, the denizens of Operation Rescue and other anti-abortion groups don’t offer to cover the costs of prenatal and delivery care for those who think abortion is the best answer to their life-dilemma. Nor are they noted for assuming responsibility to care for the children they demand be born, by support, adoption or fostering. And they don’t much care about the heartache they’d visit on women and families faced with the birth of a child that is seriously compromised genetically or developmentally and has no chance for a decent life.

The specter of innocent fetuses (or just collections of rapidly-dividing cells) being removed is a much more powerful incentive to opposition than the true reasons for the fundamentalist religious objection to this medical procedure. Let’s face it – God is the #1 abortionist in the universe, causing at least a third of all pregnancies to end in ’spontaneous’ abortion. And there’s no evidence whatsoever that life – or even human life – has ever been considered “precious” to the Judeo-Christian God who demanded blood sacrifice, or to his fervent followers.

The FBI defines terrorism as:

The unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a Government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.

That’s clear enough. The government ruled in 1973 that women have a right to choose whether or not to have a baby, up until viability when states may exert their interest in the unborn child. In Jesus’s Jihadists Sara Robinson wrote:

The fact that this shooting occurred in a church (again) suggests that this tactic is now being tried out on more closely related faith groups whose views don’t comport with the fundamentalist party line. As Dave has often pointed out, bringing violence to houses of worship is usually an overtly eliminationist act.  They are trying to terrify liberals by making us feel at risk and unsafe inside our own spiritual sanctuaries — the very places we go to feel the most security and peace. This is terrorism, plain and simple — Christian fundamentalist terrorism, committed by people Sam Smith has started referring to as “Jesus’s Jihadis.”

The surest, quickest way for radical fundamentalist wingnut-ism to go away is for them to turn terrorist against other members of the faith. Make no mistake – Roeder’s choice of setting for his crime means as much as who the target was. After the Department of Homeland Security issued its Report on Rightwing Extremism naming anti-abortion groups as an example of the genre, Jay Sekulow of the right wing American Center for Law and Justice issued a statement:

“This is an outrageous characterization that raises serious questions about the leadership and direction of the agency charged with protecting Americans in the ongoing battle against terrorism. Why would the Department of Homeland Security single out groups like pro-life supporters when they should be focusing on identifying and apprehending the real terrorists – like al-Qaeda – groups that have vowed to destroy America?

Well, fact is that the United States government is a democratic republic by charter, does not recognize any state religion or denomination, and prohibits agents of the state to proselytize religion on government’s dime. It has three branches, one of those to decide matters of law, and it decided a long time ago that women have a right to privacy in terms of their reproductive functions. Religion has gifted American law with many of its most blatantly useless and/or actively harmful legislation over the years, and these eventually came to be struck down. Prohibition, slavery, eugenics, miscegenation, anti-abortion. Because forcing everyone to abide by one’s own religious beliefs doesn’t work.

What these religious terrorists want is to “destroy America.” They want to abolish the Constitution and the entire body of US law in order to erect something quite else in their place. A theocracy – government by religious authority and religious law – is not a democratic republic. These extremists are every bit as dangerous to the body politic as al-Qaeda, moreso because they live among us rather than in caves in Central Asia. These people share our schools and workplaces and streets and neighborhoods. They are invisible because they look just like us.

So yeah, I think religious and other extremists in our midst DO need attention from DHS. Hopefully before any one or more of them pulls a Timothy McVeigh and kills a lot of innocent citizens. I figure if the anti-terror apparatus is going to waste time and money spying on groups of overage pacifist Quakers, they ought to be spying on the really dangerous groups too.

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that a NYC Subway Attack Possible Hate Crime. Seems a group of overage juvenile delinquents decided to attack two men and two women in a subway car, apparently for being Jewish.

The criminal types doing the attacking have been described as your basic cowardly hoodlums. One was awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty last year to “attempted robbery as a hate crime” for yelling racial epithets while assaulting two black teens in Brooklyn. This time they yelled anti-Semitic remarks at their targets, who had the tumerity to respond “Happy Chanukah” to their assailant’s greeting of “Merry Christmas.”

The victims were helped by ‘A Hero’ named Hassan Askari, a Muslim student at Berkeley College in Manhattan. Askari was also punched and beaten.

The attackers numbered eight men and two women (that’s 10 people against 4 plus one good Samaritan). They have all pled not guilty to assault, menacing and other charges, while prosecutors say the charges could be upgraded to hate crimes.

I’m sure Bill O’Reilly will be tickled with this evidence that his “War on Christmas” has finally gone publicly violent. And I don’t suppose Bill-O has the cognitive capacity to learn anything about the real Pagan roots of the Christmas holiday and all its many trappings – Yule logs, holly wreaths, adorned evergreen trees, etc. The Pagan holiday is Solstice, taking place during the week of December 19-25, a.k.a. ‘Yule’ or ‘Saturnalia’. The traditional African holiday is Kwanzaa, a.k.a. ‘Second Christmas’ in some parts of southern slave states. The Jewish holiday is Chanukah, the ‘Festival of Lights’. In Islam there is the Hajj and Eid-ul-Adha (Festival of the Sacrifice). Buddhism celebrates Bodhi Day in December (‘Enlightenment’ Day). Seems like just about every culture has a solstice celebration or festival of light couched in their own traditional religious terms but with clear roots to prehistoric reliance on the cycle of seasons.

Isn’t it about time Christians figured out that they don’t own the Solstice or control anybody else’s celebrations of it?

Links:

Winter Solstice Celebrations

Subway Attack; Skirmish from the War On/For Christmas?

Helper ‘A Hero’ in NYC Subway Attack

NYC Subway Attack Possible Hate Crime