Here is his latest post on the current wave of right wing terrorism in the US:
Back in April, there was a huge fuss over 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.Read the whole article. I think he is right in saying that the analysts at the Department of Homeland Security are on to something. And this is bad news for Americans.
Conservatives were outraged. The chairman of the Republican National Committee denounced the report as an attempt to “segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration” and label them as terrorists.
But with the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic, closely followed by a shooting by a white supremacist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the analysis looks prescient.
...
...the analysts at Homeland Security fretted that things may turn out even worse than in the 1990s — that thanks, in part, to the election of an African-American president, “the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years.”
And that’s a threat to take seriously. Yes, 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. Politicians and media organizations wind up such people at their, and our, peril.
2 comments:
I am glad you are back, and I hope you had a good fishing trip.
Instability in our country is a very dangerous thing, right now, more than ever. The world won't sit by and watch us destabilize. I think if violence accelerates; other nations will want to step in and "help". I hope that the leaders in this country (including talk show hosts or talk radio) realize how bad it is to encourage radical behavior or talk of revolution or civil war. I believe we are in a dangerous situation if people believe there are no other options but violence.
I wouldn't worry about instability. The US has been through some very rocky times and held together (just think of the Civil War, or many struggles of the 1960s that created the "cultural revolution" that the right has been fighting ever since).
As for other nations "stepping in". The US is armed to the teeth. It spends more on its military than the next 5 or 6 top-spending nations. Nobody dare tweak the tail of the dragon.
As for your hopes that the talk show hosts will tone down their rhetoric. I don't think they will. These guys relish their role of political gurus.
But in the end, the US will pull through this era as it has managed to muddle through those in the past. It would be nice if the population realized the mess they are in both economically and politically and has a "reawakening" that brought more unity, more common sense (also known as American pragmatism) to bear on the situation.
There is cause to be hopeful because in crises in the past leaders have come forward that have found a way through the turbulent times and found a way to bind a majority to a vision of a better future. I would expect this will happen again. So the task is to keep your ear to the ground to find political leaders in the US who can rise to the challenge. I have hopes for Obama. But as he said, there has to be a push from below. He can't change things buy himself. He is likely to be co-opted into the existing power system unless people organize from below to keep pressure on him to make the real changes he promised in his presidential campaign.
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