The right-wing hate speech polluting the debate over health care is generating more and more threats against President Obama, some truly frightening.
Threats against the life of President Obama are up 400 percent over the number of threats known to have been issued against G.W. Bush. The death threats are up to 30 per day. This situation is totally unacceptable and dangerous to the country--in the extreme.
Furthermore, it has been brought to the attention of the nation that a terrible abuse of the pulpit has occurred when three pastors are known to have produced sermons and/or prayer, hate speech, which cites or incites the death of President Obama as desirable.
Where are the clarion, venerated voices of reason and sanity--with national prominence--who will step forward to quell this pro-death "clergy led" campaign against the life of President Obama?
Noted in this diary are the Body Bagger Preachers who are currently known to the public, there are plenty more out there. The material will address the background of body-bagging.
More information below the fold....
Body Bagger # 1: "Pastor" Peter Peters, LaPorte, Colorado Church of Christ
The first of the three "body baggers" preachers to be singled out as an anti-Obama "death prayer pastor" is Peter Peters of the LaPorte, Colorado Church of Christ. Peters is by far the most explosively radical "pastor" to issue a death prayer against President Obama:
During the 1980’s, members of the white supremacist militia group The Order attended Peters’ church and four months after Pastor Pete Peters and his parishioner Colonel Jack Mohr appeared on Jewish talk show host Alan Berg's Denver radio show, during which the radio show host confronted Peters and Mohr about their views, Berg was machine-gunned to death. Members of The Order were later convicted of the murder.
Peters went on to host an October 1992 planning meeting, with white supremacist and NeoNazi leaders, during which an organizing strategy for a national paramilitary network was hammered out. Former Aryan Nations member Floyd Cochran said of Peters, "He doesn’t espouse Hitler. He doesn’t use the swastika or Klan robes. Instead he uses the Bible and the American flag. Peters talks in a language we’re used to hearing. His hatred is masked in God."
Snip
In Peters' January 19, 2009 sermon, broadcast over the Internet, Pete Peters concluded with a "party crashing" imprecatory prayer to call down divine destruction on Barack Obama’s inaugural celebration. From Kos, Troutfishing’s diary, http://www.dailykos.com/...
Body Bagger # 2: "Pastor" Wiley Drake, recent leader of the Southern Baptists calls forth death to the President:
Drake is a Former Vice President of the Southern Baptist Convention, and closely associated politically with the wingnut Alan Keyes, Drake has been linked with the violent wing of the antiabortion movement.
To illustrate how dangerous "Pastor" Drake’s impact is, Drake announced he was praying for abortion Dr. Tiller’s death. Subsequent to Dr. Tiller’s murder, June 2, 2009, Drake appeared on Alan Colmes’ national radio show. In a brash and bellicose boast Wiley Drake declared that his prayers had been answered with Dr. Tiller's public murder. Then to up his venom, Drake stated he was currently praying for President Barack Obama’s death.
Body Bagger # 3: "Pastor" Steven L. Anderson
The August 16, 2009 sermon "Pastor" Anderson gave his first "death to Obama !" However he had delivered another sermon two days before Barack Obama's presidential inauguration declaring "somebody should abort Barack Obama."
Anderson is a proudly uneducated individual, http://www.faithfulwordbaptist.org/... who has given to memory much of the New Testament and believes that it is from scripture alone that he is empowered to deliver the will of God as he preaches it.
His "church" is a small vacant commercial location in a Tempe, AZ mall, self-founded and called by Anderson The Faithful Word Baptist Church. To add to the weight of the importance of calling out Anderson’s dangerous and provocative sermonizing, note it was a member of Anderson’s congregation, Chris Broughton, who showed up at a townhall meeting armed with a semi-automatic AR15 assault rifle. Broughton was not the only armed individual gathered at a time when President Obama was nearby--other events have seen gun totters brandishing weapons. William Kostric http://www.youtube.com/... , and Chris Broughton both of whom showed up near President Obama with weapons, belong to We The People Organization.
...Talking Points Memo has revealed that both men belong to the We the People Organization. In addition to exercising their right to bear arms it seems these men also are exercising their right to assemble. That the two men have a right to belong to the organization and carry their firearms is not questioned. What should be questioned is the wisdom of their actions and the intentions of their organization. http://www.examiner.com/...
Yes, we get the message, they are NOT there to protect the president or further civil discourse.
Pastor Anderson is reported to have stated the night before the Obama event: "you have probably never heard a sermon like this before. Actually, you probably have if you have been coming to church here for a while. But you know what? Here is my sermon, Why I Hate Barack Obama. That's my sermon tonight, because Barack Obama is coming to town tomorrow morning."
Here’s a vital piece of timely wisdom and focused warning from Bruce Wilson--Troutfishing's Diary cited above.
Ignoring the phenomenon won't check its spread, and during the 1990's such conspiratorial outlooks helped power both the militia movement and also the GOP's takeover of both houses of Congress.
Ronald Kessler also issues an important warning: Kessler is a conservative, and author of a new book about the Secret Service. He is also a veteran investigative journalist.
On Alternet, http://act.credoaction.com/... Kessler notes that funding cutbacks have already left the first African-American president in U.S. history particularly vulnerable. The book, which alleges that the cash-strapped Secret Service is endangering the president by cutting corners, has sent shockwaves through Washington "There's no question his life is in danger."
"Tomorrow, Obama could be assassinated ... simply because the Secret Service was not doing what it used to do," said Kessler.
"We have half the number of agents we need, but requests for more agents have fallen on deaf ears at headquarters," a Secret Service agent told Kessler.
"There's a tremendous feeling within the Secret Service that they are risking an assassination," Kessler told Canadian TV.
Body Bagging: Background Chronology
Those of us who have for years seen and heard the steady decline of civility, respect for the truth, allegiance to the common square/our shared values, and a field of fair play sustaining our national dialogue are chagrined, saddened, and shamed that the disgrace to our national honor and morality has come to this.
The onrush up to "body bagging" did not happen overnight.
There has been a building of the ante for some time--decades.
• Barry Goldwater / Escalation of ideological violence may have begun when those who tolerated Barry Goldwater did not object when he spoke those dangerous words: "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."
• Richard Nixon: In a White House recorded conversation with Henry Kissinger, Dick Nixon reveals that he was willing and ready to use a nuclear bomb against the enemy during the early 1970's--already having expanded the Vietnam War into Laos. And while Nixon cites Kissinger’s concern for civilian casualties, Nixon himself, having just admitted to 200,000 deaths in Laos up to that time, is recorded as saying, in regard to those deaths and others that may result from his actions, "You (Henry) worry about the civilian casualties, I don’t give a damn."
• Ronald Reagan/Iran Contra et al and his support and encouragement of "death squads" in Central America
• George H. W. Bush and the wholesale slaughter of up to 30,000 Panamanian civilians in his personal war with Noriega
• Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition, bragged they, the public and the opposition, won’t know what we have done until they see the "body bags." Reed was committed to operations "below the radar."
• Timothy McVeigh, wretched anarchist killer of scores of innocents and a self-directed militia type--in bombing the federal building in Oklahoma City--sought to incite a widespread anti-federal government uprising. McVeigh also used the term "socialist" in his argument for his direct action:
Those who betray or subvert the Constitution are guilty of sedition and/or treason, are domestic enemies and should and will be punished accordingly. Source: McVeigh, http://en.wikipedia.org/...
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One can see the progression in the rising hatred and desire for action that moved McVeigh from his library of inciteful propaganda which he ingested, to the phase where McVeigh considered "a campaign of individual assassination," with "eligible" targets" according to the Wiki account cited above.
• Pat Robertson calling for the execution of Hugo Chavez. http://mediamatters.org/...
You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war.
Snip
We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.
• Randall Terry is known for his violence and the associated campaigns including results--on-going murders of abortion doctors by ardent pro-life activists. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... The week of the 19th of July, Terry warned that the Obama health bill, if passed, would result in "violent convulsions" not seen since the Civil War. http://www.rightwingwatch.org/...
• Erik Prince, "Christian" mercenary commandant, is responsible for the summary killing of Muslims. http://www.alternet.org/... Blackwater includes Cofer Black, who once promised to deliver the severed head of Osama bin Laden.
• Dick Cheney opened the assets of the United States government to a plethora of "dark side" operations, some of which remain deeply secret.
• George W. Bush and the use of torture and extreme rendition in addition to his war on terror has resulted in up to 100,000 innocent civilian deaths.
• Glenn Beck and Fox Network have also entertained the "death bagger" mentality and, given Fox's niche with the hard right--its faithful audience--Beck is playing with radioactive invectives--he and Fox are far, far beyond the line of sane reason and civic responsibility.
The case for the danger the emanating from Glenn Beck is made by columnist Tom Teeter, September 2, 2009, it hits the mark:
Does Glenn Beck really mean to incite the assassination of the president of the United States or is it that he just doesn’t care much one way or another? Hey, it’s TV and ratings matter, you know.
In case you’ve been lucky enough lately to be passing time in one of our meager groves of sanity, know that Beck is the latest Fox News cable sensation, a right-wing near lunatic of such inspired loopiness that his ratings are challenging even the network’s reigning act, Bill O’Reilly.
Snip
Beck recently endeared himself to the nation’s new secessionists by declaring that President Barack Obama is "a racist" with a "deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture."
And while the 1933 Reichstag fire in Berlin may not be haunting you personally, (however) Beck has been fretting about it — loudly — on your behalf.
Snip
Obama, Beck claims, is plotting to create a Democratic Party dictatorship and he and other Democrats are just waiting for, if they are not actually planning, some Reichstag-like event as a triggering mechanism. Beck is urging his listeners to pray for more time in hopes an aroused citizenry will stop Obama before we lose our freedom.
Snip
So what is Beck up to? Given his true-believer listeners and the rough trade in Fox’s audience, Beck and his network are playing with matches in an ammo dump.
Already, crazily, we see Obama-as-Hitler placards bobbing in anti-Obama rallies. We have armed show-offs strutting around the perimeter of the president’s public events brandishing firearms, including even semi-automatic military-style weapons.
Source: http://www.journal-news.com/...
"Death Prayer" Pastors are now in the critical eye of the national spotlight and for good reason.
Here is a follow-up to death bagger Steven Anderson and his notorious gun totting parishioner Broughton:
Anderson has refined his position on the President's demise:
"If you want to know how I'd like to see Obama die, I'd like him to die of natural causes," said Anderson. "I don't want him to be a martyr, we don't need another holiday. I'd like to see him die, like Ted Kennedy, of brain cancer."
And Broughton ... adds:
"I concur, I think we'd be better off if God would send (Obama) where he's going now instead of later," said Broughton. "(Obama) is destroying our country."
When asked if he was advocating violence against the President, Broughton said he wouldn't answer the question directly.
That's enough. Add Chris Broughton to the list of Arizonans who should be arrested for threatening the life of the President of the United States.
Source: http://2politicaljunkies.blogspot.co...
The world community has been advocating for a reduction and the elimination of hot spots in terms of human rights and ethnic conflicts for some time.
Advocacy of religious hatred can properly be punished or suppressed only when it constitutes imminent incitement to unlawful acts of discrimination, hostility or violence.(Emphasis added) This is in keeping with international standards, which impose obligations on states to prohibit certain forms of religious or racial hatred. For example, Article 20 (2) of the ICCPR provides that; 3 "Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law." General Comment No. 11: Prohibition of propaganda for war and inciting national, racial or religious hatred (Art. 20) : . 29/07/83., CCPR General Comment No. 11.
{(General Comments), United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights}, http://www.unhchr.ch/... Source: Further quoted in, Free speech and religion The eternal conflict in the age of selective modernization, Anthony Lester, Keynote Speech
Many officials and religious leaders in the United States deny or ignore such explosive hot spots as illustrated by these "death bagger" preachers--thinking we in American are above and beyond the need for such prohibitions against incitement to violence along these lines, in the form of U.S. law.
The civilized world must view current American rage and incitements with deep disbelief and trepidation.
The ability to freely hate must considered be a perverse divine right for the "body baggers" preachers, however from their incessant beat of the drum for the death of Obama can come to no good, and the ultimate reaction--an actual event inspired and encouraged by the death baggers' "death wishing" is too catastrophic to frame in terms of the annals of human evil.