Testifying at a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil and Human rights, a rather credentialed terrorism analyst named Daryl Johnson said that the US is ignores [the] threat of violent right-wing extremists
" we are currently seeing an upsurge in domestic non-Islamic extremist activity, specifically from violent rightwing extremists. While leftwing attacks were more prevalent in the 1970s, today the bulk of violent domestic activity emanates from the rightwing.”
Color me shocked.
The pattern and frequency has just been impossible to ignore, or to not hold a possibility each time we hear about a violent event.
He said that Muslim extremists, which ARE a serious issue, were responsible for 5 terrorist action resulting in the deaths of 17 people, since 9/11/2001
Since 2008:
rightwing extremists killed 16 police officers and wounded 27 others, he said. Since 2009, one abortion doctor was murdered and six clinics that provided abortion services were bombed — all presumably by rightwing extremists. Most recently, Johnson noted that a white supremacist killed six worshipers at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. Numerous anti-government plots have also been foiled by law enforcement.
.
The CSPAN video of the hearing is below .
Mr. Johnson runs through the highlights of other rightwing acts of violence, including that guy who crashed his little plane into the IRS building in Texas .
I have often wondered when people talk about 'left wing violence' - I cannot recall anything of note being perpetrated by a 'leftist' group. ELF, maybe PETA, but those entities didn't even get a mention. The guy who shot the guard at the FRC building is the only incident that got tagged as "leftist'.
He ends with a plea to hire more people like him and to take the threat of rightwing extremist violence a lot more seriously to save lives.
I have encouraged people to be more aware and safety conscious over the next few months as the 'uptick' in rightwing extremist activity gets more uptickity, spurred on by the looming re-election of Barack Obama
Let's hope his message gets through.