Since this weekend, threats and attempts of violence against our democratically elected Representatives, have been reported all over the country. As Kossack, mikeconwell points out in his a terrific diary, Mapping Right Wing Violence - Need your input, there have been multiple incidences of threats of violence and actual violence aimed at our DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED Representatives in the last 4 days. Our Representatives are being "punished" by the ultra-right wing groups for doing what they campaigned on and were subsequently elected to do: pass health care reform legislation to help all Americans to have access to health care.
These people were democratically elected by a majority of the American voters in November of 2008. They volunteered to serve as our Representatives and were elected to do so. They ran promising to fix major problems in our health care system affecting Americans that could ruin them financially and potentially cost them their lives. We elected them to do what they promised to do and since then, we have ridden their backsides demanding that they do what they promised. Now for that their lives and those of their family members are being targeted by people who simply don't agree with that legislation. Those people targeting them represent the minority of the voters who cast their votes and because they were not part of the majority voters, they did not get the candidates elected who they wanted to represent them.
And now they are throwing temper tantrums like spoiled children who did not get what they wanted. The only difference with these spoiled child-like adults is that they have proven themselves to have little, if any, common sense, restraint and emotional self-control. And unlike children, they have guns and ammo and are threatening to use them.
There are numerous diaries right now and from the past 4 days on the front page and in the wreck list that detail the subtle and not so subtle threats being made to our democratically elected Representatives. But here is a sample of the background for anyone who has been unable to follow for the past few days:
These spoiled child-like adults started throwing their tantrums before the votes were cast by acting out with hateful name calling and spitting. They thought this would help them to get their way and scare the grown-ups into giving them what they want.
It started getting explicitly obvious at the US Capitol this past weekend that our elected Representatives were going to pay for doing the jobs they were elected to do. The teabaggers started with the name calling, spitting and threats of violence. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a hero of the civil rights movement, was called a 'ni--er' , Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) had been spat on by a protester. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a "fa--ot," as protesters shouted at him with deliberately lisp-y screams. Rep Ciro Rodriguez (D. TX) was called a "wetback" and told to go back to Mexico.
Then came the brick and rock throwing. Because these spoiled child-like adults are in a rage since they did not get own their way, the temper tantrums are getting worse. Like the spoiled children they resemble, they resort to throwing stuff.
Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords have had their office windows smashed. Someone threw a fist-sized rock through the front window of the Democratic Party headquarters in Hamilton County, Ohio, Sunday night after Congress passed the landmark health insurance overhaul.
Then came the implied and actual death threats. Because no one has paid attention to them and said "Oops we're sorry. You were right and we're wrong. Let's tear up the legitimately passed legislation that is now law so we can let the brats Teabaggers have their way," the bullying, spoiled child-like adults are determined they are gonna make members of the Congressional majority very, very sorry.
In addition to Rep. Slaughter's family being threatened, we are now hearing that Rep. Stupak along with nine other Representatives are getting death threats. A teabagging blogger "mistakenly" posted the address of Rep. Tom Perriello's (D-VA) brother on the internet. Yesterday afternoon, Rep. Perrillo's brother found someone had cut a propane gas line at his home. Lynchburg teabagging Leader, Nigel Coleman, posted what he thought was the Congressman's address on his Facebook account in this comment:
"This is Rep. Thomas Stuart Price Perriello’s home address," Coleman wrote Monday. "... I ain’t holding back anymore!!
When Coleman learned the address was actually Perriello’s brother’s — Politico reported he and his wife have four young children — Coleman commented on another blog that the mistake was "collateral damage."
The Cincinnati Enquirer published a photo of Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-OH) and his children in an ad by the anti-reform advocacy group the Committee to Rethink Reform. Both the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Committee to Rethink Reform have apologized, but a hell of a lot of good that will do now that pictures of his children have been published for any teabagger, psychopath, and/or pedophile to use to track them down at home or school. After a conservative group published his home address and directions to his home on their website, a group of Conservatives are now planning a protest at his home this Sunday.
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The threats to democratically elected Representatives are coming so fast, I can barely keep up with them right now. The source of the fuel for instigating this unstable behavior has been obvious and alarming to all of us who have been paying attention: It's Fox News and the GOP. But up until now, everytime we point this out, we're rebuffed with claims of it being nothing but our word against theirs, that we're just being politically biased, we're partisan hacks, etc. If we present any logic or factual details they drown us out by screaming over us to make their point. They've turned this into their own personal art form to prevent valid dissenting points from being heard.
This video from Wednesday's Ed Show is pretty much typical of what we get when we try to protest their intentional instigation of violence and/or threats of violence initiated with lies, deception and inciting riots. We get retorts of ONE man claimed by the rightwing who belongs to "our side" - the UNIBOMBER, Theodore Kaczynski, who has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and who, as a result of the symptoms of that mental illness, committed some serious and heinous acts. His actions, influenced by his mental illness, are somehow an equivalency for all the violent threats and actions being committed thus far and threatened as retribution by numerous Fox/ GOP party brainwashed individuals across this nation. Kaczynski, was against technology and inspired a group people identifying themselves as anarcho-primitivists which have somehow, in the minds of the right wing, have been grouped as part of the left wing and thus representative of all Democrats and Independents who share our principles.
Republican Eric Cantor has shot back at his critics who charge him and the GOP with causing all of this with a retort, claiming that it has happened to him too, in an attempt to imply that we Dems are complicit in this violence as well. The Richmond police have debunked his story. See Jed Lewison's magnificent front page report on this Cantor's story unravels
Finally, a highly respected organization with non-partisan credibility is making the case for this. It is no longer just us "partisan hacks" with our multiple examples of factual evidence doing the finger pointing. It's the Southern Poverty Law Center using their statistics compiled from four decades of experience gathering irrefutable evidence of hate group organizations and activities. In addition to supplying us with the source for all this subversive activity, they have just published the statistical results of the increase in patriot and militia groups, nativist groups and hate groups spurned by right wing lies to organize and attack our democratically elected representatives.
First, the SPLC offers the resulting numbers of Patriot, Militia, Paramilitary and Nativist Hate groups that have been inspired by FOX News and the GOP efforts to incite people to rise up against a government democratically elected by the majority of American Voters in 2008:
New SPLC Report: "Patriot" Groups, Militias Surge in Number in Past Year
The number of extremist groups in the United States exploded in 2009 as militias and other groups steeped in wild, antigovernment conspiracy theories exploited populist anger across the country and infiltrated the mainstream, according to a report issued today by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
Antigovernment "Patriot" groups - militias and other extremist organizations that see the federal government as their enemy - came roaring back to life over the past year after more than a decade out of the limelight.
The SPLC documented a 244 percent increase in the number of active Patriot groups in 2009. Their numbers grew from 149 groups in 2008 to 512 groups in 2009, an astonishing addition of 363 new groups in a single year. Militias - the paramilitary arm of the Patriot movement - were a major part of the increase, growing from 42 militias in 2008 to 127 in 2009.
Rage on the Right The Year in Hate and Extremism
The radical right caught fire last year, as broad-based populist anger at political, demographic and economic changes in America ignited an explosion of new extremist groups and activism across the nation.
Hate groups stayed at record levels — almost 1,000 — despite the total collapse of the second largest neo-Nazi group in America. Furious anti-immigrant vigilante groups soared by nearly 80%, adding some 136 new groups during 2009. And, most remarkably of all, so-called "Patriot" groups — militias and other organizations that see the federal government as part of a plot to impose "one-world government" on liberty-loving Americans — came roaring back after years out of the limelight.
The anger seething across the American political landscape — over racial changes in the population, soaring public debt and the terrible economy, the bailouts of bankers and other elites, and an array of initiatives by the relatively liberal Obama Administration that are seen as "socialist" or even "fascist" — goes beyond the radical right. The "tea parties" and similar groups that have sprung up in recent months cannot fairly be considered extremist groups, but they are shot through with rich veins of radical ideas, conspiracy theories and racism.
"We are in the midst of one of the most significant right-wing populist rebellions in United States history," Chip Berlet, a veteran analyst of the American radical right, wrote earlier this year. "We see around us a series of overlapping social and political movements populated by people [who are] angry, resentful, and full of anxiety. They are raging against the machinery of the federal bureaucracy and liberal government programs and policies including health care, reform of immigration and labor laws, abortion, and gay marriage."
And then the SPLC presents who is inciting this explosion of new extremist groups and activism across the nation:
New SPLC Report: "Patriot" Groups, Militias Surge in Number in Past Year
Patriot groups have been fueled by anger over the changing demographics of the country, the soaring public debt, the troubled economy and an array of initiatives by President Obama that have been branded "socialist" or even "fascist" by his political opponents.
"This extraordinary growth is a cause for grave concern," said Intelligence Report editor Mark Potok. "The people associated with the Patriot movement during its 1990s heyday produced an enormous amount of violence, most dramatically the Oklahoma City bombing that left 168 people dead."
The Patriot movement has made significant inroads into the conservative political scene, according to the new report. "The ‘tea parties' and similar groups that have sprung up in recent months cannot fairly be considered extremist groups, but they are shot through with rich veins of radical ideas, conspiracy theories and racism," the report says.
Unlike the 1990s, the Patriot movement's central ideas are being promoted by people with large audiences, such as FOX News' Glenn Beck and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota. Beck, for instance, reinvigorated a key Patriot conspiracy theory - the charge that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is secretly running concentration camps - before finally "debunking" it.
Fear of FEMA
MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala. — It looks like nothing more than a 2,500-acre military complex, but sinister plans are afoot. One day soon — if it hasn’t happened already — law-abiding U.S. citizens will be rounded up and imprisoned here by their oppressive federal government. It’s perfectly obvious to anyone with eyes to see the traffic signs that direct FEMA trucks this way and that: This is one of the 800 or more detention camps being built by a government gone mad.
At least that’s what more and more Americans believe. A fear that the federal government will concoct a pretense for declaring martial law and confine patriotic dissidents to concentration camps — a conspiracy theory that goes back decades and was especially prevalent during the militia movement of the 1990s — is spreading as the country experiences a surge in groups on the radical right.
In the last year, FOX News personality Glenn Beck devoted airtime on three shows to the theory, saying he "wanted to debunk it" but could not. (He eventually did, but only after much criticism.) Oath Keepers, a conspiracy-minded police and military organization formed last spring, listed the 10 "Orders We Will Not Obey," including any command to enforce martial law or herd Americans into concentration camps. And in September, William Lewis Films and Gary Franchi Productions released "Camp FEMA: American Lockdown," a video that alleges the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency is behind the camps. Lewis is a veteran maker of conspiracy-minded videos; Franchi heads Restore the Republic, an antigovernment "Patriot" group with militia-like beliefs.
These are not the first references by the SPLC to Fox News and the GOP instigating rightwing violence. There are more from last Fall's issue of the Intelligence Report (which I will also include at the bottom).
But this is the first reference by the SPLC to both Fox News and the GOP as the instigators while also providing the statistical results of their campaign of deception. This campaign has obviously been against our nation's first democratically elected African-American President and the huge democratically elected majority in the Senate and Congress.
The lies and deception espoused by Fox and the GOP can no longer be considered an expression of differences of opinion or politics. They have become more than the typical lies and deceptions used by politicians throughout US history that would be considered under the right of Freedom of Expression. These lies and deceptions go beyond an attempt to garner support for their legislation or their party. They are an attempt to intimidate democratically elected Representatives and Senators from performing their duties in a democratically governed society by threatening these elected Representatives with theirs or their family's lives.
We have multiple examples of how they have introduced legislation and utilized sources to make their point which they later denounced and deemed as some Democratic Party plot to ____________________ (fill in the blank.) Our very own americandad published many of their obvious hypocrisies on his blog and on TPM two days ago (I can't provide the link to his article on TPM as this page at TPM is receiving overwhelming traffic.)
As most everyone here already knows, the GOP is using their media outlet, FOX news, to incite their viewers to riot against our democratically elected Reps and Sens with lies of legislation as plots attempting to institute fascism, totalitarianism, socialism, etc. They are using their FOX media outlet (and rightwing radio) to subvert our democratically elected government solely so they can win back support for their side. They are not trying to serve the voters by revealing legitimate data to refute legislation.
The Fierce Urgency of Now and a Call to Action
Because of the ramping up of calls for violence and threats of violence, we need to devise and demand legislation that prevents a corporate owned media outlet from using it's ability to reach voters by advancing one political party's agenda. FOX and rightwing radio are using the public's inclination to trust the media to report accurately what is being legislated. They are using low information voters to advance corporate agendas. We saw the blatant corporate influence of the GOP during the recent HCR debates with all the talk of threats to capitalism and free enterprise. We all can dig up multiple examples of incitement to violence against the President and Congress by GOP members and corporate owned lobbying groups like Dick Armey's Freedomworks.
I propose we need to demand to have the Fairness Doctrine reinstated or something like it legislated into law. We need legislation that prevents a media outlet from being used as a tool by one political party to spread lies so as to advance it's agenda and incite people to commit violence aimed at democratically elected legislators. The GOP is using Fox news as an outlet to subvert democracy. The GOP is inciting people to use threats and acts of violence to intimidate legislators from doing what they were elected to do.
I'm begging my fellow Kossacks, who have oftentimes, proved themselves to be brilliant, highly educated and highly motivated activists, to help devise a plan to stop these threats of violence and burgeoning acts of violence before we end up with dead legislators. Then I beg of you all to start emailing and writing LTE offering support for why this is needed to protect our democracy. Make suggestions, write diaries with suggestions and arguments for them. We especially need you attorneys in on this who are savvy in law and legal precedent.
We are in dire need of financial reform and other vital legislation that must be passed in order to reverse the damages done to our country and economy by the Republicans. If this type of violence results from the lies and deceptions fomented by the GOP and its media outlet, FOX news, in response to HCR legislation, we are in for a brutal and bloody near future when we try to pass financial reform legislation.
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Update
If you want to see whats going on in your area go to SPLC Hate Map. And don't assume it's all in the South, you all. I did an undergrad thesis on The adolescent's vulnerability to racism in 2000 and we had 12 Hate Groups here in Virginia. That number was 26 last year and is now 22 this year according the the SPLC.
I have been a "donating member" of the Southern Poverty Law Center for 15 years so I receive the Intelligence report and Teaching Tolerance Materials. I received the latest issue of the Intelligence Report a week ago and just cried when I read "Rage on the Right". I knew it was coming because it's been heating up to a boiling point through the Bush years with all the hatred of Muslims and Hispanics.
Reading through it just made the nightmare, I've been personally dreading, become real when I saw the statistical confirmation of the extraordinary numbers of new Hate Groups that have formed since 2008. By 2001, the SPLC had made huge gains suing many of the Hate Groups out of existence during the 90s. They sued 60% of the KKK out of existence by 1999. It's all been undone and gasoline has been poured on the smoking embers to reignite the roaring rage all over again.
If anyone has $5 bucks or more that you can spare, please give to the SPLC. We can beat this racism and the numbers of Hate Groups back down, but it's going to take a lot of money for the SPLC and a lot of effort on our part to marginalize this behavior back out of the mainstream.
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More from the SPLC about the GOP and FOX news encouraging violence.
Antigovernment Rhetoric Spills into the Mainstream
From FOX News to Sean Hannity's radio show, white-hot antigovernment rhetoric is filtering into what is commonly thought of as the mainstream. Here, drawn from the watchdog organization Media Matters for America and various YouTube.com postings, is a sampling of recent comments reflecting that infiltration:
"How much more will Americans take? When will enough be enough? And, when that time comes, will our leaders finally listen or will history need to record a second American Revolution?"
— Chuck Norris, actor and political activist, in a March 9 column for WorldNetDaily.com
"If this country starts to spiral out of control and, you know, and Mexico melts down or whatever, if it really starts to spiral out of control ... Americans ... just won't stand for it. There will be parts of the country that will rise up."
— FOX News host Glenn Beck, speaking on the March 3 edition of his radio show
"Were I in Washington State, I'd be cleaning my gun right about now waiting to protect my property from the coming riots or the government apparatchiks coming to enforce nonsensical legislation."
— Erick Erickson, editor-in-chief of RedState.com, in a March 31 item posted on the website
"When you hear that Quinn's guns have been confiscated, you will know that Quinn is dead."
— Jim Quinn, co-host of Clear Channel's "The War Room with Quinn & Rose," on the Feb. 20 edition of his radio show
"It's like Thomas Jefferson said, a revolution every now and then is a good thing. We are at the point, Sean, of revolution. And by that, what I mean [is] an orderly revolution, where the people of this country wake up and get up and make a decision that this is not going to happen on their watch."
— U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), speaking against the growing national debt on the March 25 edition of Sean Hannity's radio show
"We think it's time to draw the line in the sand and tell Washington that no longer are we going to accept their oppressive hand in the state of Texas. That's what these Texans are standing up for. Because there's a point in time where you stand up and say enough is enough. And I think Americans, and Texans especially, have reached that point."
— Texas Gov. Rick Perry, speaking at an April 9 press conference in support of a state sovereignty resolution
"Guys, when are we going to wake up and start fighting the fascism that seems to be permeating this country?"
— FOX Business Network anchor Cody Willard, reporting live on the April 15 anti-tax "tea party" in Boston
