Tea Party Terrorism
NOTE: The original incarnation of this opinion piece got me thrown out of the Coffee Party five years ago. I have updated the thing from time to time as more spectacular examples of right-wing terror have taken place.
DO NOT REMAIN SILENT
Only the most naïve of political observers could ever fail to see the obvious consequences of proclaiming that any group of Americans was a "threat" to their existence or the existence of the nation and not realize that different people would deal with that so-called "threat" in different ways, violence being one heinous but very real alternative.
And that leaves it up to us to speak out.
We need not mince words - it is vital that we speak clearly and succinctly but most importantly, firmly.
Conservatism must change.
It must evolve.
To believe otherwise is to help pass around the nails for the next coffin in which the next liberal democrat will be buried in.
No one was out there speaking about the radical right-wing elements that threaten our civil society until Janet Napolitano issued a DHS report warning about extremists that might resort to violence - a report which conservatives across the country demanded to be immediately rescinded. Now that we have seen a series of right-wing assassinations take place, the original DHS report looks, in hindsight, to have been very timely and prescient.
We have seen Jim David Adkisson open fire upon the congregation of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church with a sawed-off shotgun, killing two, simply because he opposed the all-inclusive nature of the church, and of the church's liberal teachings. Adkisson wrote in a letter which he assumed would be his last, "I thought I’d do something good for this country — kill Democrats ‘til (sic) the cops kill me.” His hatred for his fellow Americans could not be contained: “Liberals are a pest like termites, millions of them … the only way we can rid ourselves of this evil is kill them in the streets, kill them where they gather.”
Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman were arrested in October of 2008 - both charged with possession of firearms, threats against a presidential candidate running and conspiring to rob a gun store. Their plan? To undertake a killing spree across the United States with, then, Senator Obama, as their final target.
Two months later, a domestic dispute brought J.G. Cummings plans to murder the President with a dirty bomb to an end: his wife shot and killed him in a rather heated quarrel, so, even though Cummings had all the materials needed to set his bomb off, time was the one thing Mr. Cumming didn't have.
James von Brunn, a radical right-winger from Maryland sought to turn the nation's Holocaust Museum into a symbol for his particular brand of racism, when he went there with the intent to kill blacks and Jews, as an example to the rest of white America to emulate. Luckily for those visitors inside of the museum, the first man von Brunn decided to open fire upon was a black man who had the ability to return the favor, and so no one besides than the very heroic Stephen T. Johns died that day.
Shawna Forde, and two other members of the anti-immigrant Minuteman group which she founded, the ''Minutemen American Defense,'' decided that one way to finance her burgeoning organization was to dress up as law enforcement agents, and to rob Mexican immigrants. When Shawna and her compatriots illegally entered the home of Raul Flores, and demanded money, the head of the family ordered the trio to leave, prompting the radical right-wingers to put a bullet into the head of little 9 year old Brisenia Flores, and into the head of her father. Unluckily for the conservative killers, Brisenia's mother was able to barricade herself in her bedroom, where she kept a handgun, and she was able to keep at bay her would be assassins until the real police arrived.
Richard Poplawski opened fire on police officers during a domestic disturbance call, in April of 2009, killing three of them. Why? The 23 year-old right-winger feared that the President was poised to take away his hand guns.
Just a few days after that shoot-out, two sheriff’s deputies in northern Florida were shot and killed by Joshua Cartwright who later was fatally shot by other deputies. The reason, according to Cartright's wife, was because Joshua "believed that the US Government was conspiring against him," and, according to her, he had been severely disturbed that Barack Obama had been elected President.
Passing the hate down from one generation to the next, the father and son team of Bruce and Joshua Turnidge blew up a homemade bomb in December of 2008 which killed state police bomb technician William Hakim, who was trying to dismantle it, and Woodburn Police Capt. Tom Tennant, who was helping, during bank robbery in Woodburn, Oregon. The completely unrepentant Turnidges' plan was to rob banks to finance an anti-government militia group, and killing two police officers was small beans compared to what they really wanted to do to the Democratic majority in Washington DC.
Darren Huff was arrested and charged with planning the armed takeover of a Madisonville, Tenn., courthouse and “arrest” of 24 local, state and federal officials. Huff, apparently, was angry about the April 1 arrest there of Walter Francis Fitzpatrick III, a leader of the far-right American Grand Jury movement that seeks to have grand juries indict President Obama for treason. He's currently doing a four year stint for his stunt, and will be back on our streets as early as next year.
In late 2010, a pipe bomb is thrown through the window of a closed Planned Parenthood clinic in Madera, Calif., along with a note that reads, “Murder our children? We have a ‘choice’ too.” The note is signed ANB, apparently short for the American Nationalist Brotherhood. Six months later, law enforcement officials arrest school bus driver Donny Eugene Mower, who allegedly also threatened a local Islamic Center and has the word “Peckerwood,” a reference to a white supremacist gang, tattooed on his chest. Mower reportedly confesses to the attack.
In January of 2011, bomb technicians defuse a sophisticated improvised explosive device (IED) found in a backpack along the Spokane, Wash., route of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade with 1,500 marchers. Two months later authorities identify and arrest Kevin William Harpham - a longtime contributor to neo-Nazi Vanguard News Network - for the crime. He is indicted on one count of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and one count of possessing an IED. Later, federal hate crime charges are added.
Four soldiers, later identified as members of a militia-type group called Forever Enduring, Always Ready (FEAR), were arrested in late 2011 for murdering 19-year-old former soldier and group member Michael Roark and his 17-year-old girlfriend, Tiffany York, because they feared the pair would talk about the group’s plans. Officials say the group, based at Fort Stewart, Ga., planned to take over the Army base, assassinate President Obama and overthrow the government, and had spent $87,000 on guns and bomb parts.
In the summer of 2012, Wade Michael Page walked into the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, and began shooting at members of the congregation who had gathered at the local temple to prepare a meal. Six members of the Sikh congregation, one police officer and Wade, himself, were killed in the carnage he let loose in that holy place.
Those who had been close to Page confirmed his ideological affinity to the extreme right. Reflecting a wider belief within the movement, an old army friend of Page claimed that as far back as the 90s he had talked about "racial holy war", and would rant "about mostly any non-white person".
On September 12th, 2014, Eric Frein opened fire with a .308-caliber sniper rifle killing Corporal Bryon K. Dickson II, a 38-year-old Pennsylvania State Police Trooper; and critically injuring Trooper Alex Douglass. Charged as a TERRORIST, Frein took it upon himself to shoot two cops in an attempt to spark a revolution, presumably to "get us back to the liberties we once had." The assumption here must be Frein's lost liberty of ignoring sick Americans under ObamaCare, or some similar Tea Party anthem.
Jerad and Amanda Miller, a husband and wife team who went on a deadly shooting rampage in Las Vegas harbored anti-government beliefs and left a swastika and a "Don't tread on me" flag on the body of one of their victims, on Monday, November 10th, 2014. Their victims included two unsuspecting police officers who were eating lunch at a Las Vegas diner and a third would-be hero trying to (unsuccessfully) end the Tea Party massacre at a nearby Wal-Mart. Only a hail of police bullets actually stopped the villains.
The list of victims from right-wing terror does not stop there.
It goes on, and on.
Abortion provider Dr. George Tiller. DEAD.
Arkansas Democratic Chairman Bill Gwatney. DEAD.
Nine innocent church-goers at a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina: DEAD.
Most recently, the innocent movie-goers gunned down in the back down in Lafayette, Louisiana...
For moderate republicans to hide these blood-thirsty radicals within their ranks behind the legitimate dissent of the anti-abortion lobby or any other conservative protest movement and to deny any responsibility for helping to foster these lunatic's bizarre views doesn't help the moderate republican lobbies achieve their political aims and goals.
It helps, instead, the domestic Tea Party terrorists attain theirs.
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