Let’s just jump right in, cuz I really do have a lot to say.
Today I have right-wing extremism on my mind… something I’ve been mulling over lately… and something that truly makes my blood run cold.
It’s terrifying.
… And it’s escalating quickly.
Since Barack Obama descended on the scene with his eye turned to the presidency, we have seen this country’s lunatics come out in full force.
During the campaign we heard about assassination plots, accusations of Obama’s false ties to Muslim terror groups, chants and rants at Republican rallies calling for his death and accusations of treason.
Talk about foreshadowing… we all saw it unfolding. Most of us understood, upon witnessing the GOP presidential candidate and his running mate’s unwillingness to condemn the behavior (until it was much too late, that is), that the worst was yet to come.
We were right.
Now, within the past couple of weeks, we have learned of the brutal murders of Dr. George Tiller, an American abortion doctor and of another fellow American- a security guard named Steven T. Johns– at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC.
Both men were murdered by right-wing extremists- Tiller was killed by a well known pro-life advocate, Johns died at the hands of an 88 year old white supremacist and anti-semite.
The killers have been charged with murder, but inexplicably, neither men have been charged with any counts of terrorism. If these terrible acts of violence against Americans do not qualify as domestic terrorism, nothing does.
Perhaps as terrifying as the crazy people perpetrating this violence are the powerful “main stream” conservatives behind them, the people who in essence stir the pot… and then sit back, showing false horror, as it all comes to a boil. These are people you’ve all heard of… many of you even support their political and religious beliefs…
… Millions of you voted for at least two of them to become your next president and vice president, and you allow the others into your homes and cars by way of television and radio each and every day.
You know exactly who I am referring to.
John McCain, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and friends did not single-handedly cause the recent bloodshed on American soil by right-wing extremists.
They did, however, incite much of the ugliness we see today, and those that didn’t incite it, stood back and did nothing to cause the boiling pot to simmer, or cool off.
As a result, it has boiled over.
Now that these so-called leaders have stirred and heated up what I’ll call the “Crazy Pot”- essentially giving psychotic people a free pass- morally, at least- to terrorize and kill, they sit back, feigning shock and confusion… doing their very best to distract us from the facts- the fact that they are contributing to a violently divided nation.
It’s almost as if in realizing that their own party is falling apart, they have made the decision to fight- not to save the GOP or our very nation- but to take every last one of us down with them.
I do not understand the lack of outrage.
Where is the anger from my fellow Americans, both Conservative and Liberal alike?
I posted a piece on this site yesterday about David Letterman’s inappropriate comments regarding Willow Palin, Sarah Palin’s 14 year old daughter. I received hundreds of hits on that particular post alone, and the moral outrage seen in my comments section was mind-boggling.
Letterman’s joke was idiotic, and it wasn’t funny… but he didn’t kill anyone.
Why are people more enraged that he, a late night talk show host who makes his living by telling off-color jokes, made a stupid comment, than they are about the fact that two Americans were brutally murdered by politically motivated right-wing nutjobs, mere days apart?
It appears that certain conservatives in this country are so busy being pissed off at those who do not share their same beliefs, that they have missed the forest for the trees.
People are being murdered, and last time I checked, regardless of political or religious affiliation, Americans generally agree that murder is reprehensible. So many of these same people would willingly lynch David Letterman for telling his stupid jokes… while simultaneously looking the other way when members of their own party are killing others.
Prior to Dr. Tiller’s death, for example, Bill O’Reilly was igniting viewers’ anger by referring to him repeatedly as a “mass murderer”, “Tiller the Baby Killer”, and claiming that his abortion clinic was a “death mill”. After Tiller’s murder, O’Reilly mostly toned back his hateful rhetoric- even acknowledging that Dr. Tiller was breaking no laws, but did not address- not a single time- all the right wingers out there that dared celebrate the horrific death of a fellow American.
He showed no real outrage at this violent act of terrorism.
He simply did a lot of back-pedaling, hoping that in doing so, America would not see his (inadvertant) role in this tragedy.
O’Reilly did not shoot Dr. Tiller, but he helped incite the violence and hatred that ultimately led to his death.
This is a disturbingly common trend, and it is downright horrifying.
If half of the people who expressed such outrage at, say, Letterman’s dumb jokes, showed that sort of contempt over the events that led to these two dead Americans, our country would perhaps be in slightly less dire straits.
How disgustingly terrifying.
C-Haze 