Pay attention

As a rule, I really quite enjoy learning new things. It keeps me on my toes and serves as a solid reminder that despite outward appearances, I really don't know everything.

Most of the time, the new things learned register little more than a check mark in the box beside "Well, I did not know that, but now I do." But I learned something last week that I still can't quite wrap my mind around.

Seems there are significant numbers of my colleagues who have no fucking clue what the right wing extremist radio and television hosts are actually saying.

I know. How could they not know? Mostly it appears that my very busy colleagues just don't have the time to keep up with the specifics of what's being said on the airwaves. More importantly, though, is what they tell me about how they set their priorities regarding what they pay attention to and what they ignore.

They don't have the time, they say, for the fringes. And those right-wing bloviator dudes, they're the fringes.

Coulda knocked me over with a feather, I'm tellin' ya. So let me get this straight. My beloved colleagues are so busy parsing what it means for the president and the first lady to take a date night and run up to New York for a show that they don't know that the talkers are poisoning the air waves with the most vile and ugly shit since, well, the presidential campaign. And apparently my collagues missed all that nastiness for the very same reason.

They think it's coming from the fringes, and therefore should be ignored.

What my colleagues seem to have overlooked is that the radical right -- the doctor killers, the gay bashers, the anti-immigrant crowd -- has taken over mainstream conservatism. They're not the fringe anymore, but my studious colleagues are still mired back in the 70s or 80s when the whackos were still considered whackos by all sides.

And that, my friends, is why we all know that Scott Roeder was an isolated individual acting completely on his own. Just like all the other right-wing idealogues who have taken their leaders' rants to heart over the years and taken a gun or explosives to take care of the situation.

"But how many times has that happened recently?" one colleague asked. They mean, of course, that violence has only rarely burst through the thin membrane that keeps it contained, and they're right about that. For now.

But if they're not paying attention to the Glenn Becks and the Lou Dobbses and the Bill O'Reillys and the Sean Hannitys and the Rush Limbaughs and the Michael Savages and the Michelle Malkins and the Ann Coulters, then they're missing something crucial. They did not just suddenly snap one day.

Theses guys who go shoot up a liberal Christian church one day because they don't like liberals aren't acting in a vacuum. They're acting on the what they've been told by their spiritual leaders about the vile, un-American and anti-Christian ways of the liberal. What choice do they have if they believe that they are right, absolutely right, and are backed by none other than god on this one?

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But my colleagues, they're waiting for proof, solid evidence that when a right-wing extremist kills a doctor who provides abortions it was anything other than he was a disturbed individual who just went over the edge one day.

They might make a half-assed attempt to figure out what made the guy "snap," but the second they find something -- he lost his food stamps, his wife filed for divorce, he got in a fender-bender with a car bearing an Obama sticker -- that search is over. They found their reason.

My colleagues don't look at the atmosphere these people are breathing every day of their lives. These extremist attitudes would die off if they were truly isolated. They thrive on reinforcement from like-minded individuals -- particularly pronouncements from on high, coupled with a political leadership that won't challenge the bullshit and often participates in it.

We heard this same shit during the campaign, when my colleagues, deathly afraid of looking at their own participation in the creating a toxic atmosphere, signed on for the "both sides are doing it" campaign regarding the incredibly racist anti-Obama rallies that McCain-Palin rallies. And yes, there are some losers on the left who play those stupid games. But until I hear the liberals are stockpiling weapons and ammunition, stalking Operation Rescue employees and harassing them with images of women who died because they were not allowed to have an abortion and assassinating Randall Terry, then that argument has no standing here because there is no comparison.

I still don't know what to do about my ill-informed colleagues. Sadly, I guess it's just gonna take more violent death to bring them around.


AWOP Political Contributing Editor

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Conspiracy to commit terrorism

America suffered a terrorist attack on Sunday. One man, the target of the terrorist assassination, was killed.

Oh, don't expect my colleagues to report it that way, because that ain't gonna happen. In fact they're gonna go along with cops.

At this time we feel this is an act of an isolated individual.

And that, my friends, is -- say it with me -- bullshit.

Wichita police also think they "the right person arrested" for the assassination of George Tiller, a Kansas doctor who provided abortions -- and, more crucial to this story -- late term abortions. Not late term "oh my god I really don't want to have a baby" abortions, mind you, but late term "this baby is going to be born with a serious defect and continuing the pregnancy putsthe mother's life at risk" abortions.

Since police think that Scott Roeder is the right person, let's just assume that he is. After all, they caught him in the car identified by witnesses at Tiller's church where he was killed.

Oh, I didn't mention that the motherfucker went to the man's church and killed him there, where he was serving as an usher? What does that say about the killer?

So police caught Scott Roeder in the car witnesses identified. The car with the license plate number witnesses provided investigators. So, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and dispense with Mr. Roeder's constitutional right to presumption of innocence and go all Nancy Grace on him.

He's guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

And so is Bill O'Reilly.

Yeah, that Bill O'Reilly. Are there any others?

George Tiller was a special target for O'Reilly, who regularly called him Tiller the Baby Killer, and last mentioned the doctor on his show, the most-watched news show on cable television, on April 27. Gabriel Winant at Salon:

[T]he Fox bully repeatedly portrayed the doctor as a murderer on the loose, allowed to do whatever he wanted by corrupt and decadent authorities. . . O'Reilly's language describing Tiller, and accusing the state and its elites of complicity in his actions, could become extremely vivid. . . "No question Dr. Tiller has blood on his hands. But now so does Governor Sebelius. She is not fit to serve. Nor is any Kansas politician who supports Tiller's business of destruction. I wouldn't want to be these people if there is a Judgment Day. I just -- you know ... Kansas is a great state, but this is a disgrace upon everyone who lives in Kansas. Is it not?

But let's not blame all of this on Bill O'Reilly. He'd love that anyway. Then he can sit on his high horse, toss his hands in the air and claim his innocence because he's just a guy with a microphone.

Exactly.

But let's look beyond that. Roeder is supposedly a member of Operation Rescue, the anti-abortion outfit founded by Randall Terry and now run by Troy Newman, who found he had a hard time getting past all the private security guards and the armored car and the gated community that his ilk forced on Tiller. So instead, he targeted Tiller's employees, doing things like sending anonymous postcards to their neighbors with photographs of mangled fetuses, telling them their neighbor -- by name -- "participates in killing babies like these."

Newman issued a statement, of course, condemning the shooting and saying he hoped that the act of a deranged individual didn't cast a pall on the "peaceful" actions of Operation Rescue.

Yes. Peaceful.

And what of Randal Terry? He condemned the shooting too.

George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God. I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller's killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions. Abortion is still murder. And we still must call abortion by its proper name; murder.

Those men and women who slaughter the unborn are murderers according to the Law of God. We must continue to expose them in our communities and peacefully protest them at their offices and homes, and yes, even their churches.

Did I mention that Operation Rescue is based in Kansas and that George Tiller was their Public Enemy No. 1? Must be a lot of celebrating going on at the office today. Guess they'll have to pick another target now and move their HQ.

Oh, and let's add former Kansas Attorney General Phil Kline, the anti-abortion activist who used his state office to harass Tiller legally. Kline lost in court.

Scott Roeder. He served two months of a 16 month sentence in prison after being caught with explosives in his car. And a military rifle, a gas mask, mask canisters, rifle and pistol ammunition and a sheath knife. He posted his feelings on Operation Rescue's Web site and others. He has been associated with the anti-government Freemen movement. His ex-wife said part of the reason for their divorce 12 years ago was his "radical views."

Radical views. That's what they are. Out there. Crazy. But right in line with the Republican Party. Why, just the other day the Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, told CNN he was too busy to tell his fellow partiers to stop calling Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor a racist, even though he disagreed with the tactic, because he was just too busy.

Look. I've got a big job to do dealing with 40 Senate Republicans and trying to advance the nation's agenda, and better things to do than be the speech police over people who have their views about a very important appointment.

Guess he hasn't really had time to tell folks to stop inciting violence either. Like Sunday's violence. Like the violence in Tennessee a year ago where another "isolated incident" saw James David Atkisson kill two people at a Unitarian Universalist Church because he didn't like liberals. Or loner Eric Robert Rudolph, who targeted family planning clinics, gay bars and the Olympics for his fury (Rev. Spitz, can you find me over here?) Or Timothy McVeigh, for that matter.

And then they wonder why the Department of Homeland Security would dare to issue a report on extremist right wing violence. I suspect the right wingers were really upset about that report because they knew that they, in fact, are the extremists and worried the rest of us might catch on.

They shouldn't be concerned. You and I, we already know. And my colleagues will treat this incident just like they've treated all the others so nobody else will make the connection.

But that's a connection we all need to make. The anger these folks harbor is just below the surface and breaking through. They lack the ability to handle such a strong force sanely. They believe they are justified in whatever they do. They have been poked and prodded repeatedly by their leaders, some of whom do their poking and prodding by turning away and ignoring the most egregious of the pokes and prods.

The "deranged individuals" who carry out these terrorist acts don't just snap one day. They've been pushed to this logical outcome for years.

Expect more of it.


And do your best to counter it. Tell the truth. Tell my colleagues to tell the truth. It's the only way we can break a millennia long habit of resorting to violence when we don't get our way. Those who resort to violence believe they have no other choice. But they do.

It's called acceptance. Hard concept, I know, for those who have no doubts in their righteousness.

For George Tiller and his family, it's too late. But there's still time for others. Make sure it's not too late for them.


AWOP Political Contributing Editor

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Rundown of a nominee

Check this out. It's the last several tweets from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (isn't it a little creepy when creepy guys like Newt Gingrich use Twitter?).

Never mind the gas chamber and Baptist missionary family stuff. Look at this most recent one:

White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw.

White male idiot should shut the fuck up.