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Yesterday’s arrests of nine members of a Michigan militia bent on the overthrow of the United States government and fighting the anti-Christ at the end of times serve as an obvious reminder that the words utilized in our public discourse matter.
While there always have been and always will be “crazies” in our society, the rapid growth and increasingly rabid nature of these groups is not a coincidence. Right-wing politicians would have us belief that these groups find their call to action out of fear of some fictional conspiracy on the part of the left-wing to create a totalitarian socialist state where everyone’s guns will be taken away, where people will be stripped of their religious freedom, and where everyone will be sent off to re-education camps so that everyone sees the world from a progressive point of view.
It is easier for Republican politicians to believe something that irrational than it is to accept a very painful truth – they have fostered this movement and provoked them with their public displays of hateful outrage that fill the wingnut fringe with fear, and with the belief that they must act now in order to save their way of life.
Even a brief examination of the Hutaree militia’s website (see it here while you can) demonstrates that this group is further out there than most. They see themselves as the armed defenders of Christianity until the return of Christ, and they see themselves as the nucleus of a new “Colonial Christian Republic”. Of course, their idea of being Christians means ignoring the actual teachings of Christ by planning the murder of an individual police officer, which they would then use as a springboard for a mass slaughter of the police officers attending the first officer’s funeral. And somehow through their logic they believed that this would serve as the first act in a massive uprising against law enforcement forces and lead to the overthrow of the U.S. government.
One thing that OLV would like to be sure of is that we are fair – we don’t want to blast just one side of the aisle when both sides have their issues. In this case however, I must agree with Eugene Robinson’s piece that is included below… if you are on the Right, and truly believe that the right-wing wingnuts are no worse than the radical left-wing, then please, please show us where any such armed and violent hate and vitriol exists. As Robinson accurately points out, there has not been any such armed movement on the left in more than thirty years. In recent years however, we have seen the Branch Davidians, Timothy McVeigh, the re-emergence of white supremacist, anti-federal, and “Christian” militias, and the racist Tea Party movement. The Hutaree represent the logical outcome of a political system where Republicans make inflammatory statements about tyranny, totalitarianism, and socialism over a simple question of whether our citizens deserve some basic health care rights, rights that by the way we already grant to the elderly, our military, and – yes – our politicians. Instead of understanding this for what it is – the political and social consequence of losing both an election and an argument, Republicans have resorted to the alarmist cries that bring nutjobs like the Hutaree out of hiding.
When Republicans knowingly lied about death panels, they contributed to irrational fears.
When Republicans knowingly lied that health care reform would mean that people lose their choice of coverage and doctors, they contributed to irrational fears.
When Republicans shouted “You lie” and “baby-killer” from the floor of Congress, the tacitly indicated that it was appropriate to dispense with civility in public discourse and emboldened radicals.
When a Republican decided to “target” Democrats in certain Congressional districts and did so with rifle cross hairs, she sent a subliminal call to any loose wingnut that violence is an acceptable means for achieving change in this nation.
And when Republicans refused to sign a joint statement with Democrats or attend a joint news conference calling for the violent rhetoric to stop, they showed that are far more interested in taking political cover and denying responsibility for fanning the flames than to insure the physical well-being of the members of our government.
Sadly, the tragedies and lessons of the 1960s seem long lost on the right-wing. The assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. led to great unrest in this nation and the loss of trust in our government. Ironically, the white supremacist right-wing sowed the seeds for this generation of hate and violence, which is now being carried on by people like the Hutaree.
Not surprisingly, people on the right-wing are distancing themselves quickly from this group, suggesting they are outliers in the militia movement. Yet as another case in point, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps in Arizona was disbanded yesterday. Why? because their leader, Carmen Mercer sent out an email on March 16 to the group’s members, urging them to come to the border “locked, loaded and ready…”Mercer’s e-mail used imagery of the need for an armed defense of the U.S.-Mexican border, and even suggested that militia members should track suspected immigrants, rather than reporting them to the U.S. Border Patrol.
To Mercer’s seeming surprise, the members showed up “locked, loaded, and ready” – with more than 350 e-mails being sent to Mercer by members who were ready to force their will through arms at the border. “People are ready to come lock and loaded and that’s not what we are all about,” Mercer said. “It only takes one bad apple to destroy everything we’ve done for the last eight years.” So in essence, Mercer acknowledges that she didn’t understand her own hyperbole. She didn’t get the basis concept that “locked, loaded and ready” meant just that.
And so it is for the Republican Party. They have called out for “locked, loaded and ready” through their national hyperbole, and the Hutaree militia is the natural consequence of such tactics. I would like to believe that what Republicans tried to do was to maximize reasonable anger towards the health care debate in order to attempt to influence policy, but frankly I am coming to the conclusion that this gives Republicans too much credit. But that does not mean that I believe that the Republican Party is advocating violence – I do not. What the Republicans did want was the volume control on the outrage against health care to be turned up to “11″ – and the Republicans didn’t much care where that noise came from. And now the Republicans try to pretend the noise isn’t there, and that they are in no way responsible for any action resulting from the clamor. Rep. Eric Cantor tried to pretend that violent anger was directed at him when a random bullet fell out of the sky and went through one of his office’s windows. Ballistics test showed it was randomly fired into the air and simply happened to find its way to his office. But when targeted shots fire, will Mr. Cantor or his colleagues understand that they helped point the guns to the left?
I sincerely doubt it.
We will conclude with Eugene Robinson’s piece, as well as the sincere hope that sanity will prevail and that the Republicans will join with Democrats to remind the wingnut fringe that they are just that – the fringe – and not representative of the feelings of the overwhelming majority of Americans.
There Are Crazies on One Side
by Eugene Robinson
The arrests of members of a Michigan-based “Christian” militia group should convince doubters that there is good reason to worry about right-wing, anti-government extremism—and potential violence—in the Age of Obama.
I put the word “Christian” in quotes because anyone who plots to assassinate law enforcement officers, as a federal indictment alleges members of the Hutaree militia did, is no follower of Christ. According to federal prosecutors, the Hutaree—the word’s not in my dictionary, but their website claims it means “Christian warrior”—are convinced that their enemies include “state and local law enforcement, who are deemed ‘foot soldiers’ of the federal government, federal law enforcement agencies and employees, participants in the ‘New World Order,’ and anyone who does not share in the Hutaree’s beliefs.”
According to the indictment, the group had been plotting for two years to assassinate federal, state or local police officers. “Possible such acts which were discussed,” the indictment says, “included killing a member of law enforcement after a traffic stop, killing a member of law enforcement and his or her family at home, ambushing a member of law enforcement in rural communities, luring a member of law enforcement with a false 911 emergency call and then killing him or her, and killing a member of law enforcement and then attacking the funeral procession motorcade” with homemade bombs.
Read the entire article at Truthdig…
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