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Right-Wing Extremism
Thanatos
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I don't know if anyone else caught the news about the guys out of Michigan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqi-DRbt69o
So, is this just a false alarm? Are people overreacting? Or is the GOP not realizing/not caring that their politicking--which they may see as just scoring cheap political points, driving up turnout--is putting real peoples' lives in danger?
These guys are obviously batshit fucking crazy. However, is this the future of terrorism in the U.S.? The Republican party doesn't seem too terribly concerned about it:WASHINGTON — Nine members of a Michigan-based Christian militia group have been indicted on sedition and weapons charges in connection with an alleged plot to murder law enforcement officers in hopes of setting off an anti-government uprising.
In court filings unsealed Monday, the Justice Department accused the nine people of planning to kill an unidentified law enforcement officer, then plant improvised explosive devices of a type used by insurgents in Iraq to attack the funeral procession.
Eight of the defendants were arrested over the weekend in raids in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. A ninth remained at large, the Justice Department said. The indictments against them were returned last Tuesday. The defendants were identified as members of Hutaree, described by federal prosecutors as an anti-government extremist organization based in Lenawee County, Michigan, and which advocates violence against local, state and federal law enforcement. The group saw local and state police as “foot soldiers” for the federal government, which it viewed as its enemy, along with participants in what they deemed to be a “New World Order,” according to the indictment.
“This is an example of radical and extremist fringe groups which can be found throughout our society,” Andrew Arena, Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge in Detroit, said in a statement. “The F.B.I. takes such extremist groups seriously, especially those who would target innocent citizens and the law enforcement officers who protect the citizens of the United States.”
A law enforcement official said that the alleged plot was unconnected to recent threats against Democratic members of Congress who voted for legislation overhauling the nation’s health care system.
A Web site for the Hutaree group talks about a coming battle against the putative forces of the Anti-Christ and hosts an “evil Jews Forum,” but does not appear to focus explicitly on recent political events.
The Web site, which describes the group as “preparing for the end times,” featured video clips of people running through woods in camouflage gear and firing assault rifles, along with links to gun stores and far-right media. It also features an elaborate system of military ranks for its members. The site says it coined the term Hutaree, intended to mean Christian warrior.
“Jesus wanted us to be ready to defend ourselves using the sword and stay alive using equipment,” the Web site says, adding, “The Hutaree will one day see its enemy and meet him on the battlefield if so God wills it.”
The indictment charged that between August 2008 and the present, the defendants — led by David Brian Stone, 45, who also used the name “Captain Hutaree” — developed a conspiracy that they hoped would result in a war against the United States government. They allegedly decided they would kill a local law enforcement officer, and then bomb the funeral caravan. The killings “would intimidate and demoralize law enforcement diminishing their ranks and rendering them ineffective,” it said.
Afterward, the indictment said, Hutaree members would retreat to several “rally points” and wage war against the government, using prepared fighting positions as well as “trip-wired and command-detonated” bombs.
“It is believed by the Hutaree that this engagement would then serve as a catalyst for a more wide-spread uprising against the government,” the indictment said.
Mr. Stone used the Internet to obtain diagrams of “explosively formed projectiles,” a particularly lethal form of roadside bombs responsible for many deaths of United States soldiers in Iraq, the indictment says.
It says that he e-mailed diagrams of such devices to a person he believed to be capable of manufacturing them, and then directed one of his sons to obtain the materials to make them. It also says he and his other son taught other Hutaree members how to make bombs in June 2009.
Barbara McQuade, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, said the government moved to arrest the members of the group this past weekend to short-circuit some operation it had planned to do next month, and which she did not explain detail.
“Because the Hutaree had planned a covert reconnaissance operation for April which had the potential of placing an unsuspecting member of the public at risk, the safety of the public and of the law enforcement community demanded intervention at this time.”
All nine people face the charges of seditious conspiracy, attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, and carrying a firearm during a crime of violence. In addition, Mr. Stone and one of his sons, David Brian Stone Jr., has been charged with teaching the use of explosive materials.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqi-DRbt69o
So, is this just a false alarm? Are people overreacting? Or is the GOP not realizing/not caring that their politicking--which they may see as just scoring cheap political points, driving up turnout--is putting real peoples' lives in danger?
Thanatos on
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They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
The GOP loves their mythos of personal responsibility - that an individual alone is culpable for his or her actions; that there is no connect between a person's deeds and the social or historical context in which they live. They'll fundamental attribution error all day long.
Consequently, if a nutjob flies a plane into an IRS building, he did that because he's a nutjob... not because there were social forces influencing that nutjob's behavior. (Social forces including, of course, the GOP's own rhetoric.)
Naturally this is a very convenient worldview for those in power - as it allows them to enjoy the fruits of their power as theirs and theirs alone while simultaneously disavowing the part they play in keeping the powerless subjugated. It also allows them to handwave away any deleterious effects of their speech or actions upon the population.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Are you going to attempt to argue that the punditry - notably Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly - are not key members of the GOP?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
If it's not directly malicious it's at least horribly irresponsible.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Don't forget advocating, on national television, to not fill out the Census.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
The Tea Party is the GOP, rebranded.
I seriously hope they redistrict themselves right out of office.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Maybe it was just the build up to something bigger?
I don't see how this is all that different from the multiple incidents that occurred in the '90s. Weren't most of those right wing extremist groups?
The GOP is distinct from the Tea Party. However, any person who is remotely enthusiastic about the GOP's platform (such as it is) has gone over to the Tea Party, so the GOP is at best inept and at worst irrelevant without the Tea Party, so they keep coming back like an abused housewife.
The GOP is a huge driving force behind the Teabagging movement.
There's also Boehner, the House Minority Leader, saying the health care reform bill is "armageddon" and that it will "ruin our country".
yes, this is true (except the first WTC bombing).
However, with all the racist hate talk spewing out of the pundits collective mouths, I figured it would be the pres himself in danger, not a beat cop.
unless the beat cop was to test the resolve of the members of this right-wing group, then I see where they were going with it.
Potentially voiolent anti-government groups have been around in this country since the first clandestine Tory cabal plotted on how to bring the 13 Colonies back under British rule.
Rigorous Scholarship
Whacko right-wing extremists haven't one-upped their left-wing counterparts of a few decades ago just yet. But certainly we need to keep our eyes peeled.
Hooray!
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This whole thing is basically mid 90s (Democrats cannot legitimately run the country) + high unemployment making people more susceptible to crazy.
Yeah, what have right-wing extremists ever done?
"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
Guess what is mandated by the Constitution.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
This. The GOP's extreme rhetoric (combined with a healthy dose of racism) spawned the popularity of the Tea Party, and their hardon for "my way or the highway" exclusions of anyone who steps out of line (see David Frum) has transformed their reliable base into Tea Partiers. Moderate Republicans are driven away from the party, and extremists are cocooned in their own little bubble where all they can hear is their own manufactured outrage. The GOP is nothing without the Tea Party now - they made their bed and now they're shackled to it.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
well I'm not sure what they're upset about, the majority of them aren't seeing a tax increase? I mean they have these vague notions of socialism to be afraid of, but nothing really substantial.
Not to defend the 70s crazies but those guys were acting irrationally on the basis a rational hatred (I'd include many militant muslim groups in this, but the bulk of them are acting with religious rather than political motivation)
They're upset that black people are getting stuff.
Hell, they should send people door to door down there "recalling" "faulty" census forms.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Yeah, he and his accomplice who is currently rotting in federal prison, both members of the Michigan militia, were totally lone anarchists. Yep.
In time for the 2012 election?
That's the Catch-22. You can't let them just go, but every time you deal with them, the remaining groups are going to perceive it as signs that the Administration is starting to do the things that everyone has lied they will do.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Then you weren't paying attention. He wrote a farewell letter, expecting to die. Inside that letter it sounds like the prototype for the teabaggers rants. Going on about preventing us from becoming "Socialist Wannabe Slaves". And we wouldn't want to forget some of the other domestic terrorism that happened. Eric Robert Rudolph was the man who set off a bomb in an attempt to derail the Olympics. He followed that up with bombing a Lesbian night club and an Abortion clinic.
The crazies are always going to believe they're right. The trick is getting more of the "on the fence" people to believe that the crazies are actually crazy.
the 3/25 episode of Fresh Air: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124906766
The story is "When Right-Wing Extremism Moves Mainstream" and the link above summaries and includes some interview highlights:
Here is the full transcript: http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=124906766
Informative and scary
I wasn't aware that was a crime, seems like you'd hit some 1st amendment issues with it.
Not to mention that inspiration for action was drawn from the Ruby Ridge and Waco incidents.