Radical Right Wing Terrorism
It’s difficult to put into words my feelings on the plane attack in Austin from deranged conservative Joseph Stack. The first reaction of many liberals seems to be to blame Glenn Beck personally and I would say that is wrong. Wrong in the sense that it’s not that simple. I don’t believe Glenn Beck wanted that man to fly a plane into a building, IRS or otherwise. Glenn Beck is first and foremost an entertainer. But make no mistake, the vein of public sentiment that Glenn Beck has so masterfully mined for his rise to celebrity is part and parcel with what drove a man to set his house on fire and attack innocents in Austin. The radical right has worked to incite fear and terror in the hearts of those who held a standard distrust of government. It also shows how absurd the national discussion of taxation has become.
The first commandment of modern conservatism is to lower taxes no matter the circumstance. But this wasn’t always the case. When the conservative movement first rose to prominence in the late 1960′s and early 1970′s, their calls for lower taxation were understandable. Taxes and interest rates were actually high, but after taxes have been lowered to a point where the United States has one of the lowest tax burden’s in the industrialized world it has become a blind creed. Republican party lobbyists and their proxy Tea Party have spent the last year screaming of European style socialistic tax increases and income redistribution all the while conveniently ignoring the glaring cracks in their creed. For one, overall taxation in the United States has only gone down during the Obama administration. They also hold up Ronald Reagan as their American Jesus all the while ignoring the fact that the Gipper raised taxes several times during his administration. Modern conservatives find themselves trying to manage a conservative cultural revolution against taxation anytime, anywhere, anyplace, under any circumstances.
Glenn Beck did not crash that plane into that building, but the movement many credit him for spawning is the one that constantly quotes Jefferson, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrant.” It is that movement that characterizes a government of, by, and for the people as somehow against them. Twice, so far today, I have heard people say that they don’t agree with his actions but do agree with his suicide note manifesto. This movement was a group that was begging people to call the Ft. Hood shootings Islamic terrorism by nature of the murderer’s religion. By their own definition this man’s acts constitute radical right-wing terrorism. If you wish to play with the fears of people you should be prepared to reap the whirlwind when it comes.
Related posts:
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- Glenn Beck Ignores Thomas Paine
- Even His Fox Buddies Know Glenn Beck Is Batty
- Right Wing Set To Emerge From Israeli Elections
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I am going to strongly disagree with you that he was a right wing conservative. I am going to site passages from his own manifesto also in this. (There is a link to it right here. http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2010/0218102stack1.html )
First the most glaring thing is that he quotes communist doctrine in it.
“The Communist Creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”
Most of the so-called radical right would not be talking about communism in the fashion that he is. He also goes on to rail against Capitalism some thing the left is well known for doing, a quote from him is.
“The Capitalist Creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.”
This is how he ended his manifesto. But there are other clues to say he was not on your demonized radical right. He demonizes the right by talking about the “terrible health care problem” and mentioning “corporate profits rolling in” Usually not something you would hear from the right but from someone on the left.
Further note how he calls the Catholic Church vulgar and corrupt. While in the next sentence again going after the “big boys” meaning in this case big corporations. Then in the same sentence talking about the church again a typical demon of the left. The next paragraph he calls “organized religion” “monsters”. Then he goes on to do the classic left ploy of talking about how the rich are bad. In the Classic Fashion of the 2 Americas that are Lefty talking points “The rich vs. everyone else”.
A few paragraphs later he talks about Arthur Andersen and Enron more people who the left despise and bring up against the right. Then later on when he talks about 911 he talks about how “Our leaders decided that all aircraft were grounded for what seemed like and eternity:” The President at this time was the right wing radical Bush. He then criticizes Bush for coming to the aid of the airlines. Then there is the another attack on the rich. Standard lefty talking point he calls them all “rich, incompetent cronies”.
In the next paragraph he disparages the free market because “The rates are 1/3 of what is was earning before the crash, because pay rates here are fixed by the three or four large companies in the area who are in collusion to drive down prices and wages… and this happens because the justice department is all on the take and doesn’t give a fuck about serving anyone or anything but themselves and their rich buddies.” Also there is another attack on the rich.
A couple of paragraphs later he calls Bush a “presidential puppet” and criticizes the rest of his cronies for the previous eight years. This is definitely the talk of a radical progressive and not someone from the right.
The fact that you call it Radical Right Terrorism is showing that you are not reading what he wrote but actually making your mind up with out knowing the facts. Your attempts to demonize the right is a misstatement on your part because you missed out on all of his radical progressive talking points. This really should be called Radical Progressive Terrorism
First your entire response is telling because you ignore 99% of it and argue a point I was not making. Two, you ignorantly slur progressives by saying the Church is a typical demon of the left without any basis whatsoever. Also if you read the manifesto you danced right around the first page in which he rants against the government and taxes and regulations in general. Your clumsy attempt to cherry pick and slur is a direct indictment of your argument. He was blindly anti-tax and his first DAMN line is “Well Mr. Big Brother IRS man, take my pound of flesh…” I mean please read my posts before you go commenting on them.
You’re ignoring a host of nonsense that doesn’t fit your radical right-wing version of events. Fuck it. You’ll delete this after I type this, but this post is dumb. It’s talking points. It’s nonsensical.
Rickus I’ve come to find out that I feel most right whenever I can get you to resort to simple name calling. In a way I agree, but it only means that you agree with me. I used the same simple bullshit reasoning that conservatives applied to the Ft. Hood shotting case. You are right, in that the situation is much more complicated than that, but so was the Ft. Hood shooting. When it comes to the left, the right is all for oversimplification on a grand scale. But when the same logic is applied the right suddenly has a come-to-Jesus moment with nuance.
Okay. I’ll be logical. The Fort Hood shooter was a muslim who expressed solidarity with jihadists for some time before he shot up the base. It was not an act of terrorism in my estimation, but he was poisoned by the same ideology that fuels Islamic terror.
The Austin guy had a personal beef with the IRS, understandably to some extent if you take his manifesto at face value. He also wrote in favor of nationalized health care, criticized the War on Terror and quoted fucking Marx while criticizing the Capitalist system at the end.
It is a false comparison to say that oversimplifying this all-over-place rant is the same as oversimplifying the Fort Hood shooters morivations. One’s ideology fits a general narrative. The other doesn’t fit comfortably into any ideological subgroup.