Demons Are Real

Hey, this wasn't too far from us! Exciting!

June 8, 2008
Six people with ties to the militia movement are arrested in rural north-central Pennsylvania after task force officers find stockpiles of assault rifles, improvised explosives and homemade weapons, at least some of them apparently intended for terrorist attacks on U.S. officials. Agents find 16 homemade bombs during a search of the residence of Pennsylvania Citizens Militia recruiter Bradley T. Kahle, who allegedly tells authorities that he intended to shoot black people from a rooftop in Pittsburgh and also predicts civil war if Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton are elected president. A raid on the property of Morgan Jones, captain of the 91st Warriors Militia, results in the seizure of 73 weapons, including a homemade flame thrower, a machine that supposedly shot bolts of electricity, and an improvised cannon. Also arrested and charged with weapons violations are Marvin E. Hall, his girlfriend Melissa Huet and Perry Landis. Landis allegedly tells undercover agents he wanted to kill local magistrates and, if Clinton were elected president, planned to assassinate her in an attempt to trigger an armed revolution.

The whole list makes fascinating if disturbing reading. I hadn't heard about most of these incidents, probably because the liberal media covered them up, for some reason.

Comments

[Keith]

That's a rare, frank use of the word terrorist to describe white domestic plotters. I guess the emesem decided to drop that word once Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton won the election.

[reverter]

Keith, it wasn't the MSM, but the Southern Poverty Law Center. The MSM doesn't cover right wing terrorism because no talking points about it are supplied by Drudge to the Politico or Mark Halperin.

[SteveB]

Since our media only seem to have two settings: 1) hysterical, pants-wetting overreaction and 2) complete indifference, I have mixed feelings about the comparative lack of media attention for these crimes. If there was more media coverage, we can be sure it would be used to justify more wiretaps, more supermax prisons and an even greater expansion of government power.

Let the cops do their jobs quietly (which they seem to be doing) and keep the media out of it, please.

[Dr Dick]

These people are largely brain dead whack jobs, but they are very dangerous and well armed. While they constitute a small percentage of the public there are still a lot of them out there. The fact that the media never mentions them while wetting its pants over every "aspirational" group of Muslims or minorities with fantasies about attacks, but no operation capability is more than disturbing. The silence helps legitimize them and their eliminationist rhetoric, which has become progressively mainstreamed by rightwing pundits.

[SteveB]

The silence helps legitimize them and their eliminationist rhetoric, which has become progressively mainstreamed by rightwing pundits.

How? Do more Americans think the assassination of elected officials is "legitimate" because they're not seeing enough news reports about people who want to assassinate elected officials?

Look, I wouldn't be against sensible news coverage of these people, but I think we both know our media isn't capable of that. Instead, we'd get exaggerated nonsense about the coming right-wing revolution (much like the exaggerated nonsense about the threat of Al Qaeda taking over Pakistan) and what would that be good for, except justifying more government repression of all of us?

Yes, these people are a real threat to the President, one that I'm sure the Secret Service is well aware of, whether or not they're on the nightly news.

[Dr Dick]

SteveB -
It legitimizes them because nobody is publicly pointing fingers at them and saying, "That is batshit crazy talk!" And they (and others) see that as meaning what they are saying is OK. It makes embracing these ideas more acceptable to those who are wavering. It allows people like Beck, Malkin, Limbaugh, Savage, Coulter, and the rest make horrific and outrageous statements on our public airwaves and face no public outrage because "it's just talk." By not publicizing these people we hide the very real and potentially deadly consequences of the right's increasingly extreme eliminationist hate speech. For the record, I am NOT advocating censoring them. I just want them to face the consequences of their speech.

[SteveB]

Dr Dick:
On this question, I'm being strongly influenced by Bowling for Columbine, which makes a compelling case that Americans live in a fear-soaked culture, and that the primary purpose of the media is to keep us all in a continuous state of fear. Sadly, liberals and conservatives only seem to disagree about what we should be afraid of, and only want the public to be more afraid of their chosen bogeyman.

So sure, it's disgraceful how the media whips up a frenzy (at the government's behest) about the scaaaary Muslim sleeper-cells among us, but I don't want to see similar "reporting" on scaaary right-wing sleeper cells, either.

And I think most people know that threatening to kill elected officials is batshit crazy even if their teevee isn't telling them so.

[Dr Dick]

SteveB -

I am NOT advocating promoting irrational fear of these groups (as we have with Muslims). I do think we need to highlight the fact that there are people out there directly acting on the rhetoric of the rightwing talkers. As to people understanding that this is crazy talk, I can only say that you have not spent near enough time in Red America (I grew up in Oklahoma and currently live in Montana). Trust me, there are way too many people who think this shit is perfectly reasonable (you should read the letters to the editor here).