terrorism
belated?
see eco-terror, war on terror
see anti-terrorism
this is a more generic category, includes the much more common rW terror eg okla city
trump manta post kirk shoot
AN 9 25 CLAIM NO SUPPORT
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller was Vice President JD Vance’s guest on Monday’s edition of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” just days after the right-wing political commentator was assassinated. The suspected gunman’s motives and political beliefs remain unclear, but the vice president pinned the blame for Kirk’s murder on “left-wing extremism.”
“While our side of the aisle certainly has its crazies,” Vance declared, “it is a statistical fact that most of the lunatics in American politics today are proud members of the far-left.”
The vice president did not define “lunatics,” but statistics from the Cato Institute show that the vast majority of political violence comes from the far-right.
Guest-hosting for the late organizer and activist, Vice President Vance viewers, “I wanted to zoom out and talk with Stephen [Miller] a little bit, and talk about all of the ways that we’re trying to figure out how to prevent this festering violence that you see on the far-left from becoming even more and more mainstream.”
READ MORE: Homeschooling, Religion and Politics Trump Science in Parents’ Vaccine Resistance
The vice president—who placed blame at least in part on the left for Kirk’s death—said, “we have to talk about this incredibly destructive movement of left-wing extremism that has grown up over the last few years, and I believe is part of the reason why Charlie was killed by an assassin’s bullet.”
“We’re gonna talk about how to dismantle that,” he continued, “and how to bring real unity, real unity that can only come when we tell the truth and everybody knows that they can speak their mind about the issues of the day without being cut down by a murderer’s gun.”
Miller, who is considered by many—including some highly respected conservatives—a skilled propagandist, on Friday spoke out against what he called left-wing violent extremism.
“I’ve not shared with anybody, but the last message that Charlie Kirk gave to me before he joined his Creator in heaven was, he said that we have to dismantle and take on the radical left organizations in this country that are fomenting violence.”
“That was the last message that he sent me before that assassin stole him from all of us.”
READ MORE: Trump Teases Threat to Defund NYC After Governor’s Endorsement for Mayor
“And we are gonna do that,” Miller vowed. “Under President Trump’s leadership, I don’t care how—it could be a RICO charge, a conspiracy charge, conspiracy against the United States, insurrection—but we are going to do what it takes to dismantle the organizations and the entities that are fomenting riots, that are doxing, that are trying to inspire terrorism, and that are committing acts of wanton violence.”
“It has to stop,” he declared, “and my message is to all of the domestic terrorists in this country spreading this evil hate? You want us to live in fear? We will not live in fear, but you will live in exile. Because the power of law enforcement under President Trump’s leadership will be used to find you, will be used to take away your money, take away your power, and if you’ve broken the law, to take away your freedom.”
an 621 ah
no lnx twt
When Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018, the progressive Democrat expected to have frequent policy differences not only with Republicans, but also, with centrists in her own party. However, attacks on Omar from the far right — including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and pundits at Fox News — go way beyond policy disagreements, painting her as fundamentally anti-American and an outright enemy of the United States. And on June 9, Omar tweeted a racist, threatening message her office received following a tweet by Boebert and the June 7 publication of an anti-Omar article by Houston Keene on Fox News' website.
In a June 8 tweet, Boebert — a supporter of the far-right QAnon conspiracy cult — described Omar as an "honorary member of Hamas" and one of the "terrorist sympathizers in Congress." Members of QAnon were among the violent extremists involved in the January 6 insurrectionist assault on the U.S. Capitol Building.
In her June 9 tweet, Omar — who is a Muslim and is originally from Somalia — noted that it isn't unusual for her to be "inundated with death threats." And she cited the call that she tweeted as a prime example. That racist caller can be heard saying, "Muslims are terrorists. And she is a raghead n*****. And every anti-American communist piece of shit that works for her, I hope you get what's fucking coming for you."
Omar tweeted that calls like the one she posted are "incited directly by articles like this" — a reference to Keene's article for Fox News' website — and "far-right politicians like" Boebert.
TW: Every time I speak out on human rights I am inundated with death threats. Here is one we just got. “Muslims ar… https://t.co/tKLay3dwdl
— Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan Omar) 1623286390.0
This is incited directly by articles like this and far right politicians like this. And it is enabled by a politic… https://t.co/6Ogf2nXnMX
— Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan Omar) 1623286456.0
Here are some reactions to the racist, threatening call Omar's office received:
@IlhanMN Its really ironic since Boebert is literally a terrorist sympathizer (if not directly involved) when it co… https://t.co/RBMVTRqWyJ
— AnarchyPunished2:ElectricBoogaloo (@AnarchyPunished2:ElectricBoogaloo) 1623287545.0
@IlhanMN This is truly disgusting. You deserve so much better.
— Tammy Ellis ???? (@Tammy Ellis ????) 1623291291.0
@IlhanMN I hope you're reporting these messages to the FBI. Sometimes all it takes is a visit for people to realize they've crossed a line.
— Fran Adkins (@Fran Adkins) 1623287261.0
@IlhanMN Damn shame. So sorry you have to deal with that.
— Matt Gordon (@Matt Gordon) 1623286921.0
@MaryWalsh_NL @IlhanMN She was literally tweeting the location of her colleagues when violent fascists were stormin… https://t.co/AGldXKhIOx
— ThisIsItChief SupportBDS???? (@ThisIsItChief SupportBDS????) 1623312669.0
...
omfg
https://twitter.com/LouDobbs/status/1283531243548741635
portland secret police
ms 13 barbarian jul 15 dobbs miller interviewm finally declared terrorists
https://www.mediamatters.org/lou-dobbs/lou-dobbs-and-stephen-miller-celebrate-their-nativist-extremism
Fox News’ Lou Dobbs and senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller are on the same draconian page when it comes to immigration. So it wasn’t a shock that Dobbs’s interview of Miller yesterday was soft as a feather: These were two proto-fascists comparing notes.
During Miller’s rare July 15 interview, he called arrested gang suspects “barbarians” and denigrated the Black Lives Matter movement as a “Marxist” organization that poses a threat to Americans’ safety. Dobbs did not push back on any of Miller’s statements, nor did he ask about Miller’s history of promoting white nationalism.
miller, whom the Southern Poverty Law Center has described as having a “white nationalist perspective,” has shown an affinity for white supremacists such as Jared Taylor and Jason Richwine. In emails leaked to the SPLC in 2019, Miller frequently cited Taylor and other white supremacists, promoted eugenics, and generally advocated a white nationalist ideology. Members of Congress at the time pushed for Miller to be ousted.
Fox News has an ongoing history of promoting white nationalism and covering for its proponents. Host Tucker Carlson’s top writer recently resigned after CNN’s Oliver Darcy reported on anonymous racist posts the staffer had written online. Carlson himself has a long history of promoting white supremacy on his Fox show. Fox hosts regularly promote prejudicial nativism and white nationalist conspiracy theories. While far-right extremism remains a serious threat in this country, Fox News consistently downplays this concern. Dobbs’ gratuitous interview with Miller is yet another example of how the network provides a platform for white nationalist rhetoric.
And it’s not the first time Miller, who rarely makes media appearances, has gone on Fox for a gratuitous interview. He appeared on Trish Regan’s later-canceled Fox Business show to defend himself after the SPLC’s reporting in 2019 and said the reporting on him was “doing a favor to white supremacists.”
Fox is now continuing to run cover for a white nationalist working in the White House.
==
620
aha: us vs them enemy: we are the reasonable rational people, within accepted norms, but THEY are dangerous, deranged, cannot be reasoned with so MUST be met with FORCE, strict father must punish mis-behavior; [fundamentalist they are evil? end time armageddon?]
RANGE:
alarmist is irrationally worried about an issue, worst case will get some policy enacted that will increase friction/cost/bureaucracy
activist, same as above but is ACTIVE in street or politics, so can increase cost/damage
extremist sorta tied with militant, but latter ominous suggestion of force? well doth do, but hard to picture Pelosi busting out AR 15?
easy slide over to terrorism (eco economic)
fascist one man alone can fix the (single?) threat/problem
takes immediate swift unilateral Executive order action
aha: do nothing congress was an actual thing, commented on (repeatedly?) by Maddow in comparison on recent GOP led senate (recall mtg right after BO where (openly vs leaked?) declared we will pass nothing even if we favor it); so lack of any gov't action that could help ppl is blamed on dems; plus a MAN of action will get it done whatever it takes, HARD vs soft dems/fems
@realDonaldTrump
Interesting how ANTIFA and other Far Left militant groups can take over a city without barely a wimpier [FREUDIAN TYPO?] from soft Do Nothing Democrat leadership, yet thesesame weak leaders become RADICAL when it comes to shutting down a state or city and its hard working, tax paying citizens!
https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/fox-news-removes-unethical-digitally-altered-images-of-police-brutality-protests-in-seattle
ok he was there, but a week before?
no lnx pix twt
fox News removes ‘unethical’ digitally altered images of police brutality protests in Seattle
Royalty-free stock photo ID: 1288386304 Tallinn, Estonia - 01/18/2019: Fox News website homepage. Fox News channel logo visible through a magnifying glass.
Written by Roger Sollenberger / Salon June 16, 2020
Fox News over the weekend removed misleading images from stories about protests against police brutality in Seattle from its website after it was revealed they had been digitally altered in a manner which made the scene appear dangerous.
The Seattle Times published a report Friday calling out multiple images from Fox News coverage of the police-free “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” (CHAZ) in the city.
One photo illustration appearing on the Fox News homepage showed a masked man with an assault rifle and tactical vest standing in front of a sign reading, “You are now entering Free Cap Hill.” The outlet did not originally disclose that the photo of the scene and the photo of the armed man had been spliced together using two different photos, which were taken more than a week apart.
The original photo, from Getty Images, shows the armed man in front of a car.
He was digitally placed in front of the entrance sign.
The same image of the man appeared in at least one other image on Fox News’ website, in front of a smashed retail storefront. According to The Times, it was also a combination of multiple images.
“It is definitely Photoshopped,” freelance photographer David Ryder, who took the original photo and published it through Getty images, told the outlet. “To use a photo out of context in a journalistic setting like that seems unethical.”
Conservatives, including President Donald Trump, have attempted to sculpt the CHAZ storyline into a political flashpoint. Protesters converted the area into a street festival after police, who teargassed demonstrators, left the precinct in an effort to de-escalate tensions.
Trump tweeted Thursday that “Radical Left Governor [J]ay Inslee and the Mayor of Seattle are being taunted and played at a level that our great Country has never seen before. Take back your city NOW. If you don’t do it, I will. This is not a game. These ugly Anarchists must be stooped [sic] IMMEDIATELY. MOVE FAST!”
The mayor told the president, “Make us all safe. Go back to your bunker.”
Fox News on Friday used a photo of a man running through an urban inferno as a banner image for a group of stories about Seattle under the headline, “CRAZY TOWN || Seattle helpless as armed guards patrol anarchists’ autonomous zone, shake down businesses: cops.”
:{
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The photo was unaltered, but it was an AP photo taken May 30 in St. Paul, Minn. Fox News later removed it.
The articles did not notify readers that the photos were altered, and it remains unclear who was responsible for the decision to do so. A Fox News spokesperson did not immediately respond to Salon’s request for comment.
In an emailed statement, a Fox News spokeswoman told The Times: “We have replaced our photo illustration with the clearly delineated images of a gunman and a shattered storefront, both of which were taken this week in Seattle’s autonomous zone.”
However, that statement itself was inaccurate. While the gunman was photographed that week — June 10 — the smashed storefront images were first published by Getty on May 30.
Fox News fully apologized Saturday in an editor’s note accompanying its CHAZ coverage, acknowledging that it “did not clearly delineate” the photo illustrations, which it labeled a “collage.” The site also apologized for falsely attributing the shot of the Minneapolis fire. “Fox News regrets these errors,” the note said.
Talent at the conservative network have attempted to use the Seattle protests as a political wedge issue. For example, primetime host Tucker Carlson accused the people in the zone of advocating segregation.
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The network also reported an anecdotal claim from Seattle Assistant Chief of Police Deanna Nollette.
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“We’ve heard, anecdotally, reports of citizens and businesses being asked to pay a fee to operate within this area,” Nollette said. “This is the crime of extortion.”
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Police Chief Carmen Best later corrected that statement.
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“We haven’t had any formal reports of this occurring,” she said, indicating the reports had come from rumors spread on social media.
Though the Seattle protests have at times been home to contentious scenes of unrest — including a cop filmed forcibly removing his partner’s knee from someone’s neck and a man filmed driving into a crowd of protesters and shooting a black man — the CHAZ street scene has been almost entirely peaceful, featuring musical and visual artists, free street food, concerts and movies.
Best said she did not think the officers should have abandoned the precinct, a move which she claims has led to longer 911 response times.
Trump called demonstrators “domestic terrorists” over the weekend and threatened federal action unless local officials “take back” the area. He also falsely claimed that antifa forces had taken over the city.
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
Interesting how ANTIFA and other Far Left militant groups can take over a city without barely a wimpier from soft Do Nothing Democrat leadership, yet thesesame weak leaders become RADICAL when it comes to shutting down a state or city and its hard working, tax paying citizens!
256K
1:47 PM - Jun 14, 2020
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“City officials have not interacted with ‘armed antifa militants’ at this site,” a city spokesperson told CNN.
==
barr trump need bogeyman/threat to justify cop violence
https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/bill-barr-and-trump-desperately-want-to-blame-antifa-for-violence-but-theyre-coming-up-dry-so-far/
no lnx alex h
President Donald Trump has turned his wrath on Antifa during the George Floyd protests, demanding Antifa be labeled a terrorist organization and accusing the movement of committing acts of violence at demonstrations. But journalists William Bredderman and Spencer Ackerman, in the Daily Beast, threw cold this week on efforts to blame the leftist group.
They found that “none of the 22 criminal complaints representing the first wave of protest charges mention Antifa in any way.”
Calling Antifa a “terrorist organization” is problematic in more than one respect. First, Antifa doesn’t begin to fit the traditional definition of terrorism and doesn’t target innocent bystanders the way that actual terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda or the Ku Klux Klan have done. Second, Antifa isn’t an organization, but a decentralized movement and collection of tactics.
Bredderman and Ackerman discuss the ideologies of defendants in the protest cases, noting that they range from “anarchism” to the far-right Boogaloo movement — and that none of the charges mention anti-fascism (which is what Antifa stands for). According to retired FBI special agent Mike German, “What it definitely demonstrates is that anti-fascism is not a driving force in the current protest violence.”
Nonetheless, Attorney General William Barr has joined Trump in blaming Antifa for violence at demonstrations. At a press conference on Thursday, Barr told reporters, “We have evidence that Antifa and other similar extremist groups, as well as actors of a variety of different political persuasions, have been involved in instigating and participating in the violent activity.”
Bredderman and Ackerman note some reasons why Trump and Barr’s claims about Antifa are so misleading.
“Despite Trump’s rhetoric about designating Antifa a terrorist organization, Antifa is an ethic rather than an actual group — and even if it were a group, there is no domestic terrorism statute for designating a non-foreign entity as a banned terrorist organization,” Bredderman and Ackerman note. “That’s not stopped a chorus of right-wing voices from fantasizing about state violence against ant-fascist Americans.”
For example, the Beast journalists point out, Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas tweeted, “Let’s see how tough these Antifa terrorists are when they’re facing off with the 101st Airborne Division.”
Tom Cotton
@TomCottonAR
US Senate candidate, AR
Anarchy, rioting, and looting needs to end tonight.
If local law enforcement is overwhelmed and needs backup, let's see how tough these Antifa terrorists are when they're facing off with the 101st Airborne Division.
We need to have zero tolerance for this destruction.
137K
6:29 AM - Jun 1, 2020
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by Matthew Valasik, Louisiana State Universityand Shannon Reid, University of North Carolina – Charlotte
As protests about police violence among black people continue and become more widespread across the U.S., certain individuals and groups have begun to stand out – including anarchists, agitators and members of a variety of far-right groups.
With the country’s long history of racist killings, it may be confusing to think that racists and white supremacists are among those objecting to the killing of people of color.
But people affiliated with far-right groups aren’t trying to be part of the overall protest movement. Having researched these groups, we think it’s likely that they are attempting to hijack the event for their own purposes.
As researchers of street gangs and far-right groups, we see that in this case, they want to stoke a civil war between the races – one they think they can win. By antagonizing police, destroying property, or intimidating the public by adopting military gear – including weapons – these groups are attempting to instigate violence between the police, protesters and the public. Rousting law enforcement to violently retaliate against black people en masse is the first step.
Instigating civil war
The far-right is not unified by a strict ideology. It is a broad movement with various factions vying for greater amounts of attention and influence.
In spite of this tension, our research shows that many share the conspiracy belief that Western governments are corrupt and controlled by the New World Order, a cabal of wealthy Jewish elites. To them, wealthy Jewish investor and democracy advocate George Soros is the puppet master of the world economy.
William Luther Pierce’s 1978 novel “The Turner Diaries,” which has come to be known as “the bible of the racist right,” lays out a plan to instigate a race war and bring about the federal government’s collapse. The book has inspired violence from the far-right, most notably the 1995 bombing at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
“Accelerationism” – the idea that inducing chaos, provoking law enforcement, and promoting political tension will hasten the collapse of Western government – has taken root among far-right groups. One such group, the “Boogaloo Bois,” identified by their penchant for wearing Hawaiian shirts, has been observed at protests in Minnesota, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Oregon.As with any far-right movement, “Boogaloo Bois” groups are rather unstructured and have varied beliefs, lacking any hierarchical organization.
In Las Vegas, three “Boogaloo Bois” were arrested with firearms and a plan to incite violence during George Floyd protests. Social media posts and online chat groups have also shown them attempting to infiltrate other protests across the country.
Joining the crowds provides these groups an opportunity to discredit protesters by inciting looting, rioting, violence and vandalism – which they hope will spark like-minded white Americans to resist the civil disobedience of protesters. Already, there are roving bands of armed white counterprotesters at protests across America.
Other far-right extremists are talking on social media about the protests requiring a lot of police attention and see an opportunity to engage in targeted terror attacks. Their overall intention is the same: fanning flames to burn down the federal government, making room for them to establish a whites-only country.
Matthew Valasik, Associate Professor of Sociology, Louisiana State Universityand Shannon Reid, Associate Professor, University of North Carolina – Charlotte
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
==
==
RHET:
no lnx
https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/right-wing-hawk-attack-tactics-arent-working-this-time-and-heres-why/
Right-wing hawk attack tactics aren’t working this time — and here’s why
Written by Amanda Marcotte / Salon January 11, 2020
Earlier this week, before Donald Trump backed down from escalating the conflict with Iran, I wrote a piece arguing that the one improvement over the 2003 run-up to the war with Iraq was that this time around anti-war voices were being taken seriously. Now that the week is over and Trump seems disinclined to do more than thump his chest while (thankfully) sidestepping a real war, it’s worth taking a step back and looking at another shift from the George W. Bush era: The efforts by hawks to silence antiwar critics by calling them traitors, terrorist sympathizers, and other slurs aren’t working anymore.
To be clear, Republicans tried to use these old demonizing tactics in the wake of Trump’s order to assassinate Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the second most powerful man in Iran.
On Monday, Trump’s former UN ambassador Nikki Haley said, “The only ones that aremourning the loss of Soleimani are our Democrat leadership, and our Democrat presidential candidates.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina declared that anyone who questioned Trump’s obvious lies justifying the killing of Soleimani was “empowering the enemy.”
Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia claimed that Democrats “are in love with terrorists” and that Democrats “mourn Soleimani more than they mourn our Gold Star families.”
This is a game conservatives perfected in the Bush years: Bullying liberals with false accusations of being sympathetic to Islamic terrorism, simply for daring to question the bloodthirsty and provocative approach that Republicans prefer.
It’s an accusation that never made sense, starting with the fact that the liberal values of secularism, sexual liberation, and feminism that homegrown conservatives hate are also despised by Islamic theocrats. But it’s also an accusation that doesn’t grapple with one main reason that most liberals prescribe a dovish approach: More violence only breeds more terrorism — a theory proved by the way ISIS grew from the ashes of Bush’s war in Iraq.
But, during those bad old days, this outrageous lie tended to get traction, and liberals were often on the defensive, trying haplessly to argue that, no, they don’t love terrorists.[REALITY WINNER]
This time around, however, the tactic … simply didn’t work. Collins found himself forced to explicitly apologize. There was absolutely no reason to believe his apology, however, as he’s still fundraising off this “Democrats love terrorists” sentiment — and was still making this outrageous claim on Fox News only two hours before his supposed apology. But even the fact that Collins had to pretend to be sorry shows that the current political environment is no longer so friendly to this strategy.
Similarly, Haley is now playing a bizarre game of clean-up, trying to pretend she was using some other, more obscure definition of the word “mourning” to justify saying what she did. As with Collins, it’s utter nonsense, but the fact that she’s scrambling demonstrates that casually equating criticism of a president’s actions with treason isn’t working quite as well as it used to.
The ultimate display of how the McCarthyite tactics conservatives have long used to silence anti-war voices are falling flat might have been that truly epic rant unleashed by Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, who, along with Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, broke ranks with other Republicans to argue that Trump’s weak excuses for killing Soleimani and escalating tension with Iran simply weren’t good enough.
Lee complained that the Trump administration was using accusations that “you will be emboldening Iran” in order to convince senators that “we need to be good little boys and girls and not debate this in public”. He called such pressure tactics “un-American” and “absolutely insane.”
So yeah, when even Republicans are bristling under these kind of intimidation tactics, it’s safe to say things have changed a lot from the days when anyone offering criticism of the Bush administration’s warmongering ran the risk of being labeled a “terrorist sympathizer.”
This shift has two major causes. First, the Iraq war was such an epic disaster that it casts a pall over any and all tactics that were used to support it. Second of all, Trump is president and no one in their right mind thinks he had good intentions with this Soleimani killing, since Trump has never experienced a good intention in his life.
On the first part, the big problem facing conservatives rehashing the same tactics they used to defend the Iraq war is their opponents can simply, calmly ask how their methods worked out the last time. Sure, they were able to accomplish the immediate goal of quashing meaningful debate over the war, but in the end, their critics were proved right and they were proved wrong. Silencing good faith arguments is bad. Silencing arguments that later turn out to be correct makes you look foolish, cowardly and tyrannical.
On the second part, it’s hard for pro-war people to claim they are defending the nation when it’s clear that Trump, the guy who started all this, doesn’t give a fig about national security, but cares only about himself. With Bush, there was at least an argument that he was trying to do the right thing, as ill-conceived as it was. But with Trump, even the illusion that he has some noble purpose that his critics could be undermining is a joke.
Common sense alone should tell us this about Trump’s character. But just in case there was any doubt, reporting from this week confirms it: Trump’s motive in killing Soleimani wasn’t national security, but a belief that it would help him politically.
A report from the Wall Street Journal released Thursday contained this newish nugget of information: “Mr. Trump, after the strike, told associates he was under pressure to deal with Gen. Soleimani from GOP senators he views as important supporters in his coming impeachment trial in the Senate, associates said.”
On Friday, Maggie Haberman, a New York Times reporter who covers the White House, noted that Trump “actually was surprised [killing Soleimani] was not more of a unifying event for the country” and had hoped he could distract from impeachment by generating the same rally-round-the-flag environment “along the lines of what you saw around the Iraq War lead-up,” which successfully silenced criticism of Bush during that time.
This is in line with Washington Post reporting that the White House believed “the attack on Soleimani would be politically popular” and the fact that, shortly after the killing, the Trump campaign blanketed Facebook with nearly 800 separate ads bragging about the strike. It also comports with everything we know about Trump’s character, that is, as a man who never does anything for any reason outside of self-interest.
All of which means that if you yell “terrorist sympathizer” you’re actually attacking someone who is questioning the wisdom of nearly starting a war in hopes of getting a polling boost going into an election year. Not exactly the most morally compelling of arguments for behavior that was already pretty shady.
==
https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/how-democracy-is-being-turned-on-its-head-in-india/
no lnx
How democracy is being turned on its head in India
Written by Teesta Setalvad / Independent Media Institute September 19, 2019
There were some notable differences between the swearing-in ceremonies of the Hindu-supremacist government of Narendra Modi in its first victory on May 26, 2014, and its re-election on May 30, 2019.
The 2014 victory was tentative yet triumphant. There were attempts to paint a narrative of the South Asian leaders who were invited, including Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and others. While Indian elite and stars from Bollywood dotted the forecourt of the president’s residence (Rashtrapati Bhawan, in New Delhi), the message to neighbors was that India is the Big Brother offering a hand to other nations. Modi, who touts the humble beginnings he overcame, has repeatedly shown a penchant for trying to make history and create a grand narrative. By the 2019 swearing-in ceremony, it seemed that Modi’s government had abandoned the pretense that India needed the approval of the outside world.
India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was a celebrated internationalist. His firm belief in collaborations among the developing nations, fed on his socialist roots, led him, along with other legendary leaders, to the emergence of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). There was a major shift for India in the 1990s when the Indian National Congress, under a leadership committed to freeing India from a controlled economy, chose the path of neoliberal economics, drawing closer to the United States and Israel.
Then came the vitriol of the campaign that led to Modi’s first victory, his almost no-holds-barred unleashing of hatred, and his rhetoric of “us versus them” (where “us” can only mean “Hindu India”—never mind the segregations of caste complications that come with the term). His master stroke of inviting “enemy nation” Pakistan to share the glory of his electoral win was hailed by many as a strategic shift—one that never materialized.
Appealing to a vast section of India as the “tea seller” from a humble background, there was no shame for his followers that the man aspired to riches, wearing an outrageously expensive coat (when he met President Obama in Delhi months later) or using a luxe Mont Blanc pen as he signed documents to take his oath—crass expressions of personal wealth.
The first five years of the regime were signs of the time to come. An immediate centralization of power, an assault on university campuses (especially on student leaders who questioned this hegemonic and proto-fascist ideology that has groomed Modi since teenage years), cutbacks on workers’ and farmers’ rights, arrests on activists and lawyers and worst of all, lynchings of Indians who did not fit the definition of the ‘ideal’ Indian—that is, Muslims, Dalits, Christians and communists (read: dissenters) were brutally killed. The slaying of rationalists Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, M.M. Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh (only the first happened before 2014) by an extreme right-wing group was also something India has not seen.
The ideology of this Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) regime is the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Founded in 1925, its core belief is that India should not be a democratic republic but a Hindu theocracy;it subscribes to unequal and discriminatory levels of citizenship (following both Mussolini and Hitler) and is wedded (in its own writings) to overthrow the Constitution. Propaganda around the glory of the nation and “development” subsumed the gory 2014-2019 reality of violence, fear and lynchings. The unilateral move to “liberalize” India’s legal currency crippled India’s flagging economy and virtually killed the informal sector. Reports of the aggrandizement of the ruling party’s coffers came in only to be snuffed out by men who led the party and were intolerant of media reporting reality. Those men are now in positions of unbridled power today.
I wrote some months ago that this government has all but declared a war against its own people. That was before the 2019 results that took the supremacist victory to even higher levels, making a mockery of parliamentary debate and all-party dialogue. The second Modi regime sworn in this year has demonstrated in just three months what we can expect.
Parliament, which met to pass the budget in July, has been used thereafter to push through legislation without even the show of referring them to parliamentary committees for consultation or feedback. Not only does this second regime seem in a particular hurry, but, as Modi’s swearing-in ceremony on May 30 showed—the number of guests at the same venue had doubled to 8,000—there was no need (nor inclination) this time for India to send any messages internationally. One-sixth of the world lives in India, and as sole spokespersons for those over whom they now rule, the Modi 2.0 regime felt no real need to assuage any foreign concerns.
The first session of Parliament in 2008 made rushed amendments to the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) that perverted its meaning in a way that sanctioned the curbing of civil liberties of minorities, as well as nationalist violence against them under the guise of fighting vaguely defined terrorism. (Before that, the UAPA had last been amended by the 2004 Indian National Congress party-led regime with the intention of preventing terrorism—and, ironically, at the time, those amendments were supported by the supremacist BJP, with only the parliamentary left vociferously opposing validating laws that had serious questions for personal liberties.) Even during the previous 10 years of Congress rule—which had an otherwise decent record—of legislating on rights (be it the right to information, right to rural work, right to food, or rights of forest workers/Adivasis), these draconian provisions of the then-amended UAPA were used selectively in targeting youth from the minority on charges—often judged by courts to be fabricated—of “terrorism.” Now these aberrations have been taken a step further.
And the Modi 2.0 regime has now passed an amendment that allows even an individual to be unilaterally declared a terrorist—without judicial scrutiny and only by the government’s executive decision—and his/her properties to be attached and seized. As if these amendments were not bad enough, the completely unilateral and unconstitutional abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution and stripping the state of Jammu and Kashmir of its special status (a legal requirement under the state’s Instrument of Accession to the Indian Union) on August 5 are the worst examples of Modi 2.0 regime’s running roughshod over law, decency, morality and the Constitution.
The Kashmir Valley has been blocked in or blotted out, internet and communications shut down, even landline phone connections shut down. A fundamental decision that affects the very existential reality of the Kashmiri people has been taken without hearing their voice or representation. The state has been under the president’s rule for months. If the Modi 1.0 government will be recognized for subverting and perverting India’s institutions by appointing to crucial posts men and women who have no regard for notions of equality and non-discrimination, then the second time around, the regime will be known for targeting any opposition to Indian federalism. No Indian state is now safe from these rapacious hands.
How did the Modi 2.0 regime notch up its spectacular victory?
A realistic assessment before the results were out was that the BJP itself would get about 180-200 and the National Democratic Alliance party would notch up about 220 or 240 seats out of the total 542 seats that make up the Indian Parliament. It’s the 80-100 seats extra and the massive margins in some that appeared programmed (and even manipulated for some) to send out a message.
The manner in which the Election Commission of India (ECI) functioned through the entire seven-stage polling phase has raised eyebrows. There was clear effort neither to question the huge display of funds (beyond legal limits) used by the ruling party nor to check violation of election law, through misuse of official position or speech that violated constitutional norms (read: hate speech). More money was spent on the Indian 2019 election than on the American elections ($6 billion!), of which 80 percent was spent by the ruling BJP. They have, through their enactment of a non-transparent and opaque law (electoral bonds)—during the last term—ensured that they both have the money and do not need to disclose the source. Neither the ECI nor India’s Supreme Court has in any real sense questioned this abuse. This reflects on the erosion (if not complete takeover) of India’s institutions whom we expect to uphold foundational constitutional principles.
The RSS, the ideological backbone of the BJP election machine, has always had a formidable cultural and social presence, again made easy with the free flow of funds from abroad to its various outfits.Whether the RSS works on charity or education, a core component is its ideological slant, bending or perverting Indian minds toward an unquestioning authoritarianism where a supremacist male Hindu hierarchy is both valorized and validated.
Through demonetization and election bonds, that access to funds has grown even further, and the BJP now has an election machine that can compete with the RSS’s octopus-like organization.
Propaganda, the key tool of any authoritarian protofascist regime, is run or fueled through the BJP’s paid saffron shirts.The party has put in place a formidable 24–hour–connected network that disseminates their message (read: propaganda), which is not one message but rather several layered messages: these praise the one strong leader willing to strike out for drastic change, vilify the opposition (the BJP since its last term has spoken of a “Congress-mukt [free] Bharat [India]”), “promote” every government scheme that they have introduced—its efficacy multiplied and glorified a thousand times over through this well-oiled propaganda—and all the while, layer this with a subconscious message of othering and “hatred.”
Months before the May 2019 elections, the poor economic conditions, farmers’ protests, a revived and belligerent opposition, and charges of corruption over the Rafale deal had started to bother the BJP’s dispensation of propaganda. Come February 2019 and the Pulwama terror attack on Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel in the Kashmir Valley was quickly diverted away from the abysmal intelligence and governance failure that it was, and instead spun into a high-voltage, chest-thumping show of nationalistic machismo. Within a week, a staged “attack” on Pakistan at Balakot—even the efficacy, efficiency and truth behind this raises serious questions—provided the requisite miniscule and banal fodder to refurbish Modi as the man India needed, the man against evil.
Finally, serious questions of electronic voting machine (EVM) tampering have also been raised that cannot be wished away. The battle to be fought needs to factor in and deal with all of these things. The scarcely veiled and calibrated messages of Muslim-bashing/othering, aggressive pseudo-nationalism, and the “selling” of the government schemes need to be dealt with. As does the shameful belittling of the opposition that is also happening at alarming speed with little regard for facts or the truth. It is this formidable body of misinformation and meticulously well-organized and well-oiled/heeled organization that we collectively need to counter.
How, is the question? Who can do this? Political parties in the Opposition that look moribund need to be moved, shoved, and pushed by Indian citizens. Remember also that (unlike in 2014 when even if the results were more startling, they at least appeared believable) this time, state power has also been (illegally) used to garner data from Facebook and other platforms to the service of one party, to help further disseminate the propagandist message, through WhatsApp groups and Facebook messaging. There is also the structural issue of sections of voters who have been deliberately or otherwise disenfranchised (missing voters). The questions to address remain: How will we rectify those missing voters? And how will we bring voters out to the polls?
A hard and meticulous strategy for political education and cultural messaging that includes the history and relevance of principles of constitutionalism is as relevant today as ever before and needs to be not just created and disseminated but organized.Every space, school, college, office, and gram panchayat needs to be involved. The campaign needs to be sustained, layered, fun, historic, relevant, and aimed at building real perceptions away from heaps of propaganda-filled hate.
Two little instances give me hope. One is from last month, when left parties organized a protest at Azad Maidan in Mumbai against the dismantling of Article 370 of the Constitution. Many present felt that engaging with the Mumbai commuter was useful. There was curiosity in the midst of misinformation, that then can be our first lesson: how do we refurbish energies toward rebuilding a sense of resistance after first establishing our new sense of communities?
Second, our Opposition may be weak in Parliament. However, can Indians creatively work to show a strong united opposition on India’s streets?
Teesta Setalvad is a writer, activist, and journalist living in India. She is a writing fellow for Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute, and the secretary of Citizens for Justice & Peace. She has been a longtime advocate for civil rights for all Indian citizens, especially minorities and women.
This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
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:{Saudi Arabia May Execute Teenager for His Protests — Including When He Was 10:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:
IN 2011, as Arab Spring protests swept across the Middle East, demonstrations also kicked off in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province. Members of the kingdom’s repressed Shiite minority took to the streets, calling for equal rights and a fairer distribution of oil revenues. The protesters included a group of around 30 kids on bicycles. As a videoreleased last week by CNN shows, those children were led by a smiling 10-year-old in flip-flops named Murtaja Qureiris.
“The people demand human rights!” the young boy can be seen shouting through a megaphone.
Here’s the problem: Demanding human rights in Saudi Arabia lands you in prison. Even if you’re a kid.
Three years later, in September 2014, 13-year-old Murtaja was arrested while on his way to neighboring Bahrain with his family.
“At the time,” reports CNN, “he was considered by lawyers and activists to be the youngest known political prisoner in Saudi Arabia.
Over the past four years, say human rights groups, this teenager has been subjected to torture and intimidation, as well as a spell in solitary confinement. He has been denied access to a lawyer while interrogators try to get him to confess to the trumped-up charges against him. These include “participating in anti-government protests, attending the funeral of his brother Ali Qureiris who was killed in a protest in 2011, joining a ‘terrorist organization,’ throwing Molotov cocktails at a police station, and firing at security forces,” according to Amnesty International.
Last week, we learned that Saudi prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for 18-year-old Murtaja, who is being tried in an anti-terror court. CNN reports that the prosecutors want to “impose the harshest form of the death penalty, which may include crucifixion or dismemberment after execution.”
Got that? The unelected government of a close ally of the United States is planning on brutally executing an 18-year-old member of a minority group, for crimes allegedly committed when he was 10 years old.
Let me repeat: Ten. Years. Old.
We shouldn’t forget the person who is primarily responsible for this outrage: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS. Since his father installed him in power, the violent crushing of political dissent has escalated. According to the CIA, MBS ordered the horrific murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. He is also behind the targeting of three Arab activists in Norway, Canada, and the United States.
Much has (rightly) been made of the crown prince’s shocking record on extrajudicial killings. But what of the growing number of judicially sanctioned killings inside of Saudi Arabia on his watch? The planned execution of Murtaja Qureiris may be the most horrendous act yet.
“There should be no doubt that the Saudi Arabian authorities are ready to go to any length to crack down on dissent against their own citizens, including by resorting to the death penalty for men who were merely boys at the time of their arrest,” says Lynn Maalouf, Middle East research director at Amnesty International.
The Gulf kingdom is one of the world’s top executioners and, according to Maalouf, Saudi authorities have “a chilling track record of using the death penalty as a weapon to crush political dissent and punish anti-government protesters — including children — from the country’s persecuted Shi’a minority.”
The majority of the country, and the ruling family, are from a strict school of Sunni Islam called Salafism. In April, 37 people were executed in a single day — the biggest mass execution in the kingdom since 2016 — and the vast majority of them were believed to be Shiites. Three of them, according to human rights group Reprieve, were “minors at the time of their alleged offences.” Such executions, as both Reprieve and Amnesty International have noted, are a brazen violation of international human rights law.
Another three Saudi Shiites — Ali al-Nimr, Dawood al-Marhoon, and Abdullah al-Zaher — who were also below the age of 18 at the time of their alleged crimes, are still on death row and could be executed at anytime.
It isn’t just Shiites, either.MBS has also targeted Sunni clerics who have failed to fall into line.There have been reports that the belligerent and thin-skinned crown prince plans on executing three high-profile Saudi religious scholars — Salman al-Odah, Awad al-Qarni, and Ali al-Omari — all of whom have been held on multiple charges of “terrorism.” 62-year-old Odah is famous in the Arab world for his relatively progressive views on Islam and homosexuality and his 2007 denunciation of Osama bin Laden. His actual “crime”? Tweeting a prayer for reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and its Gulf rival, the Emirate of Qatar. (Full disclosure: I host two TV shows for Qatar-funded Al Jazeera English.)
Supporters of MBS often try and argue that these executions are the product of decisions made in court, not in the royal palace. This is a laughable defense. The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy. There is no independent judiciary. As CNN reports, “The death penalty can only be enforced by order of King Salman or his authorized representative. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is frequently characterized as the King’s deputy.”
Forget MBS the reformer; meet MBS the executioner. The fact that he has been embraced closely by everyone from Donald Trump to Emmanuel Macron to Theresa May should be a source of shame for those of us living in the West. To quote former Obama-era National Security Council spokesperson Tommy Vietor, MBS is “Kim Jong Un with oil money.”
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DN 11/18 atomwaffen
...A.C. THOMPSON: James Mason was kind of an obscure figure in the neo-Nazi movement. He had been involved with the American Nazi Party of George Lincoln Rockwell, he had been involved with other neo-Nazi groups but he was not really a main player. Mason’s deal is he says, “Hey, we’re not going to create Nazism, fascism in America through the ballot box. We’re not going to do it through politics. We’re not going to do it through political protest. We’re going to do it through the gun. And the way that we’re going to do this is terrorism, assassination, acts of hyper-violence and just general chaos. We’re going to collapse the system and then we will take charge.”
And that message, which he promulgated in a newsletter called Siege throughout the '80s, has been adopted by this new generation of white supremacists who say, “Yeah, that's what we want to do. That’s the most extreme thing we can do. Let’s do it.” And they have sort of adopted him as their guru, as their intellectual eminence.
AMY GOODMAN: How important are these people? How many are there? And let’s go back, A.C., to when President Obama first came into office, this report on the threat of white supremacy and domestic terrorists that was squelched by right-wing congressmembers who demanded it not be released. Is this what they were tracking?
A.C. THOMPSON: Yeah. This is exactly what they were tracking. I think we should say also it was retracted eventually by the Obama administration. Yeah, that is when this whole thing starts ticking up–2008, 2009. You see resistance to the first African American president in this country. You see dissatisfaction from veterans coming home from wars that have been very hard on them, and they’re returning to a disastrous economy and having difficulties fitting in, in some cases. And you see anger about potential gun control legislation.
What has happened since then is all of these things have ticked up, they’ve escalated and now we’re in a much more dangerous place than even Daryl Johnson at DHS was predicting at that time. One of the things that he predicted is he said, “Look, I’m concerned that these returning veterans will get involved with these groups. We have seen it in the past. It may happen again.” And that is exactly what has happened.
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rww bs
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rww
Ardent pro-Trump commentator and online conspiracy theorist Bill Mitchell declared on his “YourVoice America” program
that the Department of Justice should investigate whether Antifa is responsible for starting the wildfires that have devastated California, despite admitting that he literally has no evidence to support this assertion.
Mitchell said that while nobody knows what caused these fires, it is possible that they could be the result of “domestic terrorism.”
“Now who is the only domestic terrorist organization that we know of in America?” he asked, rhetorically. “Antifa. Who loves to light things on fire? Antifa. So we have to ask our questions: Is it possible that Antifa is behind the California fires?”
“It isn’t too much of a coincidence that after decades and decades and decades of relatively low amounts of fires, we have all of these simultaneous fires going on in California just as Democrats take back Congress,” Mitchell said. “I am willing to bet one of the first major legislations that come out of the Democrat House will be climate change legislation—based on what? The California fires. Started by who? I wonder. I wonder. It’s all too convenient by half.”
“People say, ‘What evidence do you have that Antifa started this?’ Nothing,” Mitchell continued. “I have no evidence. I’m not accusing them. I’m just asking if it’s possible. It is something that we should consider because if Antifa is, in fact, a domestic terrorist organization and this is, in fact, a terrorist act, we must ask ourselves, ‘Is Antifa involved in this?'”
“The FBI, the DOJ should look into whether they are involved in that because nobody knows who started this,” Mitchell declared. “This is not some wild, fire-bomb-throwing on my part, I just want to know because inquiring minds want to know.”
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for some time now, bs split screen direct mail and ad trying to link dems with terrorist bin laden etc
https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/republican-pac-publishes-security-application-former-cia-agent-running-democrat
Abigail Spanberger is the Democratic candidate in Virginia’s 7th district, and a former officer in the CIA. The Congressional Leadership Fund is a Republican Super PAC associated with Paul Ryan, which plans to hand out over $100 million to GOP candidates for the election this fall. But money isn’t the only thing that the PAC is handing out. They’ve also produced the application Spanberger submitted in seeking security clearance with the CIA, making her personal information public. How the PAC obtained this form is an open, and important, question.
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According tothe New York Times, theRepublican Congressional Leadership Fundhas both published the form, with some personal information redacted, and made it available to reporters. Security applications, by their nature, provide highly detailed background information. They may require that the person involved produce information on actions that could potentially be embarrassing, even if not illegal.
As an example, since obtaining Spanberger’s form, a polling company connected with the Republican PAC has conductedpush pollsasking voters if they would be less likely to support the Democratic candidate “if she knew that the candidate had taught at a school funded by the Saudi royal family that had ‘numerous students arrested for terrorism.’” The Republican PAC has also put out a “news release” on this topic.
Spanberger is currently running strongly against Republican Representative Dave Brat in what the GOP had regarded as a “safe” district. With a broad range of endorsements and support, this represents another district that Republicans are finding a challenge in 2018 after a series of walk-over elections. So it’s understandable that Republicans are desperate to find an edge.
The problems is: Where did they find it? The Congressional Leadership Fund claims that the form was obtained through a FOIA request to the Post Office,where Spanberger worked briefly while waiting for clearance from the CIA. But the version of the document, and the fact that the copy given to reporters seems to be unredacted, does not square with the version that should be produced through a FOIA request. In fact, the unredacted form cannot be released under the Privacy Act.
The Democratic candidate has sent a cease-and-desist letter to the executive director of the Congressional Leadership Fund, demanding that the PAC destroy all copies of the form and “agree to not use the information in any fashion.” And the real question boils down to: Is someone within the Trump White House handing out classified information to be used against Democratic candidates?
The Richmond Times-Dispatch shows how Republicans are attempting to use even the controversy about how they obtained this document to harm Spanberger. A spokeswoman for the Congressional Leadership Fund replied to questions that “It should surprise no one that Ms. Spanberger would want to hide from voters that she worked at a school that produced some of the world’s most dangerous terrorists.”
Spanberger was a substitute teacher at a prep school for wealthy students, filling in for a teacher on maternity leave, between the time she finished her Masters degree and before she took her Post Office job. No student she taught has been connected to terrorism in any way. She also waited tables. Republicans have not yet produced a news release claiming that she served a plate of eggs to Osama bin Laden … but there’s still time.
Daily Kos Elections rated the VA-7 race as “Leans Republican” on Aug 22. The Cook Report has moved the race to “Toss up.”
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pete peters rocky mtn rendezvous
In 2008 there were 149 militia groups in the United States. In 2009, that number more than tripled to 512, and now there are nearly 600. In Right-Wing Resurgence, author Daryl Johnson offers a detailed account of the growth of right-wing extremism and militias in the United States and the ever-increasing threat they pose. The author is an acknowledged expert in this area and has been an intelligence analyst working for several federal agencies for nearly 20 years. The book is also a first-hand, insider's account of the DHS Right-Wing Extremism report from the person who wrote it. It is a truthful depiction of the facts, circumstances, and events leading up to the leak of this official intelligence assessment. The leak and its aftermath have had an adverse effect on homeland security. Because of its alleged mishandling of the situation, the Department's reputation has declined in the intelligence and law enforcement communities and the analytical integrity of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis was undermined. Most importantly, the nation's security has been compromised during a critical time when a significant domestic terrorist threat is growing. This book is replete with case studies and interviews with leaders which reveal their agendas, how they recruit, and how they operate around the country. It presents a comprehensive account of an ever-growing security concern at a time when this threat is only beginning to be realized, and is still largely ignored in many circles.
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Right Wing Resurgence: How a Domestic Terrorist Threat is Being Ignored
By Daryl Johnson
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https://books.google.com/books?id=ZHuIrchi2HEC
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3%
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Michael Brian Vanderboegh
A veteran of the 1990s militia movement, when he headed a group called the Sons of Liberty, Vanderboegh in 2008 co-founded another Patriot group, the Three Percenters, who vow to resist gun control laws with force if necessary. In more recent years, Vanderboegh has remained just as inflammatory on his Sipsey Street Irregulars blog and in other Patriot forums. In 2013 and 2014, he emailed Connecticut State Police employees warning of bloody scenarios if they tried to enforce a new state gun control law, and also published the home addresses and phone numbers of the state senators who had voted for the measure.
Vanderboegh’s rhetoric has apparently inspired a number of people to act, including a group of Georgia militiamen who plotted to attack several cities with the deadly ricin toxin and a number of unknown people who once targeted Democratic offices around the country.
Vanderboegh passed away in August of 2016 after a lengthy battle with cancer.
In His Own Words
“[I]f you wish to send a message that [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and her party cannot fail to hear, break their windows. Break them NOW. Break them and run to break again. Break them under cover of night. Break them in broad daylight. … Break them with rocks. Break them with slingshots. Break them with baseball bats. But BREAK THEM. ”
—Reacting to the imminent passage of health care reform, Sipsey Street Irregulars blog, March 19, 2010
“The health care law carries … the hard steel fist of government violence at the center. If we refuse to obey, we will be fined. If we refuse to pay the fine, we will in time be jailed. If we refuse to report meekly to jail, we will be sent for by armed men. And if we refuse their violent invitation at the doorsteps of our own homes we will be killed — unless we kill them first.” —After U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, Sipsey Street Irregulars blog, June 29, 2012
“The recent spate of citizen disarmament laws in states like Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland and New York has led me on a campaign to defy, resist, evade and smuggle in opposition to those laws. … I have broken the laws of three of those states… . But it is an established principle in American jurisprudence that an unconstitutional law is null and void. One man’s criminal is another man’s freedom fighter.”
—Speech at the Alamo, Oct. 19, 2013
Background
Mike Vanderboegh first surfaced in the Alabama militia, or “Patriot,” movement after the 1993 standoff in Waco, Texas, between Branch Davidian cultists suspected of illegal arms trafficking and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). Vanderboegh wrote a post-Waco call to arms entitled, “Strategy and Tactics for a Militia Civil War,” where he discussed the value of snipers who could target secret police and militia watchdogs. Still, he liked to portray himself as a moderate within that often-violent movement. In 1996, he joined some militia leaders in signing a document that tried to distance the movement from racists and neo-Nazis.
In the mid-2000s, Vanderboegh briefly took up the anti-immigrant crusade, participating in “patrols” to catch undocumented immigrants along the Mexican border with his very small Alabama Minuteman Support Team.
More important, Vanderboegh in 2008 became one of the founders of a Patriot group called the Three Percenters, a loosely organized movement of gun owners who name stemmed from the disputed claim that only 3 percent of American colonists took up arms against the British. The group, which sees itself as a lineal descendant of those early American patriots, has grown since President Obama took office, according to the Anti-Defamation League, but its exact size remains unknown. Vanderboegh regularly blasts opposition to gun control laws as a leader of the Three Percenters, vowing never to surrender any arms on his Sipsey Street Irregulars blog.
Based in the small town of Pinson just north of Birmingham, Vanderboegh has lived for years on a monthly disability check despite his repeatedly professed contempt for the government that issues it. Suffering from diabetes, hypertension and congestive heart failure, Vanderboegh has had plenty of time for movement activities, including writing his unpublished novel, Absolved, in 2008. In the introduction, Vanderboegh called the book “a cautionary tale for the out-of-control gun cops of the ATF” and “a combination field manual, technical manual and call to arms for my beloved gunnies of the armed citizenry.” Militia fighters in his book denounce gay marriage and gun control laws, and it features a bloody shootout between law enforcement and a man who has stockpiled arms that prompts the militiamen to plan a far-reaching campaign to murder government officials.
Authorities cited the book as the inspiration for a 2011 plot by militia members in Georgia to attack four cities with ricin, blow up federal buildings, and assassinate law enforcement and other officials. The plotters, led by 73-year-old Frederick W. Thomas, had amassed at least 52 firearms and 30,000 rounds of ammunition and had already begun milling the deadly ricin from castor beans. Thomas and an accomplice pleaded guilty in 2012 to conspiracy charges.
Vanderboegh seemed to think the whole thing was a joke. In an interview with the online Huffington Post, he laughed about the notoriety he’d gained from the incident, ridiculed the men’s plans and disingenuously claimed that he’d never advocated violence against the government. On his blog, Vanderboegh was skeptical that a “pretty geriatric” militia could have carried out the planned attacks.
It wasn’t the first time that Vanderboegh’s rhetoric appeared to inspire criminal violence. In 2010, after Congress passed the health care reform bill, he urged right-thinking citizens to heave bricks through the windows of Democratic offices. From Kansas to Rochester, N.Y., to Tucson, Ariz., unknown persons responded, shattering windows of party offices — at least 10 Democrats in Congress reported harassment, vandalism or death threats. Again, Vanderboegh was wholly unapologetic, telling The Washington Post that throwing bricks “is both good manners” and “a moral duty to warn the people” about the health care act. Earlier, in 2006, Vanderboegh had also urged followers to throw bricks through the office windows of members of Congress who supported legislation that would have eventually given legal status to undocumented immigrants.
Vanderbeogh’s history apparently gave no pause to Fox News, which brought him on as an expert commentator to attack a failed ATF gun-trafficking sting called “Fast and Furious” without giving any inkling of his extremist activities. Finally, after the brick-throwing episodes in 2010, Fox stopped giving Vanderboegh a platform and describing him as “an authority.”
None of this has tempered Vanderboegh’s violent rhetoric. On Nov. 6, 2012, his blog post entitled “Vote” advised going to the polls but added ominously, “At least later on you can say you tried everything else before you were forced to shoot people in righteous self-defense of life and liberty.”
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