Judge in Christian terrorist Hutaree Militia case: being fools and losers with violent fantasies is disgusting but not a federal crime

I've posted here before about the Hutaree Militia, a Christian terrorist-wannabe group who were charged with planning to murder cops. The federal judge on the case dismissed the main conspiracy charge against the group, basically ruling that it's not illegal to be a hateful fool with violent fantasies. These are not nice people; their leader is on tape talking about his desire to murder cops, along with their wives and children. http://on.freep.com/GWNTYy It sounds like the prosecutors blew it badly, from the judge's statement.

Well, the "Christian" part is in their ideology, but the feds could only show they were terrorist wannabes, which is why the main conspiracy charge was dismissed: (Tresa Baldas and David Ashenfelter, Judge acquits 7 Hutaree militia members accused of terrorist overthrow plot Detroit Free Press 03/27/2012) http://on.freep.com/GWNTYy These are not nice people; their leader is on tape talking about his desire to murder cops, along with their wives and children. (Tresa Baldas, Accused Hutaree ringleader says in recording he wanted to kill police, their families Detroit Free Press 03/23/2012) It sounds like the prosecutors blew it badly, from the judge's statement.

The judge's statement, though, seems pretty clear on the evidence that the Hutaree group was training with weapons, and that their leader was talking very explicitly about using the group to murder cops - including a very explicit part on the tape about killing their children. Given the over-the-top federal laws on associating with terrorist groups, it seems to a non-expert that pinning a "support of terrorism" charge on them would have been feasible.

But the federal prosecutor's main charge was that they had participated in a specific plan to murder cops. The judge basically said the conspiracy charge was so weak she wasn't going to send it to the jury. These two Excerpts from Judge Victoria Roberts' decision Detroit Free Press 03/28/2012 address her decision on that charge:

"The government's case is built largely of circumstantial evidence. While this evidence could certainly lead a rational fact finder to conclude that 'something fishy' was going on, it does not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that defendants reached a concrete agreement to forcibly oppose the U.S. government. ..."

"It is telling that in an investigation that spanned nearly two years, there were only two brief instances in which the alleged plan to kill a member of local law enforcement and attack the ensuing funeral procession was mentioned. Furthermore, the evidence of the necessary next step -- a retreat to rally points from where the larger uprising would occur -- is wholly lacking. The government did produce some evidence of so-called rally points, but failed to produce evidence of the uprising that would follow."

And she points out that there is no law against just being a hateful fool with violent fantasies:

"Stone's statements and (training) exercises do not evince a concrete agreement to forcibly resist the authority of the United States government. His diatribes evince nothing more than his own hatred for -- perhaps even desire to fight or kill -- law enforcement; this is not the same as seditious conspiracy."

"This 'plan' is utterly short on specifics. Further, it is a stretch to infer that other members of the Hutaree knew of this plan, and agreed to further it."

It's no secret that the feds use informers in these kinds of cases. And that was the case here. The Toledo Blade reports in Judge acquits 7 in Hutaree of conspiracy 03/27/2012:

The FBI planted a local informant, Dan Murray, inside the Hutaree in 2008 and subsequently added an agent from New Jersey, Steve Haug. Known as "Jersey Steve," he posed as a trucker and spent months secretly recording talks with the elder Stone, even serving as Stone's best man at his wedding. The wedding party dressed in military fatigues.

Mr. Haug repeatedly talked to Stone about building pipe bombs and getting other sophisticated explosives. The FBI rented a warehouse in Ann Arbor where the agent would invite Stone and others to store and discuss weapons.

Mr. Haug told jurors he was "shocked" by Stone's knowledge of explosives, noting it matched some of his own instruction as a federal agent.

Dan Murray doesn't sound like the ideal prosecution witness (Tresa Baldas, Hutaree militia group informant reveals troubled past during today's testimony Detroit Free Press 02/24/2012):

Defense lawyers, hoping to discredit his credibility, grilled the informant about a shooting incident involving his wife, a knifing incident in which he stabbed himself in the gut with a 14-inch knife and initially blamed his wife, his battle with alcohol abuse, and his failure to pay taxes on the $30,000 he earned as an informant spying on the Hutaree.

The informant, Dan Murray, a college-educated IT specialist in his 50s who earns a six-figure salary at his real job, is among the government's key witnesses in the terror trial.

The reports I've seen don't explicitly address what role the informers' credibility played in the judge's decision. But there have been several recent cases involving Muslims in which the FBI basically has an informant also taking on the provocateur role and suggest a plot to a terrorist wannabe and offer to provide them weapons. Something like that may have been going on here. In some cases, it looks an awful lot like the FBI cooks up its own terrorist plot and then busts it.

Prosecutors do just screw up sometimes, and it sounds like that may be what happened here. Judge Roberts said in the decision, "The prosecution is not free to roam at large -- to shift its theory of criminality so as to take advantage of each passing vicissitude of the trial." They started off arguing a specific plot, then shifted to arguing a more general plan. Which makes me wonder if they realized that some of the information that the infiltrators were providing wouldn't stand up in court. Whatever the reason, they changed their theory of the case, and the judge decided they were arguing a case that was substantively different than the one stated in the grand jury indictment. The full text of the judge's decision is available here at the website of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Here are a few other quotes from the decision:

Though the Court may "draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts," see id., it must be mindful that "charges of conspiracy are not to be made out by piling inference upon inference." Ingram v. United States

Where a conspiracy implicates First Amendment protections such as freedom of association and freedom of speech, the court must make a "specially meticulous inquiry" into the government’s evidence so there is not "an unfair imputation of the intent or acts of some participants to all others." United States v. Dellinger... It is black-letter law that "[a] defendant cannot be convicted of conspiracy merely on the grounds of guilt by association, and mere association with the members of the conspiracy without the intention and agreement to accomplish an illegalobjective is not sufficient to make an individual a conspirator." ... Likewise, mere presence at the scene does not establish participation in a conspiracy.

The law is clear that seditious conspiracy requires an agreement to oppose by force the authority of the United States itself. It must be an offense against the Nation, not local units of government. ... (“Sedition against the United States is not a local offense. It is a crime against the Nation.” ... Any overt act in furtherance of seditious conspiracy must further a common plan to oppose the United States by force; otherwise, "the seditious conspiracy statute would expand infinitely to embrace the entire agenda of anyone who violated it ...."

The Government's current position is not in accord with the Indictment or a previous order of this Court, where Magistrate Judge Komives recognized that this last stage – the uprising against the Government of the United States -- was a necessary element of the alleged seditious conspiracy. In rejecting Defendants’ argument that the Indictment should be dismissed because the alleged conspiracy involved “a local plot, involving a local officer, and a local battleground,” Magistrate Komives wrote:

It is true that the initial step in defendants’ alleged plan was the assassination of a local law enforcement official. This first step, however, is alleged to have been a means toward the group’s ultimate goal of provoking an armed confrontation with local and federal law enforcement officials. And there can be no doubt that conspiring to deliberately provoke an armed conflict with federal law enforcement officials constitutes a conspiracy to “oppose by force the authority” of the United States and to “by force . . . prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States.” 18 U.S.C. § 2384. It may be that the evidence at trial will establish nothing more than a local plot against local law enforcement officials, but the indictment alleges more than this.

And this is a critical point:

The Court need not decide whether a conspiracy to attack the funeral procession of a local law enforcement officer would be within the ambit of the seditious conspiracy statute, though; as explained in greater detail below, the Government did not provide sufficient proof of the existence of any conspiracy at all. [my emphasis in bold]

So is this:

Tellingly, the testimony of [the infiltrator, FBI] Agent Huag is critical to the Government’s case. gent Huag admitted on the stand that over the course of his investigation of the Hutaree, the group never had: a date, time, target or plan for any attack. Vague antigovernment hate speech simply does not amount to an agreement as a matter of law. The Court would need to infer and speculate not only that the other Defendants were aware of Stone’s desire to spark a war with the federal government, but that an agreement to do so in the manner alleged in the Indictment was reached. Reason will not allow such an incredible inference on this record. [my emphasis in bold]

Tags: christian terrorism, hutaree

Tuscon terrorist attack: vague platitudes of regret aren't enough

After Saturday's Tucson terrorist attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords took us a bit closer to becoming the Weimar Republic, the Chicago Sun-Times decided to break with one of the brain-dead clichees of recent years and say what is plainly true: that the incitement to violence and the venomous hate rhetoric in American politics is coming almost exclusively from the right (We can't say we weren't warned about Arizona shooting tragedy 01/09/2011):

Only in time will we know if the killer was among those who threatened Giffords with physical harm last year when she voted in favor of President Obama’s health-care reforms. We may never know whether he was the one who shattered the windows of her Tucson office. And it’s entirely possible that he was not among those — the many — who threatened her with death after she spoke out against Arizona’s harsh new immigration law.

But would any intelligent person be surprised to learn otherwise?

The safe observation for us to make now — you will hear it from others all week — is that the angry and irresponsible talk that might lead an unhinged person to pick up a gun is common across the political landscape, from right to left.

But that simply is not true.

Overwhelmingly today, the fear-mongering and demonizing flow from the right, aided and abetted by cable TV and talk-radio hosts. They may represent only the irresponsible fringe of conservatism in America, but they are drowning out the thoughtful voices of the vast majority of conservatives. [my emphasis]

Only in that last bit would I have to disagree with that statement. Today's Republican Party is not "thoughtful". Its leading spokespeople include people like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Its Party TV channel is FOX News, which cranks out fabrications, distortions and shameless fear-mongering constantly. If the Republican Party represents what passes for conservatism in the US today, then conservatism in the US is not speaking with "thoughtful voices."

Presuming there are such "thoughtful voices" in the Republican Party, now would be the time for them to come out publicly and unambiguously against the hate-mongering generated by their own Party and its de facto ideologists like the junkie bigot Rush Limbaugh. Denouncing the shooting itself and not addressing the larger context doesn't cut it. Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik gave an example on Saturday of how it can be done.

But if Republican leaders are serious about dialing this back, they will have to do more than talk in general terms. They will have to name names, including Rush Limbaugh's and Glenn Beck's. And they will have to be specific about condemning things like Sarah Palin's crosshairs map that identified Gabrielle Giffords' district as a target, and which she promoted with slogans like "Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!" McCain biographer Danny Schechter provides screen captures in Breaking: Targeted by Palin, AZ Congresswoman Shot The News Dissector 01/08/2011.

Tags: domestic terrorism, gabrielle giffords, christian terrorism, radical right, republican party

How strong is the government's case against the Hutaree Militia?

I have no trouble seeing the Christian terrorist-wannabes of the Hutaree Militia as no-good-niks based on their own self-descriptions and group propaganda.

But we have trials and due process for good reasons. For the government to send someone to jail, they have to demonstrate their guilt in a courtroom in which the defendants get to actually defend themselves and in which both sides have to follow a definite set of rules.

The government didn't do such an impressive job in their initial round in court, from what the news reports are saying. The judge even ordered the defendants released pending trial with stringent restrictions, including electronic monitoring. Mark Reiter describes those conditions in some detail in, U.S. attorney successful in blocking release of Hutaree members from jail Toledo Blade 05/06/10.

In her decision to release them, which has been stayed by the Appeals Court, Judge Victoria Roberts wrote:

While the Government contends that the crimes charged against Defendants go well beyond speech, there is no doubt that controversial, offensive and hate-filled speech is implicated. In their defense, the Defendants disagree that this case implicates anything other than speech, and, that whatever they said, did not amount to a conspiracy to commit illegal acts. ...

The United States is correct that it need not wait until people are killed before it
arrests conspirators. But, the Defendants are also correct: their right to engage in hatefilled, venomous speech, is a right that deserves First Amendment protection. ...

When a person crosses the threshold between protected speech and illegal advocacy and related activity, is not always clear. That lack of clarity, and the fact that so much of the Government’s proffer was based on words spoken by Defendants, caused the Court to look closely not only at the protection afforded by the First Amendment, but also at the clear principle that crime masquerading as speech deserves no First Amendment protection.

Her decision discusses the charges and particular aspects of the government's case, including some transcripts of that "hatefilled, venomous speech".

All Defendants are charged with: (1) Seditious Conspiracy...; (2) Attempt to Use Weapons of Mass Destruction ...; and (3) Carrying, Using, and Possessing a Firearm During and in Relation to a Crime of Violence...

Some defendants face additional charges.

Based on reading her opinion, from what the government has presented so far, their case against the Hutaree Militia may not be terribly strong. A lot can change between now and the verdict, of course. But it's a strong reminder that the government's initial announcement of arrest and charges may turn out to be overblown.

See also:

FBI agent short on details on militia inquiry AP/Toledo Blade 04/28/10

Feds pressed to show Hutaree group is threat AP/Toledo Blade 04/28/10

Ed White, Hutaree Militia Staying In Jail: Court Issues Emergency Order AP/Huffington Post 05/06/10

Tags: christian terrorism

More on the Hutaree Christian terrorist "militia"

Dave Neiwert provides an audio of David Bryan Stone Sr., the leader of the Hutaree Militia of aspiring Christian terrorists, rousing his followers in The Hutaree militia: At the crossroads of Christianity and terrorist violence Crooks and Liars 04/12/10. Dave writes:

The striking aspect of the audio is the way Stone's rhetoric is essentially a logical outcome of basic Patriot-movement rhetoric about the "new world order" and "sovereignty" -- rhetoric that is nowadays gaining wide currency at Tea Party rallies and on their websites. Indeed, as we've been reporting for some time, the Tea Parties are fundamentally a revival of the '90s Patriot movement, this time with the blessing of official conservative-dom.

This is why it's so silly for people like Bob "the Daily Howler" Somerby to be blathering on about how liberals shouldn't be criticizing these nice white folks in the Tea Party movement for what they actually say and do. Especially Somberby's favorite Tea Party crush Pam Stout.

The mainstream media continues its reluctance to describe far-right terrorist groups as terrorists. But I have come across a weird exception to that rule in the conservative Christian Post (which I suppose doesn't count as "mainstream" media) in Group Takes Offense at 'Christian Warrior' Media Coverage by Ethan Cole 03/30/10:

Mainstream media outlets are bias in their reporting about the nine self-identified “Christian warriors” accused of plotting to kill law enforcement officers, contends a group whose mission is to respond to anti-Christian defamation.

Even though members of the militia group call themselves Hutaree, which they say means “Christian warrior,” their alleged violent plan “is absolutely contrary to Christianity,” said Dr. Gary Cass, president of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission.

“They may have illicitly co-opted the Christian faith to justify their murderous intentions, but it is defamatory for the media to keep referring to them as Christians,” said Cass. “They are simply terrorists.”

Cass is pretty much turning the reality of our press corps upside down here:

He said it is “hypocritical” of mainstream news organizations to resist calling someone who carries out Jihad because of his faith an “Islamic terrorist” for fear of offending Muslims.

"But when some insane person claims to be a Christian and does something completely contrary to the Christian faith, the media keeps making the libelous association," Cass argued. "It's time for the news media to stop this transparent double standard."

The fundamentalist preacher R.C. Sproul in Perils Facing the Evangelical Church Ligonier Ministries Blog n.d. (accessed 04/13/10) gives an example of the kind of argument that fundamentalist Christians (and not just fundamentalists!) use to disown not only Christian churches with whom they sharply disagree but also distance themselves from any sense of responsibility for Christian religious terrorist groups:

When we consider the predicament that the evangelical church of the twenty-first century faces in America, the first thing we need to understand is the very designation "evangelical church" is itself a redundancy. If a church is not evangelical, it is not an authentic church. The redundancy is similar to the language that we hear by which people are described as “born-again Christians.” If a person is born again of the Spirit of God, that person is, to be sure, a Christian. If a person is not regenerated by the Holy Spirit, he may profess to be a Christian, but he is not an authentic Christian. There are many groups that claim to be churches that long ago repudiated the evangel, that is, the gospel. Without the gospel, a gathering of people, though they claim otherwise, cannot be an authentic church. [my emphasis]

A number of other good articles recently have addressed the Hutaree Militia and the general context of domestic Christian terrorist groups, including:

Sarah Posner, Will Ralph Reed’s New Venture Wed Religious Right to Tea Partiers? Religion Dispatches 04/13/10

'Tea' is for terrorism David Bernstein Boston Phoenix 04/12/10

Mark Juergensmeyer, The Return of Christian Terrorism Religion Dispatches 04/08/10

Frederick Clarkson, The Faith-Based Militia: When is Terrorism 'Christian'? Religion Dispatches 04/08/10

Chip Berlet, ‘Christian Warriors’: Who Are The Hutaree Militia And Where Did They Come From?
Religion Dispatches 03/31/10

Mark Juergensmeyer, Onward Christian Terrorists; Fighting Evil in the Obama Era Religion Dispatches 06/11/09

Tags: christian right, christian terrorism, terrorism

Far-right violence and "mainstream" extremism

Don't miss this video featuring Dave Neiwert, Sara Robinson and Rick Perlstein on The Deadly Results Of Right-Wing Extremism OurFuture.org 06/02/09.

Tags: abortion, christian fundamentalism, christian right, christian terrorism, fanaticism, george tiller, terrorism

The Republican Party and the anti-abortion movement

This story, Kline spokesman says timing of letter was ‘unfortunate’ in light of Tiller’s death by Steve Kraske Kansas City Star 06/04/09, is about a former Kansas state attorney general, Republican Phill Kline, who sent out a fundraising letter late last week that mentioned Dr. George Tiller, who was murdered by an anti-abortion Christian terrorist last Sunday. The story is framed as how the coincidence made that seem like exceptionally bad taste.

But I was more struck by the content of Kline's fundraising appeal:

In the letter, Kline, a long-standing abortion opponent, said he is seeking donations to offset $200,000 of attorneys’ fees “billed to me personally” that stemmed from a December 2007 trial ordered by the Kansas Supreme Court. ...

The letter cites Kline’s long-running legal battles against Tiller and Planned Parenthood.

Kline, a Republican, also noted that he likely faces charges that he violated legal ethics. That complaint may be tied to his conduct in the investigation of Tiller and Planned Parenthood.

“This (disciplinary) board has already investigated me for five years due to frivolous and continued complaints by the abortion industry,” Kline said. [my emphasis]

A lot of attention has been focused on how the rhetoric of Republican media figures like Rush the OxyContin Man contributed to a climate of violence against Tiller in particular. I've written here about how the framing of the issue by the "mainstream" anti-abortion movement - abortion being seen as the murder of innocent babies in the clear understanding of God Himself - will inevitably continue to encourage those activists of a more violent inclination to commit acts of violence against abortion providers.

But Kline's letter highlights another aspect of the problem: the ways in which overzealous Republican officials pander to the anti-abortionists by pushing sometimes frivolous legal actions. (I'm not making any judgment here on the nature of the possible complaints that might be filed to which Kline's fundraising letter refers.) On the one hand, it's important to recognize that the anti-abortion movement in the US has plenty of legally legitimate methods to press their cause, including the legal right to advocate positions that have the effect of indirectly encouraging violence. But when prosecutors bring charges against abortion providers, it adds a legitimacy to the notion that the providers are doing something that requires punishment. And, when an ill-founded prosecution then loses, it gives hardline activists that the legal system is actually incapable of protecting "innocent babies" being "murdered" by the thousands.

For instance, this news article about charges filed against Dr. Tiller appeared in the Christian Post on 06/29/07, Notorious Late-Term Abortionist Faces 19 Criminal Charges by Ethan Cole:

The infamous late-term abortionist who revels in his notoriety for providing women easy abortions had 19 misdemeanor charges filed against him on Thursday.

Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison announced that he has dismissed 30 previous criminal charges against abortionist George Tiller, and in their place filed charges against Tiller for failing to obtain a second opinion for late-term abortions from a doctor financially separate from his practice. ...

“While we are happy that charges are being filed against Tiller, we are guarded about this because we believe that these charges are the weakest against Tiller,” said Troy Newman, president of the Christian pro-life activist organization Operation Rescue.

The 30 original criminal charges were filed by former pro-life Attorney General Phill Kline before leaving office. The allegations accused Tiller of performing illegal late-term abortions outside the boundaries set by Kansas laws. [my emphasis]

The same conservative evangelical site reported on the outcome earlier this year, Tiller Acquitted; Faces More Charges by Audrey Barrick 03/28/09:

Late-term abortionist George Tiller was acquitted on 19 charges of illegal abortions.

A jury of three men and three women reached the not guilty verdict on Friday in less than an hour, disappointing pro-life groups that were closely watching the trial of one of the nation's few late-term abortion practitioners. ...

Operation Rescue president Troy Newman noted that the 19 charges Tiller faced this week were "only a small fraction of the illegal activity" that believe occurs at Tiller's Wichita abortion clinic. Moreover, those 19 were "the weakest charges that could have been brought by the state."

"On behalf of the pre-born children wrongly killed by Tiller and his associates, we vow to press on until Tiller is finally held accountable to the law and his late-term abortion mill is permanently closed," said Newman, who attended the trial. [my emphasis]

The Christian Post is not a fringe outlet within the evangelical world. Al Mohler, the leading Southern Baptist theologian, publishes a regular column there. Jimmy Carter has published at least one op-ed piece there.

But this "respectable" evangelical news service quotes the president of the far-right Operation Rescue, which played a leading role in highlighting Tiller as a target of the anti-abortion movement using extreme rhetoric like "Tiller the Killer". Amanda Terkel looks at that group's dubious record in Operation Rescue Tries To Distance Itself From Roeder’s Activities On Behalf Of The Group Think Progress 06/01/09. Operation Rescue has so far managed to avoid legal culpability in violent attacks, as Dave Neiwert reported in Attacking the providers Orincus blog 06/03/04. But it's clear that other violent anti-abortionists besides Scott Roehmer, the accused in Tiller's murder, have found Operation Rescue's ideology and militancy appealing. One might think an evangelical Christian news service like The Christian Post would give its readers a bit more information when highlighting Operation Rescue as a legitimate representative of the anti-abortion movement.

But it's yet another example of the real existing anti-abortion movement. Because of the way in which the movement defines abortion, and because much of the organizational background and donations for anti-abortion groups come from people who have hard-right views across the board, not just on abortion, in actual practice it's nearly impossible for the "mainstream" of the movement to unambiguously distance itself from the violent terrorist fringe. They have to fear that clearly labeling murderers of abortion providers as terrorists, or even condemning the murder of George Tiller straightforwardly without stating at the same time their view of Tiller as a mass murderer, would suggest to anti-abortionist activists a lack of true Christian commitment to the cause of stopping the "murder" of "innocent babies".

Tags: abortion, christian fundamentalism, christian right, christian terrorism, fanaticism, george tiller, terrorism

Fanaticism in the anti-abortion movement

Digby quotes at some length from a post be Ed Kilgore at The Democratic Strategist, Murder in a Church Foyer 06/01/09 about the ways in which the core assumptions of the real existing anti-abortion movement inevitably encourage violence. Go read Digby's post and Ed's, too. But here are two paragraphs she didn't quote:

It's important to remember that to sincere hard-core right-to-lifers, we are currently living in the moral equivalent to the Third Reich, happily conducting an annual Holocaust of murder; abortion clinics are death camps; Obama is Hitler; the Democratic Party is the Nazi Party; anti-abortion activists are the German Confessing Church or The Resistance; most Americans are either Nazis or complicit by laziness in monstrous evil. And if I shared their core premise that a fetus at any stage of development and under any circumstance is equivalent to a Jew being herded onto trains and sent to Auschwitz, and if I could somehow ignore the whole issue of the wishes and interests of that fetus' mother, I'd probably feel the same way--pretty violently.

There's a tendency of many pro-choice Americans to deny this "radicalizing logic," in favor of dismissive theories that people who say they oppose abortion in all cases are just lying, or are hypocrites, or are misogynists, or are just culturally reactionary, or are terrified by sexuality. Some of them may be all these things, but there's no reason to believe that many of these people aren't sincere in their position on fetal life, and on the goal of ending legalized abortion as the alpha and omega of their own civic life. And so long as that is true, there will always be a significant risk of violence, particularly right now, when it's beginning to sink in that the tantalizing possibility of overturning Roe v. Wade through Republican Supreme Court appointments is receding into the far distance. [my emphasis]

I like that concept of "radicalizing logic", which is a good way to distinguish the problem from a rhetorical "slippery slope" argument. He credits it to the New Republic blogger Damon Linker's post, A Question for Pro-Lifers 05/31/09. As Linker puts it:

To be a pro-lifer is to live with the equivalent of George Tiller's cold-blooded murder every day in clinics and hospitals all over the country -- only unlike Tiller, the victims of abortion are innocent and those who murder them are protected, not punished, by the law of the land.

We should consider ourselves very lucky that so few anti-abortion activists resort to violence. After all, as the pro-life Rod Dreher admits ..., it is merely "prudence" (and not principle) that keeps opponents of abortion from following the lead of John Brown instead of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Tags: abortion, christian fundamentalism, christian right, christian terrorism, fanaticism, george tiller, terrorism

Christian terrorism and the real existing anti-abortion movement

This column by Tony Beam, Tiller's Murder Points to the Death of Civility in Public Discourse Christian Post 06/02/09, is a good example of the inability and/or unwillingness of the "mainstream" of the real existing anti-abortion movement to distance themselves from Christian terrorist violence against abortion providers.

As much as I admire the media analysis of Bob "the Daily Howler" Somerby, an issue like this one is one in which his positivist approach makes him miss some essentials. (Not be pick on Bob; I haven't seem him comment yet on anything related to the George Tiller murder.) One of the things I've learned from reading him for years is how important it is to pay careful attention to how partisans are often all too quick to play mind-reading games with those taking a different position. While both fairness and accuracy require taking full account of what people actually say when they state their positions. It's especially important since our broken-down national press corps has been letting that practice atrophy in their ranks for two decades or so.

But political speech is very often symbolic and suggestive. And in the case of long-established movements, like the anti-abortion movement which became a favorite cause of what was then called by the press the New Right in the 1970s, words and symbols can acquire well-established meanings for participants that are not immediately apparent to those not steeped in the movement's ideology. That's especially true for groups that consciously project a very different image to the general public than they do to their activist base, which is very much the case for the anti-abortion movement in the US. While this is an intriguing linguistic phenomenon in itself, I'm more focused in this post on how people like Tony Beam go about distancing themselves from Christian terrorists and terrorist acts like the Tiller murder.

Flying into the cloud level of abstraction for a moment, let's start with the recognition that very few Americans are actually pacifists. Most American Christians recognize some form of a Just War concept, although in dealing with fundamentalist and Pentecostals, their theology tends to ignore the notion of just war as such, however much they may invest wars religious import. Most American Christians would also assume that it's morally legitimate to use violence to defend oneself or protect the innocent, and even most of the very few full-blown pacifists would recognize a right of personal self-defense.

When we read a column like Beam's, we have to keep in mind not only the plain meaning of his words to the general public but also how fundamentalists, movement conservatives and anti-abortion activists interpret the words. I have no reason to doubt Beam's sincerity when he condemns Tiller's murder as wrong. But does he present a framework for his opposition that is likely to present any challenge to the thinking of those who might be inclined to support or commit acts of violence against abortion providers? That's a whole different question. Here's how Beam opens his column:

The brutal murder of George Tiller inside the foyer of the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita may signal the end of reasoned discourse concerning controversial issues. Without doubt, George Tiller was a symbol of all that is wrong with the pro-abortion position in America. He performed late term abortions with some bordering on infanticide. While his actions were inexcusable, they certainly didn’t warrant the execution of vigilante justice doled out by a misguided crusader for the unborn. If our culture is going to survive we must all agree to adhere to the rule of law and keep our disagreements, no matter how passionate or critical, within the boundaries of reasonable protest and civil discourse.

Tiller symbolized "all that is wrong with the pro-abortion position in America", he writes. Tiller was a guy who not only killed what anti-abortionists consider to be innocent unborn babies with at least some close to outright "infanticide". The Christian terrorist who allegedly carried out "the brutal murder" of Tiller was "a misguided crusader" delivering "vigilante justice" and sticking up for the "unborn", however "misguided" he may have been.

The bottom line on his introductory paragraph, which is sure to be read by more readers than the entire column, is that "a misguided crusader" executed "justice" (albeit of the vigilante variety) against a man responsible for killing innocent unborn babies in a way that bordered on "infanticide" in the most literal sense. It's impossible for me as a non-sympathizer with the anti-abortion movement to read that as anything but at least a partial defense of a terrorist murder. For those who do sympathize with the movement, only those who want an excuse to use in mixed company with non-sympathizers are likely to persuade themselves it's anything other than a partial defense of the killer. And for those who might be in some way inclined to instigate or carry out violent action, no way is that going to be taken as anything but encouragement.

That last sentence of the paragraph also strikes a weird note in the context: "If our culture is going to survive we must all agree to adhere to the rule of law and keep our disagreements, no matter how passionate or critical, within the boundaries of reasonable protest and civil discourse." Actually, democratic culture can survive a substantial amount of law-breaking. And any healthy democratic culture will have more than a little unreasonable protest and uncivil discourse. Do cable stars like Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck, or Web favorites like Michelle Malkin and Mad Annie Coulter, have even the vaguest aspiration for "civil discourse"? Please.

And, for that matter, a democracy can survive even horrific terrorist attacks like the Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11 attacks without tossing out the rule of law and going nuts with fear, although as we saw during the Cheney years, those latter options are certainly possible ones. I read that strange appeal of Beam's as a preliminary scolding of pro-choice critics of the anti-abortion movement than as any discouragement to the violently inclined among the anti-abortion activists, who would surely brush off any such mildly worded caution as fluff or weak-mindedness among the faint of heart.

He follows that opening with ritual boilerplate about how George Tiller deserved the chance to get off his certain path to Hail before he died:

George Tiller’s murder illustrates the irony of ironies. The taking of a life in the pursuit of the sanctity of human life is absurd. It falls in the category of someone who would set fire to a forest to bring attention to the importance of trees. If life is precious it is precious inside and outside the womb. The life of George Tiller was precious because he was created in the image of God and he carried the possibility of redemption ... until Scott Roeder, allegedly acting as judge, jury and executioner removed that possibility. [my emphasis]

This post is already longer than Beam's original column, so I won't try to "fisk" the whole thing. But his column is a good example of the problem faced by the real existing anti-abortion movement when they try to distance themselves from terrorist violence in support of their cause: they are proceeding from a set of essentially fanatical assumptions. They define the deliberate termination of a pregnancy at any point after the moment of conception as the murder of a human being, of an innocent baby. And they assume that this definition is a clear message from God Himself that should dictate both law and personal conduct.

Someone can be a political or religious fanatic without being violent. And someone can engage in political or religious violence without being fanatical. But political and religious fanaticism can and does breed violence and terrorism. Until the "mainstream" anti-abortionists of whom Tony Beam is presumably one can frame their opposition to abortion in a non-fanatical way, their agitation on the issue is inevitably going to encourage violence. Whether they invite hard-right Patriot-militia types like Randall Terry to speak at their churches or not.

And as long as their ideology remains what it is today, their attempts to discourage terrorist violence in the name of their cause will be stuck with highly ambiguous, blame-the-victim formulations like this one of Beam's:

Other than an act of barbarity (and yes, I realize Tiller was guilty of barbaric acts against unborn children) I fail to see what the murderer of George Tiller hoped to accomplish. [my emphasis]

Tags: abortion, christian fundamentalism, christian right, christian terrorism, fanaticism, george tiller, terrorism

The politics of fanaticism

Dr. George Tiller's murder on Sunday in his church, almost certainly by a Christian terrorist, has the Republicans in a tizzy trying to distance themselves from that time of crime.

It shouldn't be hard. "That's terrorism and murder and it's wrong. Period." should do it.

But, as the invaluable Dave Neiwert puts it, "Right-wingers have a problem admitting that there's such a thing as right-wing terrorism." And that's one thing that makes it difficult for them to distance themselves clearly from the murder of Dr. Tiller.

The Sedgwick County, Kansas, district attorney has filed charges in the case: Scott Roeder charged with first-degree murder in George Tiller shooting death by Stan Finger and Ron Sylvester The Wichita Eagle 06/02/09.

Perhaps ironically, one of the more human responses I've seen came from the Roeder's ex-wife in Man likely to be charged with killing Tiller had history of mental illness, family says by Laura Bauer and David Klepper Kansas City Star 06/01/09:

Lindsey Roeder’s focus now is on her son.

"It’s been an absolutely devastating 24 hours," she said late Monday afternoon. "I haven’t slept. My son can’t sleep. ... I can’t imagine, if it’s been like this for us, what it’s been like for the Tiller family."

I'm not criticizing Lindsey Roeder or her son in saying this, but they aren't doing Roeder's defense any good by talking to the press about him. I seriously don't mean that as a criticism; I can imagine more than one good reason why they would want to do so.

But they convey in that article the distinct impression that they pretty much accept that Scott Roeder did the shooting.

I'm sure it's partially because I've watched just about every episode of the Perry Mason show, including the TV movies, and came away with distinct images of how many people who appear unquestionably guilty of murder, e.g., caught standing over the body with the murder weapon in their hand, turn out to be Innocent. And in the real world, from Whitewater to Wen Ho Lee to the Olympic bombing to the anthrax attacks of 2001, I've seen cases where the authorities and/or the press were convinced someone looked good for a crime and their "evidence" later turned out to be misleading or frivolous. Remember the "dirty bomber" that John Ashcroft arrested and turned over to the Navy to be tortured with extreme isolation for years but was never charged on any such count, probably because the evidence came from someone being tortured to make false claims?

But this crime was almost certainly committed by a Christian terrorist of Roeder's reported political orientation. And the circumstantial evidence looks strong here, and it isn't based on torturing people or super-top-secret government documents or fabrications by segregationist redneck scammers from Arkansas. See also Roeder’s anti-abortion activism scrutinized by Laura Bauer and Judy Thomas Kansas City Star 06/03/09.

The headline writer of that Kansas City Star article picked up what rather bizarrely has become the knee-jerk conventional wisdom in rightwing terrorism cases, that the alleged perpetrator was a lone nut. Laura Bauer and David Klepper don't fall into that trap in the article. They do report that Roeder is said by his family to have had mental health problems in the past but they also report clearly his involvement in far-right fanaticism, which has been already documented in court proceedings. Near the end they write:

Scott Roeder’s beliefs also came up in a custody battle in Pennsylvania. In 2003, Roeder sued for the right to visit a girl born the previous year. Roeder said he was the girl’s father.

The girl’s mother and her husband told the court they felt Roeder would not be a good influence on the child.

According to a court ruling filed in 2005, Roeder was earlier diagnosed with schizophrenia “for which he takes no medication, which may pose a clear and present danger to the female minor child.”

The child’s mother also brought up Roeder’s affiliations.

“… Past conduct and association with anti-government organizations is ongoing and poses a risk to her daughter,” the records said.

The child’s mother and her husband — who has raised the girl as his own since her birth — “feared that (Roeder) would kidnap and hide their daughter since he threatened to do so with his son.” [my emphasis]

Dave Neiwert caught reporters on Monday already singing the lone-nut tune. I'm sure I'll have more to say about this case. But here, I want to mainly focus on the how the words and actions of non-violent rightwingers, in this case essentially the entire base of the Republican Party, relate to a case like Tiller's murder.

I'm actually a little more hesitant than, say, Keith Olbermann on Monday evening's Countdown, to hang this around the necks of media blowhards like Bill O'Reilly. Decades ago, cult leader Charles Manson (in)famously took the fun, eclectic, mostly nonsensical lyrics to a Beatles song, "Helter Skelter", and took it to contain a prophetic calling for him to kick off a race war by taking his cult to go murder a pregnant actress (Sharon Tate). It would be crazy to blame the songwriters (the late John Lennon and Sir Paul McCartney ) or performers for that crime. But, then again, that song didn't explicitly say, "Sharon Tate has killed thousands of babies and is like Adolf Hitler."

Olbermann is a bit too much of a blowhard for my taste, and also too careless with facts and too weak on news judgment. I do feel much more comfortable with the analysis along those lines that Dave Neiwert does at his blogs and in his latest book, The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right (2009). Not least among his accomplishments is that he took the "eliminationism" concept from Danny Goldhagen, who applies it in the shakiest of ways on behalf of a neoconservative policy outlook, and made it into something actually useful.

But I think abortion opponents are stuck with a real dilemma if they are serious about minimizing the chances that their rhetoric will encourage acts of violence. One columnist that O'Reilly has criticized by name on that issue is Mike Hendricks of the Kansas City Star who writes (Incendiary language creates climate that kills 06/02/09), "Language like that creates a climate for violence. When it becomes accepted parlance in the anti-abortion movement, we shouldn’t be surprised that some nut job might feel justified in picking up a gun to intervene." But the problem is deeper than a matter of word choice.

Not being sympathetic at all to the cause of outlawing abortion, I'm sure my advice on the subject would not be welcome. But there certainly is an outlook by which one can oppose abortion but be in favor of laws allowing women to choose whether or not to have an abortion within the legal boundaries of Roe v. Wade. Consumption of cigarettes or alcohol are behaviors that are proven in many cases to have deadly effects. It's an empirical fact that smoking causes many deaths and that drunk drivers cause a lot of fatal and debilitating accidents. Yet banning them altogether has proven to be unfeasible. It doesn't stop individuals, churches, governments, medical providers or other kinds of private groups from discouraging irresponsible behavior with tobacco and alcohol. I'm a major skeptic of the idea of decriminalizing the use of narcotics. But it's also true that banning them has scarcely been an unmitigated success story.

An abortion opponent could believe that abortion is wrong, immoral, against the will of God, even a "mortal sin", which is the Catholic Church's position, and still take that kind of position on legal regulations.

But that's not the real existing anti-abortion movement. In fact, that's pretty much a description of the position of pro-choice politicians, who typically say they personally are opposed to abortion but favor women's choice along with sex education and other "abortion reduction" strategies.

That's not how the anti-abortion movement as it actually exists approaches things, though. Obviously, we have to use care in generalizing about an entire movement. I believe, for instance, that one can still be considered a "pro-lifer" in good standing in the movement and advocate abortion exceptions in the case of rape or incest.

But the movement generally considers a fetus, even one moments old, to be a human being and that killing that fetus/human being/baby is murder. When you proceed from that premise, then how does an abortion not appear to be "baby-killing"? And when you look at a record of millions of abortions performed, isn't it perfectly reasonable to compare that to the Holocaust? Isn't it an unavoidable conclusion that a government which allows such mass killing of babies to go on is as bad as that of Hitler's, if not worse?

To me, a good rule in detecting fanaticism is that when your premises require you to adopt conclusions that are obvious bullshit, then it's time to look at things in a different way. To imagine that democratic government in the United States, or Spain, or Germany today, is worse than that of Nazi Germany because the laws in those countries allow a woman to choose to abort a fetus that cannot survive outside her own body, is a false and fanatical conclusion. Because that is a comparison that is equally true if you switch the subject and the object, i.e., Hitler's government was better than democratic government today in the US, Spain and Germany. Anybody who doesn't wanted to be conned by some really nasty fanatics had better develop a bullshit detector that goes off loudly when such conclusions are insisted upon.

Mine goes off also when I hear people saying that the number of abortions that have been performed in America since Roe v. Wade (1973) is worse than the Holocaust. That means that aborting a fetus that cannot survive outside its mother's body is at least as bad as killing a real live Jew. If not worse, because an unborn baby is considered to be perfectly innocent of anything wrong. Again, it seems to me if your inner bullshit alarms don't start going off loudly when statements like that get tossed around, then you really don't have sense enough to even begin to understand the theology of when a fetus becomes human.

Yet those kinds of claims are as common as dirt in the anti-abortion movement, yes, including the vast nonviolent majority of anti-abortion activists, including high officials in the Catholic Church and some of the most popular Protestant ministers in the US. Jamison Foser takes William Saletan to task in Slate's Saletan plays with fire County Fair blog 06/02/09 for this column, Tiller's Killer: Is it wrong to murder an abortionist? Slate 06/01/09, and Duncan "Atrios" Black labels Saletan his "wanker of the day" for it. In that piece, Saletan argues along something of the same lines I do here, which is that given the premises of the real existing anti-abortion movement, killing an abortion provider may be a crime but not a sin. "If abortion is murder," he writes, "the most efficient thing you could have done to prevent such murders this month was to kill George Tiller." He does conclude with saying:

If you don't accept what he [Tiller's assassin] did, then maybe it's time to ask yourself what you really believe. Is abortion murder? Or is it something less, a tragedy that would be better avoided? Most of us think it's the latter. We're looking for ways to prevent abortions—not just a few this month, but millions down the line—without killing or prosecuting people. Come and join us.

Saletan's argument is so flabby I don't like it either. He makes a far better case on why the principles of the movement justify murdering abortion providers than he does to say what's might be wrong with their thinking. As we're seeing in practice, people who think they are doing the Lord's work by saving innocent "babies" from being "murdered" aren't going to be moved by dippy appeals to support sex educations programs. A great many of them are against honest sex education programs, for reasons on which I won't speculate here.

I think his basic point is correct, though. but I don't see that as grounds for appeal for anti-abortion zealots to sit down and let's reason together. They don't need invitations to polite dialogue. They need to snap out of their fanaticism. Because even though most anti-abortion activists may be too moral or too straight-laced or too repressed or too cowardly to actually murder an abortion provider, as long as they promote an ideological framework that equates abortion with murder, their propaganda is going to encourage some people to consider acts of violence against abortion providers.

And as long as they are willing to accept ideological constructions that make Nazism morally superior to democratic government and that equate aborting a fetus that has no possibility of surviving outside its mother's womb with murdering a living, breathing Jew just because you feel like killing a Jew, then their activism and propaganda is going to encourage far-right violent extremism.

To put their alternatives another way, it's theoretically possible for anti-abortionists to recognize that until very recently in history, i.e., a century or so ago, Christianity didn't see reason any reason to assume that a zygote was a full human being. And that abortion in the United States was first banned around the turn of the 19th to the 20th century because even medical abortions were dangerous to the lives of the women carrying the fetus. Both Christianity and Judaism in medieval times had some notion that "ensoulment" (the point at which the soul enters the body of the fetus) occurred at some time during the first months of pregnancy. But they didn't get that directly out of the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament, because it's not there. And that absence is signficant, too. Because in Jesus' time, a form of abortion was practiced in the Roman Empire. And neither Jesus (so far as we see in the Gospels) nor the writers of the canonical books of the New Testament thought it necessary to even mention it.

So a little Christian humility in this matter could go a long way in getting anti-abortionists out of a fanatical mindset. Maybe God isn't speaking to them quite so unambiguously on the subject as they might think.

And more plain honesty would help, as well. Yes, miracle premature births have been around for a long time. Lots of babies that were conceived on or soon after a couple's wedding night have been born four or five months later perfectly healthy, as the incomparable Miss Manners once pointed out. But that is a purely social "reality". Roe v. Wade was based on a medical reality that hasn't changed, despite all the prenatal and postnatal care advances since 1973: a fetus cannot survive outside its mother's body until the end of the second trimester. So in medical terms, the fetus is part of its mother's body until that point. And government should rely on that medical reality when it comes to abortion laws. According to Roe, US Constitutional law requires it to do so.

Still, it would be entirely possible to reconceive the issue as a fetus being potentially a human life or spiritually human and to campaign for laws and/or Constitutional amendments against abortion, but doing so without resorting to fanatical constructions that equate aborting a fetus to murdering a living breathing human or to view a democratic government that protects women's rights as worse than Nazism.

Theoretically. But that's not the real existing anti-abortion movement in America. And until they break with their fanatical framing of the basic issue, they are going to continue to encourage the kind of fatal extremist practice that ended Dr. George Tiller's life this past weekend.

Tags: abortion, christian fundamentalism, christian right, christian terrorism, fanaticism, george tiller, terrorism

Christian terrorism strikes again

Paul Jennings Hill, Christian terrorist martyr (executed in 2003 for murder in the killings of an abortion provider and his bodyguard)

It looks like a Christian terrorist just took out another physician who performs abortions, Dr. George Tiller of Kansas: Suspect in Kansas abortion doctor's slaying reportedly belonged to anti-government militia Los Angeles Times 06/01/09. Gunned him down while he was attending church. As always in these cases, we should remember that the accused is just that, accused. What is a reasonable assumption in terms of judging news may not be the same as legal proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Especially with our national press as broken as it is, it's always helpful to remember that. But that also doesn't mean that we can't look at the environment of Christian terrorists, which looks very much like it was involved in this latest murder of an abortion provider.

(While looking up Paul Hill, the guy depicted above, I see that he attended Belhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi, at the same time I was attending Millsaps College just literally a few blocks away.)

Journalist Michelle Goldberg, author of Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism and The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power and the Future of the World, writes about George Tiller's murder this past weekend in The Pro-Life Insurrection The Daily Beast 06/001/09:

In this context, says Levin, Tiller's murder is a call to action. “I think the assassin wanted to make a statement by killing him at a church, to say that the holy act was killing this guy and ending this hypocrisy and saving babies,” he says. “He wanted to do more than just kill someone he considers an evil baby killer, wanted to send a message to friend and foe alike that hopefully there will be more.” Tiller’s assassination looks like what anarchists and far-right groups alike sometimes call the “propaganda of the deed.”

Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue, is unabashed in saying that the murder could help the antiabortion movement. “This is a teaching moment,” he said when reached by phone Sunday night. “We can talk about what a vile, evil man [Tiller] was, and discuss all the different ways that he killed children. Dr. Tiller was one of the most evil men on the planet. Part of my goal is I’m going to shore up pro-life leaders to not flinch, not fear, not waver.”

Indeed, as if he was following a script written by Levin, Terry complained about the timidity of his movement’s leadership, and said he was about to unveil a 14-part television series with the Latin title, Insurrecta Nex. “It means, ‘insurrection against the slaughter of innocent people,’” says Terry. Whether or not Terry knew about Roeder, he’s clearly gearing up for something.

One of the many problems in the Cheney-Bush administration's "War on Terror" was the administration's claim that The Terrorists were motivated by some nihilistic, inexplicable urge to destroy America and kill Americans. "They hate us for our freedoms." How many times did we hear that during the Cheney-Bush years?

But terrorism is a technique of warfare, not a generic ideology or brand of evil. And in understanding and combating terrorism, the ideology motivating them matters. Anti-abortion terrorists are not typically driven by the same ideology as tax-protester terrorists, though they may share some common political obsessions.

And I don't use the term "Christian terrorist" frivolously. Various forms of militant Christianity are very popular and influential on the far right, such as the Christian Identity movement. Randall Terry quoted above was a major figure in the "Patriot militia" movement during the 1990s.

David Neiwert and Sara Robinson at the Orcinus blog are already writing about this there, as I'm sure they will in their respective individual blogging at Crooks and Liars and Our Future. Sara writes in Jesus's Jihadis 05/31/09:

Tiller was one of just three doctors in the entire US who performed late-term abortions. Now, there are just two. Which means that 36 years of anti-choice terrorism is now just two assassinations away from completely ending late-term abortion in America. Violence has won out -- over the will of the people, over the courts, over the horrific logic of medical necessity. And whenever terrorists win, democracy has lost ...

And she catches an interesting symbolic element:

First Knoxville, then this. Sherilyn Ifill once made the point that lynchings typically occurred on courthouse lawns as a symbol that the mob had overridden the authority of the state and taken justice into its own hands. So what does it mean when right-wing terrorists start gunning down progressives in the pews of their own churches? Two events do not a pattern make -- but if this keeps happening, it'll be clear that there's a message being sent.

Sara considers herself to be a former (or recovering?) fundamentalist, and she writes:

I've often said that fundamentalism begins the minute you decide you have the One True Right and Only Way -- and that you have a God-given duty to impose that way on the rest of the world. Because of this, fundamentalists have never been willing to recognize the legitimacy of other faiths. And certain factions on the far right have never had qualms about vandalizing mosques or synagogues in order to harass Muslims and Jews into political and social silence.

But they used to leave Christian churches pretty much alone. The fact that this shooting occurred in a church (again) suggests that this tactic is now being tried out on more closely related faith groups whose views don't comport with the fundamentalist party line. As Dave has often pointed out, bringing violence to houses of worship is usually an overtly eliminationist act. They are trying to terrify liberals by making us feel at risk and unsafe inside our own spiritual sanctuaries -- the very places we go to feel the most security and peace. This is terrorism, plain and simple -- Christian fundamentalist terrorism, committed by people Sam Smith has started referring to as "Jesus's Jihadis." [my emphasis]

Tags: christian terrorism, terrorism

Christian terrorist murders immigrants in Florida, US media yawn

Accused Christian terrorist Dannie Baker, and Chilean murder victims Racín Balbontín Argondoña and Nicolás Pablo Corp Torres

In Spain, when the ETA Basque separatist groups murders someone or sets off a bomb or one of their terrorist strikes gets thwarted, it makes national news. People don't seem to fall down on the ground foaming at the mouth in fear and demanding that their democratic constitution be shredded as the Republicans did during the Cheney-Bush years.

But, as Dave Neiwert discusses in this post, What motivated a Florida gunman to open fire on Latino exchange students? Crooks and Liars 03/04/09, when Christian terrorist attack and kill and injure innocent people, the media have other priorities than looking into it.

The terrorist attack in question occurred last week: Early Morning Shooting Kills 2 Injures 3 in Miramar Beach WJHG.com 02/26-27/09. Dannie Baker a mystery, even to those who met him Northwest Florida Daily News 03/03/09.

Here are some Spanish-language press articles on the shooting:

Homicida de jóvenes chilenos era racista y había amenazado a autoridades Terra.cl 27.02.2009

A través de videoconferencia juez gringo formalizó al Chacal de Pensacola [Via videoconference, an American court formally charged the "Jackal of Pensacola"] La Cuarta (Chile) 05.03.2009

Experto analiza perfil del asesino de Pensacola: “Pudo haberlos culpado de la crisis económica” [Expert analyzes the profil of the murdered of Pensacola: "He could have held us responsible for the economic crisis") Terra.cl 28.02.2009

Gobierno agiliza repatriación de jóvenes muertos en Florida La Nación 28.02.2009

EEUU: un xenófobo mata a dos estudiantes chilenos y hiere a trece más [A xenophobe murders two Chilean students and wounds thirteen others] Diario Los Andes (Argentina) 27.02.2009

There are indications that the suspect, Dannie Baker, has suffered for several years from mental health issues. And as Dave writes:

However, it's a cop-out to simply ascribe this to his illness and let it go at that. Because there is a pattern of "isolated incidents" in which mentally ill people select their victims based on eliminationist scapegoating rhetoric from right-wing ideologues.

Dave's post also discusses an important and difficult issue: the connection between hate rhetoric and actual violence. His Orcinus blogger partner Sara Robinson addressed this subject as well in "Know This If Nothing Else: This Was A Hate Crime" 02/10/09, about the in this case anti-Christian terrorist James Adkisson, who was convicted of opening fire in a Unitarian church in Knoxville TN last year, also killing two people. (This reminds me, I haven't been quoting Sara nearly enough here lately.)

There is a relationship between hate-mongers on TV and radio and actions by rightwing terrorists like Baker and Adkisson. But it's not direct and immediate.

After another rightwing terrorist, then-San Francisco Supervisor Dan White, murdered Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone in 1978 and then got off with a mild sentence by a far-fetched psychiatric defense that became known as the "Twinkie defense", then-Governor Jerry Brown got the California Legislature to tighten the laws on the insanity defense. Then after Ronald Reagan got shot in 1981, the federal government and most state governments followed suit.

I certainly wouldn't want terrorist like Baker and Adkisson to be able to get off easy with a new "Twinkie defense". If people are capable of distinguishing right from wrong, they should have to take legal responsibility for their actions. And as an ethical matter, rightwing killers shouldn't be able to blame their actions on Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck.

But having said that, looking at the hate mongers themselves, Sara is also right:

Nicely done, Messrs. Hannity, Goldberg, Limbaugh, Savage and O'Reilly -- and all your lesser brethren who keep the hate speech spewing 24/7/365 across every field and into every shop in the country. There is no more debate to be had, no more doubt about it: What you did in the name of "entertainment," and for the sake of the almighty ratings, raised and animated a monster like Jim Adkisson, gave him a list of targets ("the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book"), and was directly responsible for the deaths of two brave and decent people. Adkisson was clearly angry and crazy -- but his "manifesto" draws the clearest, brightest line possible between the media he consumed and his actions that terrible Sunday morning.

There's clearly an intermediary social process that goes on, though. Limbaugh and the rest create a frenzied attitude among their followers, who then incorporate their extremist attitudes into their personal exchanges.

And, for guys like Baker and Adkisson, they look and listen and read these mutually-reinforcing opinions and realize - often with some considerable basis in reality - that people will admire them for their actions. And that kind of reinforcement can also coexist with suicidal tendencies or other psychiatric problems.

The media stars like Rush and Michael Savage, or in the case of anti-immigration fanaticism, Lou Dobbs, who do so much to create that social context are not legally culpable for the killings of Baker and Adkisson. But they are responsible for creating a political and social environment in which individuals of that inclination feel themselves encouraged to take action against liberals, or immigrants, or the various other targets of this poisonous outlook.

Tags: christian terrorism, nicolás pablo corp, racín balbontín, terrorism

Confederate "Heritage" Month, April 21: The first Ku Klux Klan and white Christian terrorism

The Thomas Nast cartoon above, titled "The Union as it Was", first appeared in Harper's Weekly of 10/24/1874 as a comment on the white Christian terrorist groups that former Confederates had organized in the South to deprive newly-enfranched black men of the vote and both black men and women of their civil rights.

The most famous of those groups was the Ku Klux Klan, though it was only one among a number of such groups. The "White League" pictured in Nast's cartoon was another name used by these anti-democracy Christian terrorist groups. The generic name "Ku Klux Klan" became a common shorthand for such groups generally. The KKK as such was largely suppressed at the time, though other groups continued to use violence and coercion to overthrown the democratic Reconstruction governments by terrorizing Republican voters (both black and white) and by massive "voter fraud" (to use the current phrase, only then it was very real) and corruption. The Klan of this era is now referred to as the "first Klan", because the later groups that went by that name were not directly connected to the earlier versions. The 1920s were actually the peak of political influence for the KKK nationally.

Kenneth Stammp described the activities of the KKK and related Christian terrorist groups in The Era of Reconstruction, 1865-1877 (1966):

Organized terrorism was popularly associated with the Ku Klux Klan, formed in Tennessee in 1866, but the Klan was only one of many such organizations, which included the Knights of the White Camelia, the White Brotherhood, the Pale Faces, and the '76 Association. These societies drew their membership chiefly, but by no means exclusively, from the poor whites and yeoman farmers, who apparently found their rituals and organizational terminology, as well as their purposes, irresistible. The local Klan units were called dens; these were organized into provinces, the provinces into dominions, the dominions into realms, and the whole into an empire, "The Invisible Empire of the South." At the head was a grand wizard and ten genii; subordinate to them were grand dragons, furies, hydras, titans, and night-hawks. Members of the dens were called ghouls, and the den master was a Cyclops. "This is an institution of Chivalry, Humanity, Mercy, and Patriotism," declared the Klan's prescript, "embodying in its genius and its principles all that is chivalric in conduct, noble in sentiment, generous in manhood, and patriotic in purpose." Its purposes were, among others, to "protect the weak, the innocent, and the defenseless" and to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Presumably in pursuit of these goals candidates for membership had to affirm that they were "opposed to negro equality, both social and political," and "in favor of a white man's government." (my emphasis)

Nathan Bedford Forrest, early Ku Klux Klan leader and general whose troops massacred black Union prisoners of war at Fort Pillow

The Confederate cavalry General Nathan Bedford Forrest was one of the main leaders of the early Klan and is considered to be one of its founders, possibly also the first "grand dragon" who presided over the first convention of the Invisible Empire of the South held in Nashville in 1867. Forrest was notorious for what was known as the Fort Pillow Massacre, in which soldiers under his command murdered black Union prisoners of war.

The Lost Cause view romanticized the Klan terrorists of this period. In the Gone With the Wind movie, we see Scarlett O'Hara (Scarlett Kennedy at the time) attacked by men who tried to pull her out of her wagon as she rode near their encampment. She's saved by a former family slave. After that, her husband Frank Kennedy goes out with a group of white men to raze the black emcampment. Rhett Butler goes out and saves some of them from a Federal soldiers' ambush, though Frank doesn't make it back. Scarlett is far more concerned about her beloved Ashley Wilkes, who is wounded but Rhett cons the soldiers who show up at the mansion into thinking Ashley is just drunk. No particular organization is mentioned in connection with that incident in the movie.

In Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel, she is more explicit. Describing the scene of the women at the mansion waiting for the men to return, she writes:

"Where is Ashley? What has happened to him, Melly?" cried Scarlett.

"Where's your husband? Aren't you interested in him?" India's pale eyes blazed with insane malice as she crumpled and straightened the torn towel she had been mending.

"India, please!" Melanie had mastered her voice but her white, shaken face and tortured eyes showed the strain under which she was laboring. "Scarlett, perhaps we should have told you but—but—you had been through so much this afternoon that we — that Frank didn't think—and you were always so outspoken against the Klan—"

"The Klan—"

At first, Scarlett spoke the word as if she had never heard it before and had no comprehension of its meaning and then:

"The Klan!" she almost screamed it. "Ashley isn't in the Klan! Frank can't be! Oh, he promised me!"

"Of course, Mr. Kennedy is in the Klan and Ashley, too, and all the men we know," cried India. "They are men, aren't they? And white men and Southerners. You should have been proud of him instead of making him sneak out as though it were something shameful and -"

"You all have known all along and I didn't -"

"We were afraid it would upset you," said Melanie sorrowfully.

"Then that's where they go when they're supposed to be at the political meetings? Oh, he promised me! Now, the Yankees will come and take my mills and the store and put him in jail - oh, what did Rhett Butler mean?" (my emphasis)

This positive view of the Klan was very much part of the Lost Cause "heritage". I should point out here that Scarlett's opposition to Ashley's and Frank's being part of the Klan was due to her worry for Ashley's safety and her selfish desire to protect her property from being confiscated by the Yankees. It functions in the story as a sign of weakness of character, not as some kind of principled opposition to white Christian terrorism.

Stammp points out that Congress passed three "Force Acts" (1870 and two in 1871) and the Grant administration at that time did take steps to preserve democracy in face of its terrorist opponents:

Additional federal troops were sent into the South, adn President Grant suspended the write of habeas corpus in a number of South Carolina counties [where Christian terrorist violence was particular severe]. After scores of arrests, fines and imprisonments, the Klan's power was finally broken, and by 1872 it had almost disappeared.

As I mentioned, though, and as Stammp proceeds to describe, that didn't end the violence and attempts to suppress democratic government in the South, attempts that eventually succeeded. John Hope Franklin and Alfred Moos, Jr., describe the disgraceful process in From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (8th edition; 2003):

The overthrow of the Radicals [pro-democracy Republicans] was accomplished not only by [white] Southerners returning to political action and restoring Conservative governments but also by other circumstances favorable to white Southerners. Intimidation of blacks was effective. Even where there were no riots, whites kept blacks from the polls by terrorism and thus ensured victory for the Democratic party. After the official dissolution of the Ku Klux Klan in 1869, other methods of intimidation were employed to render blacks politically inconsequential. Indeed, intimidation was most effective after 1870, although the Ku Klux Klan disclaimed all responsibility because of the increasing violence. The crops of blacks were destroyed, their barns and houses burned, and they were whipped and lynched for voting Republican. Organized whites became bolder as they patrolled polling places to guarantee "fair, peaceful, and Democratic" elections.

Tags: christian terrorism, john hope franklin, kenneth stampp, ku klux klan, reconstruction

Fundamentalists and the End Times

Apocalyptic expectations, religious ideas about the end of the world, are very important for the Christian Right. They play a particularly prominent and pernicious role in the Christian Right attitude toward Israel and Jews in general.

I just came across a good, brief description of fundamentalist apocalyptic views in Jessica Stern's Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill (2003). I think it's clear in the context of the quote that she's not implying that all or anything close to all fundamentalists that hold this belief indulge in violent extremism or support it. The Christian Identity movement that she mentions is a far-right version of Christianity that has more influence on the Christian Right and today's Republican Party than most of them would care to admit:

Like more mainstream Protestant fundamentalists, adherents of Christian Identity take the Scriptures literally and focus a great deal on the End times. A key difference is the understanding of when Jesus appears during the tribulation. "Pretribulation" fundamentalist Protestants believe that Jesus will save them from experiencing the Apocalypse through a "divine rapture," the simultaneous ascension to heaven of all good Christians. Followers of Christian Identity expect to be present during the Apocalypse. Christian militants who subscribe to "posttribulation" beliefs consider it their duty to attack the forces of the Antichrist, who will become leader of the world during the Endtimes. He will offer the people a false religion and a single world government. The strength of international institutions promoting world government, including the United Nations and the international banks, are indications that the Antichrist is already here, they believe. Identity Christianity has become the dominant religion of the racist right in America. Adherents include Gordon Kahl, a leader in the Posse Comitatus movement who died in a shoot-out with the FBI in 1983 and became the first Identity "martyr"; Randy Weaver, whose wife and son were killed in a government siege at his house in 1992; and Timothy McVeigh, who was executed for killing 168 people in the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building.

Like other apocalyptic sects in the past, some Christian Identity adherents believe that they are now experiencing the tribulations as described in Revelation, that America is currently the equivalent of the corrupted and depraved Babylon. Others are not sure, nor are they certain how long the period of tribulation will last. I called up the Reverend Robert Millar, the leading cleric of the American racist right, to ask his views. "Armageddon could come anytime in the next thirty, forty, fifty years, it might come in 2160, or it might even be five years from now," Pastor Millar tells me. "We are not really hung up on the date."

Tags: authoritarianism, christian identity, christian terrorism, global war on terror, gwot, jessica stern, terrorism, war on terror