So now we have tighty righty white-winger Byron Williams, who headed off to attack the ACLU and Tides Foundation in San Francisco in order to "start a revolution". Shades of Timmy McVeigh! Luckily he was so irate that he couldn't drive straight, and got pulled over by the CHP, at which point he engaged in a shootout with the CHP rather than making it to his designated targets.
Mr. Williams shows signs of typical derangement amongst white-wingers. He was "upset because he had not been able to find a job and because of the poor economy", which of course the ACLU and Tides Foundation have *so* much to do with in deranged right-winger minds, *not* the corporate oligarchs who have looted our economy so that 75% of America is owned by the top 1%. And he was upset about "the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items." Because, y'know, legislators elected by the majority of voters in their districts who are passing laws (like the unemployment extension that Mr. Williams would have been eligible for if he hadn't been, well, off his fucking rocker) with a 60% majority of votes is "railroading".
And, alas, Mr. Williams also is just another data point in another observation: Every terrorist attack against Americans by Americans over the past twenty years has been by right-wingers, *not* by "lefties". Blow up the Oklahoma City federal building? Check. Kill doctor as he shakes his pastor's hand at his church? Check. Attempt to blow up the Atlanta Olympics? Check. Being a member of the far right in America seems to be part and parcel of being a domestic terrorist in America. Not that our MSM will ever call Byron Williams a domestic terrorist... even though that is, err, what he is. Alrighty, then!
-- Badtux the Terrorist-observin' Penguin
Is populism always represented by the unhinged? In the 60's we had unhinged radical leftists - it almost seems quaint.
ReplyDeleteWell that are (or at least have been in certain times and places) anarchists - I don't know where they fall on a left-right spectrum.
I think the greatest domestic evil of the past 30 has been the all-too-successful effort by regressives to harness and focus the otherwise amorphous hatred of a certain segment of white America, by means of lies and distortions.
We are getting Soooo close to fascism.
WASF,
JzB
Jzb, I used the term "terrorism by Americans against Americans" purposely. There are left-wingers who engage in violence, like ELF and the Black Bloc -- but only against property. There is a huge difference between setting out to burn a Hummer and setting out to kill ACLU executives, and hopefully we both know what that difference is.
ReplyDeleteRegarding fascism: I see it as unavoidable. There are no credible left-wing philosophies left offering the sort of simple solutions that the simple-minded want, and the underlying pragmatic philosophy of current center-left governments elsewhere does not lend itself to talking points or bumper stickers. "We're capitalist, except in those places where capitalism doesn't work, where we're socialist" just doesn't fit on a bumper sticker or yard sign and most people will just say "huh? What does that mean? How can you be socialist AND capitalist at the same time?!" Whereas, "Make America Better, Kill a liberal", fits just fine and is easy to understand...
The good(?) news is that fascism invariably leads to national disaster and the installation of a true center-left government. The "?" is because of the "national disaster" part. Just ask Germany what things were like in late 1945. Hundreds of thousands of Germans died of starvation then, huddled shivering in the rubble that used to be their cities...
- Badtux the Pessimistic Penguin
I just finished a book that's a diary of a woman in her '60s living in Hamburg 1940-1946. National disaster only begins to cover it.
ReplyDeleteThe greatest trick played on suburban dipshits was convincing great swathes of them to repeatedly vote against their own interests to the point of financial disaster & ill health (lack of insurance.) And to have deranged nutburgers internalize it to the point of, you know, whatever this guy did, is pure genius.
www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/on-the-other-side-by-mathilde-wolffmnckeberg-trs-ruth-evans-395332.html