Can we start honestly talking about what the west is facing now from the far right?
You’ve got teatards threatening to destroy the American economy, Fox Newsers hacking and blackmailing everyone in sight in the UK for who knows how long, and now it looks like a crazy right-wing terrorist (and apparent Pam Geller fan) killed nearly 100 people in Norway yesterday.
To top it all off, we’re told over and over again that both sides do it.
I’m not advocating that we start dropping freedom bombs or torturing people, far from it. But the rising tide of home-grown right-wing extremism in the west scares me a lot more than anything going on in the Middle East.
Rihilism
Linky? Me no speak Wegian…
Lysana
Not to mention how we’re supposed to believe every far-right Christian extremist who blows up and blows people away or tries to is a “lone nut.”
I’m not blaming Christianity as a whole any more than I blame Islam for Al Qaeda. I am saying that you have a large point here. White terrorists are not treated with the same alarm, and they should be. Especially since we aren’t asked as white people to disavow people like McVeigh.
Who’s up for holding Pat Robertson’s feet to the fire for this one?
MikeJ
My Norwegian ain’t what it used to be. Actually my Norwegian is baby talk in Swedish. Could you give us the gist of that link?
bob h
Before we learned that the attacker was a Nordic Aryan, the networks’ knee-jerk response was to put on experts on Al Qaeda, etc.
MikeJ
Got it. He linked to her blog on a newspaper web site. Good to know that comment sections of newspapers are cesspools all over the world.
Joseph Nobles
The horrific death count of Mr. Brievik will pale in comparison to the human misery unleashed by the Christian Tea Party fundys about to lay the American government on the Procrustian bed of the debt ceiling.
Ol' Dirty DougJ
Hit the translate button, this is the only link I have. So some right-wing nut with the same name and hang-ups as this guy, wrote an extended riff on a Pam Geller column he liked in the comment section of anti-immigrant discussion group. This is via Charles Johnson, I’m not linking to his full post, because it makes some other assertions about the guy that I don’t think are true, and which Johnson probably hasn’t had time to correct yet.
Danny
My pet theory is that movement conservatism anno 2011 is pretty much the second coming of the new left ~1970. Which, i guess, would make Obama the second coming of the Dickster :)
Keith G
My disdain for the mentality of this current crop of American Conservatives (including members of my family) is without peer. That said, do not connect the Norwegian incident to this. At this point, it is an isolated incident.
I know the issues on this side of the pond are horrible, but as yet I see no ‘meta’ dots to connect. So far, we are experiencing an American problem created by American politicians (Obama included, btw).
Alex S.
Well, the West is losing its global dominance. People of a conservative mindset can’t deal with it because their ideology demands some kind of superiority. And this superiority is not going to come back. I’d suggest to use more of the kind of strategies that successful developing countries use against the great powers: protectionism and a focused development of key industries, maybe nationalize them. I’d do that only gradually though, Just as gradual as the West loses its power. And then there is the demographic factor. Capitalism demands growth and the two main factors of growth are technological progress and population growth. Europe is facing the decision of either opening the gates or accepting relative stagnation with heavy consequences to their social programs. The USA still has room to grow but has the same kind of debate because it benefits the Republicans politically (scare white people of minorities, demand cuts to the social net and blame the government). So the solution in this case is to stop these false debates. But that’s far easier said than done.
Alex S.
Also, I think M_C should be unbanned. Her opinion counts here no matter how smug she presents it. Just yesterday she linked global right-wing acts and got accused of derailing the thread. Now DougJ has a post up with the same content (just replace Pam Geller with ED Kain).
Rihilism
Translate button? Oh hell no, I MUST be spoon fed, ;)…
Chyron HR
@Alex S.:
Thanks for sharing, Guy Incognito, but there’s a slight difference between talking about the political views of the shooter and going “LOL ED KANE SUX WAI XD”
Rihilism
Huh?
Linda Featheringill
How horrible for the people of Norway! My deepest sympathy to them all.
Sometimes philosophies are international, with no collusion or conspiracy. In the first half of the 20th Century, secular fascism walked across the face of the earth like a living monster, with a mind of its own. Now we are trying to cope with religious fundamentalism, which be a different animal but it also is roaming around all over the world.
There were some religious people who embraced fascism [Father Coughlin comes to mind] but it was still secular IMO. Today’s right-wing fundamentalists include some people who don’t pray but I still think it’s a religion-gone-wrong movement. And like the earlier fascism, it’s international.
John Puma
“Conservofascism”
Well constructed!!!
Will spread it far and wide, probably with non-specific attribution to non-self.
Thanks
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Alex S.
Then I’m not getting the “global dominance” angle from a Norwegian, because the last time Norwegians were anything like dominant on the global scene they were more or less the weaker part of the Denmark-Norway entity, commonly known as the Kingdom of Denmark.
And, ya know, as much as it seems dude hates Muslims, he just killed a whole bunch of other Norwegians. What kind of a nationalist is that?
Keith G
@Rihilism I think that it is certainly possible that some of President Obama’s choices in dealing with the Right (since Nov. 2008) have been sub-optimal. We shall see.
edited
Alex S.
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
It’s not only about Norway, it’s about the West, Christianity and white people. And it’s about defending conservative values from ‘evil’ leftist multiculturalism.
murbella
is my timeout up yet?
NamelessGenXer
When do we start talking Treason and firing squads?
@Lysana 2
I am. They want to declare war on reason? Bring it, motherfuckers.
Linda Featheringill
From religious point of view:
There is one question that the US Christianists don’t want to ask themselves. Just whom are they worshiping? Many have been caught in the trap of bowing down before a mental mirror. They are worshiping themselves. They bestow divinity upon themselves. Their opinions become divine edicts, not to be questioned or examined.
From the outside, it looks like the same thing has happened to Islamic fundamentalists. Probably other religions include people with the same problem.
It may be that the religion with the most adherents is the worship of Self.
Hbin
What do you think about this post by ED Kain?
http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/…..in-norway/
He still seems convinced it’s the work of Islamic terrorist (as he said, there are white Muslims after all, and I guess there must be white, Christian, right wing Muslims too).
As my comment is stuck in moderation, he probably would have updated the post with some excuse or other by the time my post appear. Oh well, at this point in time, his post ends with this sentence:
Anything after that would be a further update after I posted this comment. But I’m curious what you think about his post up to this point.
Hbin
Another interesting quote from ED’s piece. I’m interested in his use of the word “host nation”. Not “their nation”, but “host nation”. Acknowledgement from ED Kain that Muslims don’t really belong in the countries in Europe? That their status will always remain as visitors (as implied by the word “host”)? I wonder if he hold the same views about Muslims in America. Also his use of the word immigrants. Until what generation are you still considered an immigrant? If your father is the one who immigrated? Your grandfather? Your great-great grandfather? Surely they must be some Muslims in Norway who were born there, not every single one of them are first generation immigrants. But to ED Kain, they are all grouped as Muslim immigrants.
Calouste
@Linda Featheringill
You might want to read up on Franco, and the autrocities of the Spanish Civil War. Or how Mussolini played Italy’s Catholics.
beltane
Linda raises a good point about the ego-based nature of fundamentalist religion. To a fundamentalist, “God” exists to serve their needs, confirm their prejudices, and justify their behavior. That is how the Blingee Dispensing Jesus of the American right came to bear no resemblance whatsoever to the Jesus of traditional Christianity, who was hardly the standard-bearer of crass materialism and greed.
As with the OK City bombing, I immediately suspected right-wing terrorists in the Norway attack. After all, it was an attack on a Labour Party youth camp, and it’s always the wingnuts who talk about killing leftists.
beltane
@Hbin
EDK’s piece could easily have been written 100 years ago with Jewish and Italian (Commune-ists & Anarchists) immigrants filling the role of scary Muslims. When it comes to the fear of Brown People, there really is nothing new under the sun.
Nicole
The link to EDK’s post is either faulty, or it’s been removed.
Hbin
Sorry. Is this working?
http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2011/07/22/explosions-shootings-in-norway/
JPL
In our own country christian conservatives are willing to tank the economy for their own political gain and power.
Hbin
http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2011/07/22/explosions-shootings-in-norway/
I’m sorry, is this working? Also link to the front page. It’s the third post on the blog. I’m not making this up, this really exists.
http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/
beltane
EDK’s post was probably removed. Maybe he will post a new one explaining how difficult it is to integrate Aryan Conservative Christians into civil society.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
Christ, just a….terrifying situation all around.
Calouste
@beltane:
It was rather obvious, was it? Bomb near the Socialist prime minister’s office and then a shooting at a Socialist Party youth camp. Anyone whose first reaction was that it had something to do with Islamic terrorism at that point has some serious prejudices.
WereBear
An excellent point; that is what it devolves into, certainly.
The racist, xenophobic, conspiracy-loving Tea Partiers are no different than the racist, xenophobic, conspiracy-loving Birchers which preceded them. Before Nixonland, Rick Perlstein wrote Before the Storm, about the sea change Goldwater created. At that time, the Birchers were embarrassments; fine as warm bodies for errands, but kept firmly out of the light, and out of the mainstream of the party.
But now, the lunatics are running the asylum.
The Tea Party is indistinguishable from the Republicans now because the Bush years didn’t destroy the party so much as reveal what it had devolved into; crazed, hateful, idiots below, and bloated psychopathic puppet masters pulling the strings.
This didn’t used to be so. Their Base used to be middle management small business types. Social climbing, authoritarian, and rigid as they might be at times, they had a genuine regard for their communities and the Business of the Nation, writ small and large. As winners at Life’s Lottery, they might be slow to understand the troubles of those who were down, but they did not make it their life’s work to shove them further down, either.
I agree with those writing here who have pointed out these people did not vanish; they migrated to the Democratic Party, like it or not. The Republicans are “smoke n mirroring” their lack of numbers with an overlarge media presence but they continue to actually represent fewer and fewer people. Which is why they are so devoted to rigging every possible aspect of the process.
Hbin
Ah, it appears I’ve been banned from posting, since my comments fixing the broken link is not appearing or even put in moderation. Oh well, I’m sure people who are actually interested can go to League of Ordinary Gentlemen blog themselves and read the post. Frankly, I expected better than this from a liberal blog.
Svensker
@ Hbin
It’s been taken down. I eagerly await EDK’s post about right wing Christianist terrorists. It will probably appear about the same time as the retractions of the “Religion of Peace? ! !” e-mails I got from my winger rellies.
Hbin
No, the post is still there. Check the front page of League of Ordinary Gentlemen blog. It’s the third post down.
http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2011/07/22/explosions-shootings-in-norway/
Alex
I share many of your political propensities, but this is an overreaction. Facts are facts. Compare the number of terrorist attacks or attempts in the Western Hemisphere over the past ten years by self-identified Muslims versus self-identified right-wingers. Not even close. You don’t even attempt to maintain consistency on this point, and the hypocrisy is a bit galling because you’d be the first person to push against concern trolling about a growing “Muslim problem.” Many innocent people are dead, and you’ve attempted from the beginning to preempt legitimate grief on this subject by inflaming it with a political angle. Slow down, Doug.
Mark S.
@beltane:
It’s still there. Here’s a well-thought out comment by Mr Kain:
Take that, Occam!
Alex S.
I am still able to find ED’s post:
http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2011/07/22/explosions-shootings-in-norway/
It can also be found on his Forbes blog:
http://blogs.forbes.com/erikkain/2011/07/22/explosions-and-shootings-in-norway-al-qaeda-suspected/#more-1127
I like how he managed to mention the War on Drugs in this one.
HRA
Hbin@23
Excellent comments. I am a child of European immigrants and even an immigrant by being brought here from Canada as a preteen.
My husband has no idea who came here first on both sides of his family. He does not embrace the crazies in any way although he is a Republican. I have always considered it may be others with his lack of when their ancestors came here or those who had ancestors come here very early on believe they are the chosen ones and/or the real Americans.
dr. bloor
The short answer is “No, because that could never again happen here.”
Until, of course, it has.
Alex S.
@Alex:
I don’t have the facts on hand right now, but I am almost sure that you are wrong. The attacks by muslims draw more media attention and they usually are bigger than right-wing strikes but the frequency of right-wing attacks or attempts is far higher. The easiest example is the number of threats made against President Obama. Some of them were more advanced than others, remember the Neo-Nazis from Kentucky?
JPL
Hbin….Jeffro on the open thread has a link to Rubin’s blog on the Washington Post blaming islamic extremists rather than christian extremists. That has yet to be corrected also, too. I’m not going to provide the link.
dr. bloor
@Alex:
Why yes, they are. But I guess we should all just wait until the white supremacists can match Al Qaeda body for body.
JPL
How long before red state writes a post stating the man was an organic farmer so that proves he was a liberal commie?
Hbin
Alex S @36
The Forbes article is very measured, nothing offensive at all, no mention of “host nation” and “Islamic immigrants” or him still convinced that it is Islamic terrorists recruiting local blond, blue-eyed Norwegians. I guess Mr Kain is very aware of his audience at those two publications, and how they differ, and what sentiments are appropriate for which set of audience. This young man has a very bright future in politics, in my humble opinion.
Ol' Dirty DougJ
I’d say that, in the west, it’s fairly close (it’s not close worldwide obviously). The last ten years in Europe, you have two big terrorist attacks, the Spain train bombings and what happened yesterday in Oslo. In the last 20 in the US, you have two: McVeigh and 9/11.
I just don’t see a huge difference in order of magnitude.
And Islamic radicals aren’t threatening to cause a default, they’re not on my radio screaming about the gold standard, they’re not running companies that hack into everyone’s phone calls.
The right-wing scares me more, they do. I think I’m entitled to that opinion, I think that a reasonable reading of the facts suggests that I am right to feel this way.
Alex
@dr. bloor, if we are going to discuss a “growing terrorism problem in the West,” then I would expect the facts to be marshaled to involve materialized threats. Your citation to a frankly nebulous study about the growth in domestic right-wing extremism does not come even close to approaching a refutation of my initial point.
Head Bulshytt Talker in Chief of the Temple of Libertarianism(superluminar)
WAI are we still talking about EDK? Pretty much my last thought when hearing about the Norway stuff was “I really need to know what noted terrorism expert Erik Kain thinks about this”. Who cares.
Alex S.
@Hbin:
He tried to do it here as well, but I guess he figured out that it’s a bridge too far and that it would lead him away from the corporate payrolls.
Marc
I was going to say this is a completely unfair comparison, until I read that Ordinary Gentlemen post. Jesus.
Judas Escargot
@Linda Feathergill:
IMO, this, exactly. The monotheisms seem to have this property, where damaged psyches use them to project the ego outwards. Deep unconscious issues get projected onto the Other. Personal preferences and cultural assumptions get mutated into Universal Laws, violated by that Other. The belief in one and only one eternal perfect God implies that the unbeleiving Other can then be rightfully treated as less than human.
In the absence of the one God, you can substitute the idea of One True People, or the One True Ideology, with much the same result. It’s possible that the notion that there is one true anything is in and of itself dangerous when adopted by someone with a sick or wounded psychology.
There has, to my knowledge, never been a Buddhist terrorist in modern times. This is probably not a coincidence.
Marc
The kind who hates left-wingers as much as he hates Muslims. You know, like we have over here.
Linda Featheringill
@Ol’ Dirty DougJ: #44
Hot dogs! I actually agree with Doug on this one. [Maybe I should mark that on my calendar. :-)]
In our current reality, it is not the Islamic fundamentalists who are trying to take over our country.
dr. bloor
@Alex: Well, you could try following the SPLC and other groups more closely rather than shoot down the press release I linked to for convenience.
And unlike yourself, I see no need to wait until they start putting “materialized threats” on the scoreboard before I start taking them seriously.
Head Bulshytt Talker in Chief of the Temple of Libertarianism(superluminar)
DougJ @44
I think you’re right on this. The Muslim terrorism is obviously a problem, but by no stretch of the imagination is it any kind of existential threat, and remains the actions of a tiny minority. The new type of conservative on both sides of the Atlantic as well as other nations is a serious threat to everyones livelihoods.
Also, you missed out the London 7/7 bombing.
gnomedad
Let’s take our time with any connection between Norway and our own right-wing. Give them time to dig themselves in claiming the shooter was really a liberal or how the kids should have been armed. If we engage in loose speculation, they’ll go into “liberals are exploiting this tragedy” mode. Well, they’ll do that anyway, but no need to give them a head start.
Head Bulshytt Talker in Chief of the Temple of Libertarianism(superluminar)
Comment above referred to #49, soz.
The actions of the Sri Lankan army over the past few years beg to differ.
Citizen_X
Good post, DougJ, but I object to the term “conservofascism.” That’s redundant. It’s just like-you-read-about, original-recipe fascism.
Steeplejack
@JPL:
I summarize her piece upstairs.
WereBear
Comment above referred to #49, soz.
The Sarin attack on the Tokyo subway was perpetrated by a Buddhist cult.
Now you can say “but that’s not Buddhist!” and you’d be right. Any more than the whacked out Totalitarian Jesus bears any resemblance to the actual teachings of Jesus as described in the gospels.
But there you are. Anything can be FUBARed.
gnomedad
@WereBear:
I mostly agree. Crazy people can frame their behavior with any belief system they’re familiar with. Still, it’s valid to ask whether some belief systems inspire more destructive behavior in crazy people than others.
gocart mozart
@17
They were liberal/soshalamist/DFH and therefore must die to protect the Norwegian fatherland and FreeDumb Q.E.D.
WereBear
Yes, absolutely. The Pagan/Wiccan outlook, being a nurturing/nature outlook, probably has a steeper uphill climb to Murder than religions that are more organized and hierarchical, and include some “put unbelievers to the sword” kind of history.
Bender
Another rabble-rousing, fact-free post from Doug.
He sure the fuck is! If he isn’t, then WHERE IS HIS PLAN? Why will he not put a deficit-reduction plan on paper to be scrutinized by the public? Why are only Republicans expected to produce a plan? Why will Obama only negotiate in secret? (Although “Islamic radical” is too harsh on him, Doug. Rev. Wright is a crazy whitey-hater, but not quite that bad.)
Again, your constant, whiny fear-mongering on the non-existent threat of default is either cynically contrived to fool your drones or woefully ignorant of reality. Take your pick.
That Senator Obama sure had a purdy word-hole!
gocart mozart
Obama is an Islamic radical in much the same way as Bender is a serial goat fucker only less so. The rest of Bender’s post is just as aggressively stupid so I will ignore it.
Jewish Steel
Slavoj Zizek has been saying essentially this for a long time. Our choices are between blandly unsatisfying technocrats who lean left and fascists.
I feel like a DFH when I starting throwing around the F word, but you gotta call a spade a spade, you know?
Frapalinger
Regardless of whether or not the world wide right is nothing more than a bunch of bigoted, dangerous, unreconstructed black shirts (they are), I am proud of you, Doug, for honoring that great troubadour who was taken from us far too early, Ol’ Dirty Bastard. Kudos Doug, Kudos.
danimal
Oh hell, I was going to feed the troll, but my blood pressure gets high just typing logical responses to drivel. The Obama budget proposals over the past year are publicly available.
Any idiot that asks for private negotiated terms to be made public is up to no good. And any conservative who tries to pin the debt and deficit on Obama is a blatant propagandist.
Why should the Republicans put up a plan? You broke it, you buy it. The evil of the Bush budgets knows no bounds.
Judas Escargot
@superluminar, @WereBear:
I stand corrected. I hadn’t heard or read about either of those attacks.
I’d classify those as “one true people” attacks, but clearly Buddhism didnt help out at all in those cases.
Time for a better theory…
Citizen_X
Hey, this is unfair! There’s good evidence that Obama is not Islamic or radical.
But we have no evidence at all that Bender doesn’t fuck goats
Ash Can
Bender’s been plenty goofy before, but I think that comment above shows us he’s finally lost it for good. (Unless that was all snark, which I realize is possible; I haven’t had my caffeine yet.)
Rome Again
@Linda Featheringill:
Interesting. TZ and I have had a debate recently. I have done a lot of study of religion and he hasn’t. I posited that these right wing extremist Teabaggers are very heavily influenced by the religious right, and he disagrees. We had this debate just last week, and now I seem to be seeing everyone else discussing it (this is like three or four times in the last week I’ve seen someone address this subject) and each time, it seems the answer is that they are very heavily influenced by the religious right.
Anya
Did you notice how, one scenario of the attack is by a whole religion, and the other is by just a crazy man?
Rome Again
@Bender:
Last I heard, the power of the purse is in Congress. It’s up to them to negotiate in fairness to ALL Americans and stop politicizing this for 2012 votes.
Bill Murray
I don’t know about this thesis. I would say the issue was less Goldwater and more the combination of the Civil Rights Act and Nixon’s Southern strategy put all the racist crazies in one party. Previously they had been split between the parties and easily marginalized. After they coagulated in the Republican party and combined with the Southern Baptist Convention kicking out their more moderate leadership and going political (a process that spanned ~1960 to ~1980 and maybe as late as 2000) the Republicans were on their way to today.
Rome Again
@gnomedad:
When the Old Testament/Torah and the Quran both state that it’s perfectly acceptable to kill people who perform certain acts (working on the Sabbath is one example), it isn’t just the crazy that we have to worry about. Some people may become so indoctrinated that they believe it’s okay (and they may even be duty-bound) to kill even without having any mental disability. Faith is all they need to have.
Anya
My heart breaks for the poor kids who were enjoying a nice summer day, and this monster brought violence and death to them. Words fail. I can never understand what drives anyone to kill innocent people, specially children. The shock and devastation this caused is so immeasurable. My heart goes out to the families and people of Norway. I visited there when I went on my grand trip to Europe and North Africa. It’s a lovely place and the people couldn’t be nicer. Whatever the reasons, the man who committed these heinous crimes used, to justify his slaughter is at the moment irrelevant.
Alex S.
Kudos Doug, I saw what you did there.
Bender
50% snark. That’s the most I can do.
Of course, the Obama quote from 2006 is real. You guys don’t wanna believe it, but it’s real.
Thymezone
@Rome #77 — don’t waste your time with the congenital moron Bender.
THE PLAN he bleats about was to have a clean debt limit increase just like every one that preceeded it. That would have been the correct thing to do.
Then, when the Tea Party nihilist children threw a tantrum and insisted that the debt limit be recklessly used as a threat to blow up the economy unless they got all their fiscal demands met immediately, the president’s plan was to have the parties meet several times a week at the Vice President’s office to work out an agreeable debt reduction package and do that while raising the debt limit.
Unfortunately, the Tea Party lunatics never had any intention of actually governing the country. They imposed unacceptable constraints on the process, and even suggested that letting the debt limit deadline expire and let the fiscal damage occur just to spite the country and world for not playing along with their unconscionable recklessness.
What’s probably going to happen here is that Obama is going to get pretty close to the condition-free debt limit increase he originally asked for, while exposing the Tea Party horse’s asses for the frauds that they have been the entire time. And probably seal his reelection.
The president is under no legal or moral obligation to cough up a plan just because a crop of ignorant buttheads shows up on Capitol Hill and demands that they get their way in unraveling 40 years worth of fiscal policy in one session.
Rome Again
@Ol’ Dirty DougJ:
No, but they ARE enjoying a hearty laugh watching it all unfold.
Rome Again
@Thymezone:
That’s not news to me, but thank you. I totally agree, but, I just wanted to point out that it’s not Obama’s duty to raise the debt ceiling (in fact, Constitutionally speaking, it ‘s not anyone’s duty, at all!)
Joel
@Lysana: Actually, that may be the case from the nutjobs, but the more “respectable” neoconservative faction is starting to rally this as just cause for more security, maybe with added war!
Thymezone
The Obama quote was, of course, a response to the irresponsible Bush tax cuts followed immediately by two expensive unfunded wars. And I take it to be a reasonable set of remarks in that context. Notice, however, that the Democrats did not rig up a phony crisis to blackmail Bush into reversing his course lest the Democrats force the country into default and blow up the economy. That’s because that would have been irresponsible and reckless. Just as it is now, that the Republicans are doing just that.
Thymezone
It’s not Obama’s duty to jump through hoops to undo the wreckage caused by the previous and other former administrations and their reckless accruals of debt, the biggest reason being that the solution to the debt problem is the same one that was in place before that debt problem was created by George Bush: Reverse the Bush tax cuts, and put stimulus in place to increase employment. With that, the surplus that Bush shitcanned would be back in a few years without doing much of anything else. Not exactly rocket science. Surely the Tea Party would be in favor of that?
celticdragonchick
Bullshit. The incidence of multiple attacks at the same time is a hallmark of Islamic extremists. As far as I know, this is the first time that this (coordinated attacks)has been done by right wing reactionaries.
celticdragonchick
True, unfortunately.
Joel
From Fallows:
He also has an excellent post on the vile Jennifer Rubin and her bile in the Washington Post.
Rome Again
@Thymezone:
If they cared one whit about being educated and doing right by the entire world population, yes. Sadly, they do not.
The Raven
Croak.
Liberty60
sigh…I guess not.
Bender
Their reckless accruals of debt? Blame Bush’s hostile business policies? Blame Clinton’s failed stimulus that he promised would keep unemployment below 8%? Blame all the other Presidents for their 3% GDP deficits so we can praise Obama for his 11% GDP deficits?
Really? Two-and-a-half years into his term? Is there any more sure admission of Obama’s incompetence?
No one’s asking him to “jump through hoops.” People are starting to ask why 52% of Americans expected an inexperienced “community organizer” to lead the nation’s largest business.
Also,
“Do you have a degree in Economics?”
Martin
You do realize that first 11% GDP deficit budget was Bush’s, right? He signed TARP. He signed the first big-3 bailout. That plummet in 2009 revenues was his budget.
hilarie
On how rational it would be to have assumed Muslims were responsible for the Oslo slaughter:
http://www.dangardner.ca/index.php/articles/item/90-remember-that-eurabian-civil-war
Islamists responsible for a half percent of all terrorist attacks in Europe.
But of course it’s still obvious they were behind this one.
I despise Islam, whether extremist or moderate. I despise Christianity on the same terms. Any blinder-ideology is a pollutant and a threat to friends and neighbors.
Knee-jerk anti-Muslim prejudice falls into the same category.
jim
I suspect the real onset of serious domestic civil unrest in the US will come from right-on-right violence. A lot of Teabaggers have grown to hate each other at least as much as they do lefties, though they’re keeping relatively quiet about it – & there’s now a serious power-struggle going on behind the scenes for control of this small but influential (& increasingly unstable) movement, among folks who openly worship arms & violence. History shows that this situation rarely ends peacefully.