Joe Conason: Democracy and Domestic Violence

from Truthdig:



Democracy and Domestic Violence

Posted on Mar 31, 2010
By Joe Conason


When the Department of Homeland Security released a cautiously worded report on the potential dangers of right-wing extremism last April, the talk-radio wingnuts and certain Republican lawmakers went into spasms of indignation. Clearly, that report had been conjured up by White House Democrats to smear conservatives. (Actually, the nine-page document was commissioned by the Republican administration of George W. Bush.)

“There is not one instance they can cite as evidence where any of these right-wing groups have done anything,” Rush Limbaugh told his listeners.

A year later, we know that Limbaugh was wrong (again). Up in northern Michigan, the Hutaree militants were collecting weapons and ammunition—and allegedly plotting the assassination of law enforcement officers with the same kind of roadside bombs and projectiles used by terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan. The difference is that those groups claim to be Muslim; the violent extremists over here prefer to be known as Christian.

We also know that the recent outbreak of window smashing against Democrats in the aftermath of the passage of health care reform can be traced to a militia activist from Alabama. He justified urging those attacks on his website as a warning that America is on the brink of mass violence. It is a theme he has promoted for more than a decade, dating back to the militia movement of the Clinton years, when he authored a pamphlet titled “Strategy and Tactics for a Militia Civil War.” ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/democracy_and_domestic_violence_20100331/