Have there been any Liberal American terrorists in this country?

Think about it... all major crimes/terrorist activities have been committed by Conservatives. This alone proves that the Neocon mentality is evil and vile. I wonder why this is never discussed.

Timothy Mcvea
Oswald
SirHan Sirhan
Killer of MLK
Killer of Medgar Evers
bombing of Alabama churh
Columbine killings (the kids were racists and anti-govt)

And many more... I just can't think right now... Please add more!

edit to add

Assassins he labels "Type II" have "aggressive, egocentric needs for acceptance, recognition and status." Deprived of success in any major area of their lives, they project their personal frustrations onto political causes and figures. They have unstable relationships. President John F. Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, is the best example of this group.

Clarke fits Arthur Bremer into "Type III." This group could easily be described as "Type II only more so." Clarke describes them as feeling "that the condition of their lives is so intolerably meaningless and without purpose that the destruction of society and themselves is desirable for its own sake." While Type II killers have at least a superficial political commitment, Type III care nothing about social causes. They cannot form relationships with others.

....

I'm wondering what we mean when we say Liberal...we aren't rabidly counter culture.

In a modern analysis I think we have people who resort to violence on both sides of the political spectrum HOWEVER
Violence is much more common and acceptable from the NEAR right than it is in what we currently call the FAR left.

Liberalism in it's current version is primarily non-violent and in many ways transcends the political spectrum. I don't believe we have many violent Liberals as we use the term today. Liberalism has incorporated a lot of pacifistic traits that make it very different from the "leftists" of the 60s and early 70s.

Members of the Weather Underground finally figured out that the ends do not justify the means. I believe the group splintered, with most of the participants realizing that although they violently opposed the Viet Nam war, their blowing up shit made them just as bad as the criminals they were protesting. I do not believe they hurt anyone, but they had planned to set off a bomb at a military function, and it blew up one of the the leaders of the group. After that happened, they started to really examine what they were doing, and decided against using violence.

The real "far left." It's funny today listening to Repugs yammering about anyone in Congress today being "far left."

But that's where you find groups like this, never in the mainstream middle.

Several of them died while building a bomb, and they had planned to blow up an officers club on a military base, which definitely would've resulted in deaths. I think you can call that terroristic.

that in the grand scheme of terrorism, the WUO ranks somewhere above those guys that were arrested in Miami a couple months ago, and below people like McVeigh.

The WU went out of their way to make sure nobody got hurt. They were more vandals than terrorists. They destroyed property.

They weren't terrorists any more than the Boston Tea Party was an act of terrorism.

The SLA claimed to be political radicals, but mostly they were just nuts. They were hardly liberal.

Liberal terrorist is an oxymoron - one of the most basic tenets of liberalism is the willingness to sit down and talk things out, to find common ground. You don't do that by blowing shit up.

That broke off after some SDS members felt the original SDS was too gentle. Kind of appropriated the SDS name for a while. HArdcord Communists that wanted to overthrow the US. Openly fond of weapons.

There weren't too many of them.

Patti Davis was part of some organization ... just don're remember which one.

She was in the militant wing of the Salvation Army.

I doubt more than 10% of people under 25 have any clue who they are, which is odd considering how unusual their story is in American history.

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/crime/caseclosed/tedbundy1.shtml

"Ted Bundy

He was a handsome, charming, urbane and extrovert graduate, who did charity work and campaigned for the Republican Party in the USA. Ted Bundy did not fit the bill as a serial killer."

That would be the one exception I could think of!

I think "luddite" would be the best way to describe his philosophy

"15. Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful. They hate America, they hate Western civilization, they hate white males, they hate rationality. The reasons that leftists give for hating the West, etc. clearly do not correspond with their real motives. They SAY they hate the West because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and so forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist countries or in primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them, or at best he GRUDGINGLY admits that they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIASTICALLY points out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in Western civilization. Thus it is clear that these faults are not the leftist's real motive for hating America and the West. He hates America and the West because they are strong and successful.

16. Words like "self-confidence," "self-reliance," "initiative", "enterprise," "optimism," etc. play little role in the liberal and leftist vocabulary. The leftist is anti-individualistic, pro-collectivist. He wants society to solve everyone's needs for them, take care of them. He is not the sort of person who has an inner sense of confidence in his own ability to solve his own problems and satisfy his own needs. The leftist is antagonistic to the concept of competition because, deep inside, he feels like a loser."

From the Unabomber's Manifesto

http://www.thecourier.com/manifest.htm

:)

Just read that wacked out manifesto of his and you will see every one of the insane looneytarian-right talking points.

he spends a great deal of time complaining about everything that is wrong and evil about leftists.

according to coulter

think back to the 1800's, when anarchists killed many people with bombings, and an anarchist even killed President McKinley.

anymore than it is conservative

it is a rejection of both

Washington
Jefferson
Franklin
Tom Paine
John Hancock
Paul Revere
John Paul Jones
etc
etc
etc


Then of course there were the Republicans who thought that FDR was a liberal terrorist for blowing up all their fortunes and taking some of their money away.

They had extremely RW views on gender roles, sexual orientation, raped women, etc. Plus, they were often pretty nuts. 9I work my senior thesis on Patty Hearst and the SLA -- I know a scary amount of info about them)

A Liberal group, to me, is the ACLU, Catholic Workers, NRDC, Greenpeace, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbionese_Liberation_Army


Ooooooohhhhhhhh, scary

..can't believe I forgot about them.

and they do differ

And of course the Ecumenical Liberation Army.

Oh, I'm sorry - that was in the movie "Network".

the Mao-Tse Tung Hour was the first ever reality TV show!

that movie was so far ahead of its time it isn't even funny

Briton called them terrorists..AND they were LIBERALS!

Radicals do. Liberals fall into "the Great Middle" along with Moderates & Conservatives - all three tend to seek legal (not that some don't cheat a little), peaceful means to change. Its only those of us out on the fringe you have to worry about (and the Far Right has killed many more people in the U.S. than the Far Left, historically.)

The Conservatives are the true terrorists.

this bullshit with trying to equate liberals with leftist radicals is pure bullshit and the GOP needs to be called on it.

to name a few who resorted to "terrorism" to advance "leftist" causes.

responsive terrorism to the "corporate terrorism" they were the recipients of...

Generally the unions would start up at a factory or mine, the IWW or UMW would send in support...the Companies would then pay the local scabs and town leaders to "lock up trouble makers" or...they might even ship in pinkertons to do the dirty work.
Generally they "started it"...and the union folk would respond back...

If anything as much as I hate violence, we would not have the 40 hour work week, decent wages and a number of other laws protecting workers without some of the "we won't take it anymore and we are willing to stand our ground and potentially bust your head" kind of activism...

and prolly the Black Panthers, although I don't think the Panthers were terrorists at all, but were certainly into social change

Not the same as a liberal, but not a conservative either.

Plus, he unsuccessfully targeted Gen. Edwin Walker, a noted right-winger.

Talmadge Hayer, one of the convicted killers of Malcolm X, definitely not a neocon.

Arthur Bremer, George Wallace's would-be assassin: Not sure.

The Manson Family (incl. Squeaky Fromme, who took a shot at Pres. Ford): Neonazi hippies?

The SLA (with special guest star Patricia "Tania" Hearst): Fancied themselves as radical-leftists striking at the Man.

Other than that, can't think of any others...

KKK
Emmett Till's killers
Abortion clinic bombers and abortion doctor assassins

All righties, definitely.

Spin-offs (loosely) from the Weather Underground. Responsible for Brinks robbery in which one Brinks guard was killed, one severely injured. Two more policemen died in a subsequent shoot out.

Having mentioned the above example, I think this is a silly thread. The WU, RATF, BLA etc were not "liberal" organizations, they were revolutionary. But the same could be said about McVeigh and the militia movement as well as some other examples that have been given of "conservative" terrorists. And calling the kids at Columbine "conservatives" is really goofy. They were fucked up teens, tired of being bullied by jocks etc.

Virtually by definition, those who have used violence to make political points within the United States are outside the mainstream of either liberal or conservative politics.

doesn;t dismiss the fact that they were also racists and came from Conservative backgrounds.

My point to this thread is that by far, Cons have used violence to express their opinions far more than liberals..

If you think its stupid... skip this thread.

All those socially conservative middle eastern states: Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc...

Conservative = Terrorist

towards Ghandi, like MLK and now Cindy Sheehan. We have our political side of civil disobedience but for some reason or the other we prefer not to wound, maim or kill so we leave the guns and bombs behind unlike the righties.

burns up cars at dealerships and other things? ELF... ALF... some such thing. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

hummers is terror -- were the car dealers terrified by the act? Or were they just pissed off? I'd suspect the latter, which would make the perpetrators pissoffists, rather than terrorists.

But to call them terrorists is a misnomer because an act of terrorism is intended to create terror. As I said, torching a car lot isn't terror.

OTOH, if they were torching hummers in peoples' driveways, that would qualify as terrorism.

sometimes inadvertenly innocent people or animals get hurt. What if there was someone sleeping in those cars? Many car lots hire security guards who often sit in the cars and listen to the radio on cold nights. Sometimes they sleep in them.

not to terrorize, then they are not terrorists. It doesn't make it any less a crime, and the potential for inadvertant injury or death is there, but it still is not terrorism. Technically speaking, most assassins are not terrorists, either. Their intent is to assassinate one person, not to terrorize anyone. Sirhan did not intend to stop any one else from running for president, only Kennedy.

Webster: the act of terrorizing; use of force or threats to demoralize, intimidate and subjugate, esp. such use as a political weapon or policy.

We need to be careful with our vocabulary, otherwise they'll be able to do with words like this as they are trying to do with 'fascism' -- devalue it to mean, 'anything bad; anything we don't like'.

a living from that property, is terrorizing them. If you don't want them to sell Hummers then go the legal way and change the law so that they can't sell Hummers. That's the civil way to do it. I think we are going in that direction anyway, where gas hogs will probably be phased out and declared illegal after a period of time.

which is, of course, damaging or destroying property belonging to the wealthy.

The worst sin, of coure, is destroying or damaging money.

should clarify what they stand for.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2002/02/ecoterror.html

This paragraph should sum up what liberal environmental groups think of eco-terrorists.

Thanks :hi:

there might oughta be.
First targets: the heads of oil and defense companies
and PNAC signatories
not to mention investment companies like Carlyle

Oh yeah, Rush and his ilk

I used to be anti-gun... Now, I think I'm going to buy one!

The Anarcho-socialist who shot McKinley. I think he's really more of a sad tale of mental problems than true leftist political aspirations.

Of course the words "Liberal" and "Terrorist" have pretty subjective definitions. Afterall, Milton Friedman defines himself as a liberal.

a progressive. If rummy et al wants to start talking about American terrorists then we'll shove it right back in his lyin' eyes.

And Leon Czolgosz (who assassinated McKinley) would probably be considered a leftist anarchist. Not to mention Alexander Berckman, lover of Emma Goldman, who tried to murder the industrialist Henry Clay Frick. And then there's John Brown. But I don't think any of them can be called 'liberals'. But then I'm not sure right-wing terrorists can be called 'conservatives', either. Right or left, anyone who turns to terrorism is an extremist.

Russia, hardly the workers' paradise it was touted to be. In spite of the communist label Russia was a very undemocratic dictatorship and Oswald believed in their politics as well as those of Cuba hardly a democracy either.

But Marxist-Leninist communism as practised in the Soviet Union was a LEFTIST authoritarian ideology, nonetheless. There are authoritarians on both the left and right; being a 'leftist' doesn't mean being a believer in liberal democracy.

the Soviet Union. About the only communist thing the Soviets did was to nationalize and run everything from agriculture to factories, but I'm sure the reason was to control the economy not to create a real socialist democracy, which true communism would have done, and they threw out a few crumbs like free health care which was bare bones.

Nazism did nothing for socialist workers either although this was what their political philosophy supposedly was about. It was a totalitarian regime whose economy was built on war and which war completely destroyed in the end. I often wonder if this is where we are heading? Let's hope who ever destroys our country has a Marshall Plan to help us recuperate, but I doubt it.

you'll note I qualified by saying 'Marxist-Leninist', anyway; and whether you like it or not, it's still a leftist ideology.

And there was nothing remotely socialist about National Socialism; Hitler took over an existing political party, eliminated most of the actual socialist elements of its platform in favour of nationalist fascism, and purged all of the actual socialists who were left when he took power (the so-called 'Night of the Long Knives' in 1934).

after Stalin took power, so it's really meaningless words. It's like claiming the USA is a democracy, it's not it's a representative Republican style government. It's just empty words.

There's a difference between leftist authoritarianism and rightist authoritarianism; and the US may NOT be a democracy in the sense that ancient Athens was, but it's still got a democratically elected government and is thus a REPRESENTATIVE democracy; the words aren't 'empty', because we can use them to make distinctions (which DO exist, like it or not; things that are similar in function may differ in form).

"But then I'm not sure right-wing terrorists can be called 'conservatives', either. Right or left, anyone who turns to terrorism is an extremist."


While most conservatives are against abortion and would like to make it illegal very few are likely to go out and bomb a clinic much less support someone who does.

If bombing an abortion clinic is considered terrorism (even if it doesn't kill anyone) then by all rights one would have to describe the burning of car dealerships or animal laboratories as terrorism as well. Both acts are rooted in ideological causes and are using the physical destruction of something to advance or promote their cause.

They finally declassified his files. Turns out we sent Oswald to the USSR hoping to set him up as a double agent. But the Soviets weren't biting. And he lost his nerve, so they pulled him back out.

Only domestically, or?

So because a few individuals did something, the whole is responsible? So that means we should discriminate against all Muslims?

under GWB. Make no mistake of it. There are terrorist states, just as there are terrorist rebels or revolutionaries as they prefer to think they are.

I thought they were the same?

conservatives in our party called the DLC, they have pulled us to the right. Now liberals seem to be a radical fringe group. All I can say is my party has changed but I haven't. Once a liberal always a liberal.

"Liberal" means to be open minded, willing to change, not bound to dogmatic thinking or methods. In the social situation we are in now, which is very right wing, any thinking contrary to the social norms is almost automatically left wing.

In a very left wing society it would be possible to be a liberal and have right wing thinking.

... how is it they keep referring to old time communists in Russia? Oh, that's right. They call them "CONSERVATIVES".


Conservative: protector of traditional values. In Russia this would make you a Leftist; in the US, a Rightist.

Progressive: advocating social progress. In the United States this means fighting for workers rights. In Russia progressives are pushing for freedom in the market place. The opposite of Conservative.

Totalitarian: law and order. Using the power of government to enact change (if you are progressive) or protect traditional values (if you are a conservative).

Liberal: protector of freedoms new (progressive) or old (conservative). The opposite of Totalitarian.

Liberal and Conservative are not opposite. Nor are Progressive and Totalitarian (otherwise there would be no Communist Revolutionaries). But there is a natural tendency to pair up the other way.

For example, you are a conservative wanting to protect American values. You may occasionally use liberal arguments to support your position (see NRA literature on the 2nd Amendment). But wouldn't it be much easier to protect these traditions by simply making opposition to these values illegal? Laws forbidding flag-burning are a great example of this. That is extreme totalitarianism.

Conversely, short of revolution or coup, to bring about progressive changes the first thing you need is the freedom to advocate those progress changes. Liberalism is a pre-requisite for progressivism. Until the progressives become next generations conservatives.


Bonus: given that every major war won by the US was under a president considered Liberal in his time and that just about the worst thing you can say about a general is that he fought too "conservatively" how did conservatives get the reputation for warmongering and liberals a reputation for pacifism.

First, for what do we use the military? To force change on the American public? Hardly. We use it to protect the United States. That means protecting our traditions against outside agressors. In other words, we use it for conservative means. Albeit, those traditional values may change from generation to generation so that the values being protected by today's military may not be the same as those protected by the military 150 years ago. But they are still doing the conservative thing within their generation.

On the flip side, in every war fought by every country in the entirety of history, anyone who opposed that war was called a traitor by some. And who is standing up for the right to oppose the war? Liberals (see above definitions). 99% of the liberals standing up for this right on any given occasion may be in favor of that particular war. But a true liberal is going to defend your right to oppose it just the same.

Eventually, it just becomes easy (re: lazy) to simply say Liberals are against war. You read it all the time right here on DU. The people who say it are wrong. But they get pretty pissed off when you try telling them that.

often used to include everyone on the left of the spectrum including communists and radicals who are too far left to call themselves liberals.

From Widipedia

The Boston Tea Party was a direct action protest by the American colonists against Great Britain in which they destroyed many crates of tea on ships in Boston Harbor. The incident, which took place on Thursday, December 16, 1773, has been seen as helping to spark the American Revolution.

:shrug:

it was more an act of civil disobedience.

Nat Turner (even though, he may be considered more of a religious fanatic rather than liberal--but the ends he was working toward was a liberal cause)