Hate And The "Patriots": Like Watching One Long Horror Movie, Wondering Who Dies Next.

In an insightful article about the upsurge in anti-government hate groups and the murderous rampages they spawn, John Avlon calls them "Hatriots"--those people claiming that true constitutional patriotism requires them to disavow, disown, and destroy the United States government--and anyone who gets in their way.

Yes, they're crazies, they're loons, they're nasty-wasties.  (They're not sewing circles, they're hate groups)  But they're out there, they have an endless, unregulated supply of firearms, they have the support of dozens of lawmakers commending them for making good use of the First, Second and 10th Amendments, and, with their new-found "legitimacy", their hatred is escalating.

They're an increasingly violent mob, spurred on by the NRA, by Right Wing radio and television, by Right Wing books and magazines, and worse, by Right Wing politicians who go into politics with the express purpose of taking down the very government currently paying them extraordinarily well for their efforts.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there are 939 known hate groups active in the United States. (PDF file list of groups and chapters, state by state)  Adding group chapters to the list brings the numbers up to nearly 2000.  Think about it:  Two thousand chapters made up of multiple thousands of people who have made a conscious effort to validate hate and spread it around.   They see the current government (the liberal Democrat part; the Barack Obama part) as a fascistic, socialistic, communistic, treacherous force to be reckoned with.

Because the Supreme Court of the United states (apparently "the good guys" now) validated their right to bear arms, because they have been led to believe it's only a matter of time before their religious rights, their free-speech rights, their rights to privacy, their very lives, will be taken away; because they have been led to believe that the current president, Barack Hussein Obama, is the most evil president ever--they believe it's only a matter of time before they'll be forced to start the long overdue, wholly justifiable but messy process leading to revolution and renewal.

I hate horror movies--I don't find being scared out of my mind entertaining at all--but if I could be convinced this is the plot of a horror movie and not reality, I would embrace it for the sick entertainment it is. I know better, of course, which means I'm far more terrified than I could ever be sitting in a darkened movie house telling myself through chattering teeth that it's not real, it's all pretend, it'll be over soon.

Yesterday I spent about an hour reading Jerad Miller's Facebook posts.  (Jerad Miller, with his wife, Amanda, walked into a pizzeria on Sunday, June 8 and shot two police officers dead.  They ran across the street to a Walmart, where they shot a customer dead before dying themselves.)  His posts, for the most part, were the stuff of a huffy-puffy man/boy full of high-minded "patriotism", interspersed with internet word games, theories about secret chemicals invading our bodies, and quiet calls to rise up and revolt against an out-of-control government.  I've read far worse in dozens of political comment sections.

A snippet:

"I know you are fearful, as am I. We certainly stand before a great and powerful enemy. I, however would rather die fighting for freedom, than live on my knees as a slave. Let it be known to our children’s children that free men stood fast before a tyrants wrath and were found victorious because we stood together. That we all cast aside our petty differences and united under the banner of Liberty and Truth.
May future generations look back upon this time in history with awe and gratitude, for our courage to face tyranny, so that they could live happy and free"

I’m way beyond just background checks and licensing guns now. I want laws with teeth.  Carrying military-style assault weapons into public places is not normal behavior.  I want Congress and the President and the Supreme Court to put on their brave hats, their battle helmets if need be, and get to work.  Domestic terrorists are operating openly in our midst.  They're strapping on their big guns, strutting among us, forcing us to accept that living out their own bad boy fantasies supersedes our fears. 

If the law says they're free to take their guns to town, if guns on the streets become as common as cell phones, okay then.  Let's allow them in every city, county, state and federal building in the land--in every chamber, including that of the Supreme Court. Why not?  What is there to fear?

It won't happen.  Nor will it come to pass--until it's too late--that our leaders will take these threats against our government seriously.  But if our own lawmakers aren't willing to take on the anarchists, there are plenty of  good citizens who will. 

Lt. Col. Robert Bateman, an infantryman and military historian, is one of them.  After the Las Vegas shooting last week, he wrote a startling piece for Esquire called, "That's It.  I'm Coming Home". (Printed in its entirety with his permission.)

This is too much. We have Tea Party political activists shooting cops from behind, in the head, then covering their dead bodies with the Tea Party “Gadsden” flag and shouting, “The Revolution begins now!”

No. I am coming home. I need to be there and be part of the solution. Moms Demand Action is getting some traction, but they can use the lean-in of a few U.S. Army Airborne Infantry Rangers. I am only sorry that I did not stand up to this threat to our nation before. I am sorry. I was busy.

I have been overseas in Afghanistan and in NATO nations for half a decade while the insanity of the National Rifle Association expanded and exploded, and the NRA became, essentially, the tool of death in the United States. They made mass killings normal.

Well done, NRA. But this shit is too much.

Constant cop-killing, by people who echo the NRA talking points and the conspiracy theories of the Internet wackos.

So I will come home, and perhaps some of those 3,000 nutjobs who sent me hatemail might want to meet up, because I am more than fricking willing, you whining, little boy-toys who need guns. So many of you have threatened me that I am literally booked, but any of you who feel you have been left out, go ahead. Book a date. You bring your gun to try and convince me that you are not a complete and total idiot, and if you bring a gun, let us see which tool works best.

Wimps need guns. Come and get me.

Bateman, pictured, is an infantryman and a Military Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Oh, and if you try to go lethal, to convince me that your rhetoric is more intellectually compelling than my own written words, I am going to be giggling at the Las Vegas odds on you, with your guns, and me.

So there is that. Bring it on, little boys.

The opinions here are only those of somebody that thinks a “Patriot Movement”—one which executes police officers—is not working in the service of the nation. They are only the opinions of someone who believes that “Tea Party members" who shoot policemen in the head— executing them at point blank range and then declaring that the “revolution” is starting before placing a Don't Tread on Me flag atop the dead bodies of the police officers you just killed in cold blood—are not good.

You may believe otherwise. If you do, screw you.

Last December Bateman received death threats from some folks in the "Free Speech, Give Us Liberty, Don't Tread on Us" movement after his column about the Supreme Court's ruling on the definition of the Second Amendment appeared in the Esquire Digital Edition.  It hasn't stopped him from fighting against the lunacy that is the current gun culture. 

Members of the gun reform group, Moms Demand Action, have been subjected to spitting stalking and rape threats by bullies who can't for the life of them seem to be able to argue persuasively any other way. It hasn't stopped them, either.

Everyone from Gabby Giffords to the families of the Sandy Hook victims have been attacked for their simple pleas for a common-sense approach to gun usage.  It hasn't stopped any of them.

The "They're coming to take our guns" crowd are cowardly bullies.  Their only argument for open carry is "Cuz we wanna!" Their only weapon is a convenient interpretation of the Second Amendment.  They make a public stand by taking their guns to Target, where they pose for pictures in the aisles with bags of Oreos or in the infant department with an assortment of teethers as a backdrop.  To show, I guess, that they're just like us.  Only they're not.  Some of them are play-acting and some of them are dead serious.  The problem lies in not knowing who is who.

  And when one of their own doesn't realize they're only just funnin' and takes their vast conspiratorial fantasies seriously, shooting to kill, they take no responsibility and accept no blame. They pretend to be patriots but look and act like "homegrown terrorists".   And when they've scared enough people into finally demanding that the government take some action, they hiss and pout and get their feelings hurt.

They're the real patriots and anyone who doesn't agree is a fascist and a commie and a stinkin' liberal traitor.   Read any of the comment sections to the links I've provided and see if you can come away from them still thinking we have nothing to fear, that we're not at gun nut crisis mode.  I admit their crazy notions terrify me--but what terrifies me more is the thought that they kept on, they got worse, more innocent people died, and nobody tried to stop them.

(Cross-posted at Dagblog and Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Featured on Mike's Blog Round-up at Crooks and Liars)

A Flag Is What We Make It

In the 21st century controversy over the legitimacy of the 19th century Confederate battle flag, one question remains unanswered:  What does it mean to those who want to fly it?

The answer:  Anything they want it to mean.

When we run our American flag up the flagpole at our house, it means we love the idea behind it, we love the look of the stars and stripes; we love how it waves in the breeze, telling us the wind direction, giving us an indication of the velocity.  (A perk, I know.)

We believe the stories about Betsy Ross and the Star Spangled Banner.  We love the image of the flag-raising over Iwo Jima.  We pledge allegiance to our flag whenever the occasion arises. (Without endorsing the wholly unnecessary Red Scare defense "under God", it should be said.)

My husband the Marine will not allow the flag to touch the ground and replaces it with a new one when it begins to look tattered.

But there are other Americans who use that same flag to make some pretty awful points.  Hate groups bent on destroying the present government use it as a backdrop for photo ops.

George Lincoln Rockwell - American Nazi Party

  

Cliven Bundy uses it to try and save his ranch after refusing to pay his government lease for more than 20 years,

enlisting militiamen hostile to the government to protect him from eviction.

The American flag is a symbol for every American, but, as symbols go, the symbolism is in the eye of the beholder.

So it goes with the Confederate flag.  The KKK uses it interchangeably with the American flag.  Militia groups and White Supremacist groups use it interchangeably with the American flag.  Many Southerners fly it from their homes and stick it on their cars.  It flies on public buildings, much to the displeasure of certain groups who see it as an affront.

Is it offensive?  Is it racist?  It can be, and to some it ever will be.  Vile racism is, at the very least, inappropriate, and if a historic flag is co-opted to endorse hate, it wouldn't be the first time.

For many years we've spent our winters in South Carolina.  The confederate flag is everywhere and, as a Northerner indoctrinated in the offensive nature of what we called the Rebel flag, I found each instance shocking.  But their heritage, I came to realize, is not my history, and nowhere am I more aware of it than when I wander through an old Southern cemetery.

These are their ancestors.  Hundreds of thousands of their countrymen died fighting for a cause they may or may not have even understood.  Were those young men--often just boys--fighting to ensure that wealthy plantation owners could keep their slave labor?  Doubtful.  More likely they saw themselves as freedom fighters making sacrifices in order to save their homes and form their own union.  They fought in a terrible civil war and their side lost.  Because real people in real families were affected forever, this is not a part of their history the modern South is willing to forget.  And we as a nation have no right to ask it of them.

It's not our place to decide what the Confederate flag means and who should be able to fly it.  We've allowed our own American flag to be used and abused in such a way that by rights it should be nothing more than a meaningless piece of cloth.  It's much more than that because it means much more than that to each of us.

At different times in our history, parts of our country belonged to the English, the Spanish, the French.  We fought them and won, and we still fly their flags in remembrance.  It's a part of our history.

The South once fought to belong to the Confederacy.  They had their own flag.  How can we recognize that part of our history without recognizing their flag?   The answer is, we can't.  And the truth is, we shouldn't.


(Cross-posted at Dagblog and Alan Colmes' Liberaland)

Anti-government candidate: Oxymoron or Just Plain Moron?

At his 1981 inauguration, [Ronald Reagan] voiced his simple revolutionary credo: "Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem."  That remark was prescient, although not in the sense that Reagan intended. His naive faith in the private sector's capacity to regulate itself, along with his disdain for many of the necessary functions of the modern state, allowed cronies and crooks to flourish. Inept government, corrupt government and cynical government became severe problems during his tenure, leaving fiscal wreckage that remained for many years after he returned to private life.                  Joe Conason,  "Reagan without Sentimentality"

Hope for the corporates, change for the workers--
and downhill ever since.

It's one thing to want to win a spot in congress in order to change the government.  Wanting better government is a fine and noble calling, and more power to ya'll.  But it takes colossal chutzpah to go after a job where your salary and perks are paid for by the same people whose government you're out to destroy.

We have a government in place, for better or for worse, because we the people are doing our share to keep big government going.  Big government is big because we are a big country.  We've seen what happens when big government is undermined and/or watered down.  It becomes tasty carrion for Big Vultures to feed on, and they won't stop until they're down to bloody bones.

Rand Paul, the libertarian running for a Republican senatorial seat in Kentucky, tells his Tea Party followers, "Capitalism is freedom, we've come to take back our government".  That kind of Gekko talk is building momentum among the Limbaugh/Beck/Palin/ crowd, even though they haven't yet explained what it means to "take back our government".  Take it back to when?  And give it to whom?  Which of the Tea Party heroes is equipped to get us out of this mess?  How will Smaller Government do it?

Last week Sarah Palin backed Clint Didier, a Washington state Tea Party candidate for senate who calls the federal government "a predator" and sees public spending as a "Marxist utopia".  I'm betting Palin, in her rah-rah speech, forgot to mention that over the last 15 years the rabidly anti-government Didier has collected almost $300,000 in Federal farm subsidies.  I'm betting neither one of them consider that little gift from the tax-payers an entitlement. 

At the supposed heart of all the anti-government caterwauling is our astounding deficit.  The truth is, it is totally astounding.  Even I, a complete ignoramus when it comes to budget numbers, know a monster  when I see one.  It's terrifying.  So when those Tea Party greenhorns yak on about how they're going to change things, I want to know exactly how they're going to do it.  What magic plan do they have for altering the course of this out-of-control projectile called SOL America and bringing it back down to earth?  Give it over to private industry?  Isn't that how we got here?  So if not private industry, what's left?

Oh, anti-G people, you're not gonna want to hear this, but. . .

Big government.  They looked the other way when the marauders were laying waste, and now they're left to rebuild our villages (after they've cleaned up a massive oil disaster perpetrated and perpetuated by those same interests who would love to be joining you in your crusade against authority).  They're going to have to do it by re-regulating, by in-sourcing, by creating life-sustaining jobs for Americans, and by assisting the people most affected by the economic downturn.  If that means smacking down a few bankers or forcing corporations to play fair, it won't be the end of the world.  The big guys got greedy and they blew it.  Now they have to play nice.  We can't have people out of work and out of food and out of homes and out of options.  This is America.

 We the people have to take top priority, and you the Tea Partiers have to get your priorities straight.  You can't, for instance, still have control of your taxes once you've paid them.  (If we could, mine would go to free clinics and food banks and homeless shelters--those socialistic necessities now currently swamped and overwhelmed because of America's refusal to end its love affair with Corporatist Bad Boys.)

If you've got gripes, join the club. We've all got gripes. But be mindful that your Tea Party movement, giving succor to the vicious, paranoid rantings of the Limbaughs, Becks, Bachmanns and Palins of the country, also eggs on the hate groups, trained and ready and itching for a reason to do bodily harm.

Do us all a favor and think about who you're actually choosing to run things around here. If your candidate's main qualification is a clever way of expressing his or her hatred for the government, just remember--in America that would be you.

Ramona
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