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[This post was published in March of 2015. It seemed timely to bring it back.]
“The domestic radical right has killed more people than radical Islam since 9/11 in the United States, without a doubt.” Those are the words of Ryan Lenz, principal writer of a Southern Poverty Law Center study of violent “terrorist” attacks that occurred in the U.S. between 2009 and 2015. In a classic example of confusing ideologues with facts, the SPLC study found that while US security officials were focused exclusively on protecting against foreign organizations of Islamic extremists, Americans were steadily being picked off by home-grown, Christian lone wolves.
Here are the confusing facts that the SPLC winnowed from the facts of the cases:
- The total number of “terrorist” attacks in the six-year period: 63, or on average, one every 34 days. (That is precisely the frequency of school shootings in the U.S. since Sandy Hook in 2012, according to a CNN analysis.)
- Three quarters of the attacks were conducted by a single individual operating entirely alone. Another 15 per cent were carried out by two people. That leaves 10 per cent that involved some kind of organization.
- Half of the attackers expressed venomous anti-government sentiments, and were members of the so-called “patriot” movement of Christian libertarians (although the clubs, militias, Klans or whatever were not involved with the attacks).
- The other half of the attackers comprised haters — of women, of abortion, of non-white people and of non-Muslims.
- Most of the attacks (59%) involved guns, 25% explosives. The use of guns has been rising, the use of explosives is trending downward, because it has become more difficult to obtain explosive materials. Possibly because we don’t have a National Dynamite Association.
- The Ku Klux Klan, thought by many to be a powerful force among the deranged, is a mere shadow of its former self. It has become a kind of Al Sharpton of the extreme right, showing up at events already in progress, littering the area with fliers, getting on TV, and bugging out before it’s over.
The SPLC is not the first organization to warn about the increasing danger of violent right-wing extremism. (By the way: although almost all these attack dogs are white Christians, it would be indefensible to claim their religion was somehow responsible for their criminality. You listening, Bill Maher?) The first organization to get its hair on fire over this threat was — wait, wait, don’t tell me — our own Department of Homeland Security. It was 2009, and in a report on “Right-Wing Extremism” the DHS said this:
“Lone wolves and small terrorist cells embracing violent rightwing extremist ideology are the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States.” The authors reported a surge in right wing extremism, and thought it was not a coincidence that it was taking place immediately after the election of America’s first black president.
The right-wing nuts went nuts. (The report was actually a confidential heads-up to police forces, but was immediately leaked to the wing nuts.) Because the report pointed out that the extremists were having some success recruiting among veterans, the American Legion among others screamed that the report was an attack on veterans. The leader of another fringe group, known as Republican Members of Congress — a guy named John Boehner — found the whole thing to be “offensive and unacceptable,” explaining that DHS was using the word “terrorist” not to describe Al Qaeda, but “to describe American citizens who disagree with the direction Washington Democrats are taking our nation.”
Almost immediately, DHS secretary Janet Napolitano (who, we must remember, worked for Barack Obama) withdrew the report, apologized for its contents, and accused the team that put it out of not following proper procedures. Virtually everyone who worked on the study resigned.
It used to be a joke to say, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan once did, “You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.” Where American right-wing nuts are concerned, it is no longer a laughing matter. Knowing the facts, about who is really out to get you, can be a life-and-death matter.
there are a whole bunch of things i am concerned about vis a vis the world at large. i have little faith that voting will help. thank you for reposting this, as a reminder.
This article is just another example of hacking away at the fringes. Since the dawn of mankind, one tribe or another has been actively murdering their neighbors, so why get bent out of shape trying to define who is the latest and greatest murderer?
The bottom line is that Homo sapiens is at the core an aggressively acquisitive animal with no real moral scruples when the chips are down.. We have multiplied to the extent that now we can bring this experiment to its logical conclusion by mortally crippling the entire planet. We are all implicated; no one is innocent. An effort to parse the blame for this predicament is at bottom an attempt to escape responsibility for an equal share in the chaotic and tragic result.
With all due respect, not all human sociocultural milieux have proven equally aggressive and acquisitive in history. Some have been much more peaceable than others. Examples can be provided if it should merit your interest and pleasure.
You can invoke the ceteris paribus mantra: all other things being equal (such as historical and geographical factors etc), we’re all equally rotten. Well, are we then to say that no one should ever be jailed, such we’re all potential Jeffrey Dahmers?
It’s always more comforting to one’s ego to think that we’re ALL responsible for the current mess and no one is innocent. But that’s grossly unfair and just not true. Many non-Western peoples would have preferred NOT to adopt the industrial way of life if they had a choice. Serious.
All in all, sorry, but I find the contents of your post a little difficult to accept.
You are correct that some humans are more aggressive and acquisitive than others, but the observation stands, and in the final analysis, it does not matter how you slice the blame, and can serve no purpose other than to seek an apology for one’s own share of the responsibility we all should carry. The practice is undignified.
So, the low-income individual struggling to make ends meet and the central banker who can send entire economies crashing down at a mere whim are equally responsible for our current mess?
Yes. If and when the first man finds the power to act as the second man, he will grasp the power and misuse it.
Ji Shi (ruler of the state of Lu) was going to attack Chuan-yü (a small subordinate state within the borders of Lu). Ran Qiu and Ji Lu (two ex-students of Confucius who had been working as ministers for Ji Shi) went to Confucius and told him about this.
“Qiu!” said Confucius. “Is it not you who are at fault here? Chuan-yü was appointed long ago by a former king to preside over the sacrifices to Mount Meng in the east, and moreover lies within the territory of our state. And its ruler pays homage to the same shrines to the gods of earth and grain. Why resort to attacking it?”
Ran Qiu replied, “Our lord wishes it; neither of us do.”
“Qiu,” said Confucius, “Zhou Ren of old once said, ‘When one can put forth his ability, he should take his place in the ranks of office; when he finds himself unable to do so, he should retire from it.’ How can one be a guide to a blind man, who does not support him when he is tottering, nor raise him up when he has fallen?
“And further, you speak wrongly. When a tiger or rhinoceros escapes from his cage, or when a tortoise or piece of jade is injured in its repository, whose is the fault?”
Ran Qiu replied, “But at present, Chuan-yü is strong and near to Fei (the seat of Ji Shi’s court); if our lord does not now take it, it will hereafter be a sorrow to his descendants.”
“Qiu,” retorted Confucius, “the superior man deplores those who do not say directly what they want and instead frame explanations for pursuing it. I have heard that the heads of states and families are not troubled with scarcity of people, but with uneven distribution; nor with poverty, but with discontentment. For where there is even distribution, there will be no poverty; when harmony prevails, there will be no scarcity of people; and when there is contentment, there will be no rebellious upsettings. So if people from afar are unsupportive, bring them round through civil culture and virtue, and once you have brought them round, make them contented. Now, here you are, assisting your lord. Remoter people are not submissive, and with your help he cannot attract them to him. In his own territory there are divisions and downfalls, leavings and separations, and with your help he cannot preserve it. And yet he is planning these hostile movements within the state. I am afraid that the sorrows of Ji Shi lie not with Chuan-yü, but are to be found within the confines of his own walls.”
(Confucius, Analects 16:1)
https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/firearms-death-rate-by-raceethnicity/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D
How dare you tell the truth. You must be a racist. I had to copy and paste the link in a separate window as your link would not work. Citing SPLC and CNN in the same article is ALWAYS suspect.
To Darrell:
There’s all the difference in the world between a potential and an actual offender. We may all be potential murderers to the extent that we all sometimes get angry enough with someone to want to kill him or her, but does that mean no actual murderer should ever be pointed out and caught? Are you going to let people like Stalin and Polly Potty go scot free because we’re all potential murderers?
So, if some environmental or political Jeffrey Dahmer causes mayhem and someone like Tom Lewis comes out to point him out, you call the whistleblower bluff by saying we’re all potential Jeffrey Dahmers anyway. Yeah, right.
I leave it to the gentle reader of these posts to decide on the soundness of your logic.
My point of view is a way to pull all the acts of mankind together and try to make sense of the mess the world is now in. I do not advocate overturning systems of justice that seek to limit evil acts. Social cohesion demands standards of conduct as a way to restrain the natural impulses in all men to get a rung up on everyone else. You can strain all you want to find the basic good in man if that will make you feel better about yourself, but the common thread which runs through all of us is self serving and it is dominant. If the good was the dominant trait, the world would be at peace. I see things as they are, not as I wish them to be.