On first blush, I'd say it might have something to do with the fact that the "left" pretty much allowed itself to be defined by the extreme in the 1960s, and we all know how well THAT turned out for them ;)

As a result the "left" has been pretty careful to keep the extreme voices out on the periphery.

I dunno, does that make sense to anyone else?

To conservatives, disagreeing with Limbaugh or Palin is "hate speech."

I seem to recall a lot of talk in lefty circles about how Bush and Cheney were fascists, or near to. I don't, however, recall any outright calls for violence against them, not from lefties with visibility in the mainstream media similar to that of Hannity or O'Reilly (or even G. Gordon Liddy, for that matter).

I think people on the left--and especially the mainstream left--just tend to have a greater suspicion of the efficacy of violence, or the rhetoric thereof, as a political tactic. It's one of the things that makes us lefties, after all.

I love how one poster puts up the "violent extremism" of ELF..Well yeah those treehuggers spike trees and tie themselves to said trees. That's mass murder on a global scale. Also brings up the Leftist dictator meme, which is laughable...just shy of invoking Godwin's law..Their must be some kind of Newtonian inverse physics for comparisons of terrorism on the Left vs. the Right. On the Right violence is always justified in pursuit of "principles", yet decried on the Left because it is Socialist, Communist or Fascist. Violence is still violence, blood dries the same on the sidewalk.

ambiv:

I seem to recall a lot of talk in lefty circles about how Bush and Cheney were fascists, or near to. I don't, however, recall any outright calls for violence against them, not from lefties with visibility in the mainstream media similar to that of Hannity or O'Reilly (or even G. Gordon Liddy, for that matter).
-----

No, it was about a pursuit of justice WITHIN the law. Of course there were those who burned Cheney ineffigy, but that is symbolic and not a plan told to a bank teller to carry out actual violence.

I do think the memory of the 1960's helps to keep the left in check.

But I'm not sure we're quite so blameless in a larger sense. Publishing donor names against gay marriage in California didn't strike me as a left-wing shining moment. It's one thing to go after an orginazation, and another to target individuals. We are the party who believes there is a constitutional right to privacy. But we slipped up there, and while there wasn't a left-wing political pundit advocating for it, few denounced it. And there was plenty of cheering on the sidelines.

Again, this isn't at all the same as someone shooting someone, but I'm not so sure we should be smug about the subject. After all, tragedy only requires one person who wants to do harm, no matter which side of the political spectrum he/she comes from.

I, too, have been pondering this, but, not having access to column inches at the WaPo, have kept silent. It is a releif, nonetheless, to see that my take is largely the same as the Big Voices.

But I do have one additional observation: Lefties, being largely university educated and well schooled in discourse, use the power of thought, "logic", if you will, to press their point(s).

The generally under educated and ignorant Right, on the other hand, being unable to pick up the mantle of the late Wm. F. Buckley, have no recourse but to employ unadulterated verbal and physical rage against the left.

Intelligence Quotients are Hereditary. . .

As ambivalentmaybe indicates, progressives dealt with 8 years of horror via the Bush Administration. Thieving, thuggish, raping the country and the environment for personal gain, rule of man vs. rule of law, you name it. It was horrid. And I was one of the many who could not help but think that the country was sliding down a slope toward totalitarianism, wondering why so many others would not see what I saw.

But progressives don't incite hate--although we were labeled as doing just that because we dared to criticize our leadership--instead, we did what adults do: we worked within the system and changed leadership.

As has been written as of late, Conservatives really seem to get off on being victims. Whiny. No one puts conservatives in the corner. Some tough guys, they are. After years of bravado and strutting around with their codpieces as the toughest guys around, it is ironic how they prance around as victims now.

Of course it make sense, neil. Take Steve's example of Eugene Robinson. While some might be mroe familiar with his work than I am, I know he was at times quite critical of the Bush Administration, but I don't recall ever using inflammatory speech about how Bush is going to cause a day of recknoning upon his head and it will be his own doing and the sorts of shpiel that's Beck's and Hannity's stock in trade. This, DESPITE the fact that criticism on the left is usually blasted by the right as hate speech just because it's not a lineup to kiss Republican ass. THAT is what steams my ham more than most of this back-and-forth. For almost 8 years we were told any criticism of Bush or his minions was tantamount to treason, that we should be imprisoned at best and hanged as traitors at worst. Yet we've now come full circle. The right not only feels comfortable criticizing the President, they're comfortable egging on the more wide-eyed lunatics of their movement. They and the people they put on their air say I hope Obama fails, I Obama is stopped. Sometimes even I hope Obama dies. TO me this is not just another symptom of IOKIYAR, and I've seen that everywhere. I used to think tools like Beck and Hannity & Limbaugh & Coulter and O'Reilly et al. just might be in it for the money, that they don't believe the nonsense they spew, but if OTHER people believe it, and are willing to pAY them for it, AND they get to piss off some tree-hugging soy-eating nancy-boys while they're at it? Win-Win! But I can't really believe that so much anymore. Because their language is inciting violence. Whether they meant to or not, it is. And they can stop it, but they choose not to. They choose to shift blame (the anti-Semite who believed the Holocaust never happened? Obviously a leftwinger), they choose to shout about their freedom of speech, they choose to do everything but STOP and contemplate the concept of healthy debate and the value of there being a difference of opinion. That means they either don't see their work as damaging to the national psyche...OR THEY JUST DON'T CARE. So riddle me this, if shame or a sense of responsibility as citizens and broadcasters won't stop them, what will Are we expected to become what they are, follow them to their homes, barge in on their churches, silence them permanently? When someone's actions are so damaging, and they don't care, what do you do? I'm open to suggestions.

As a whole, I don't think lefties first reactions are through violence. Whereas it makes extreme right-wingers "feel macho" by lashing out at real or imaginary targets no matter the consequences (i.e., the invasion of Iraq)...they are control freaks.

And to think that my aunt said she wouldn't vote for Obama because he associated with terrorists. (Of course, she thinks Acorn is comprised of terrorists . . . )

I do think the memory of the 1960's helps to keep the left in check.

But remember, a lot of the so-called violence of the left, such as the anti-war movement of the 60's, was done, or encouraged, by government agents and righties who infiltrated the movements.

Even the most violent of the left, say The Weatherman, made special efforts to make sure only property damage was done, except when blowing up themselves. I can't think of any lefties who went out to kill people. They may blow up a Hummer, but not the people who make them.

Who on the left acted violently in the 60's? Not SNCC or Civil Rights workers. Police rioted in Madison, Berkeley, New York, and Chicago. National Guard acted violently at Kent State. Ok, the Weathermen a fringe lunatic group if ever there was one, and the Symbionese Liberation Army. I was appalled by their advocacy of violence back in the day and I am convinced, 40 years later, that violence just breeds more violence. So, I don't think the 'left' shrinks back from violent tactics because of the 60's...it's for other reasons. This whole right/left paradigm is a limited model to begin with.

The difference is machismo. Conservative intellectuals tend to fetishize it. Liberal intellectuals tend to be alienated from it.

Mike

It always aggreives me that the left gets stuck with the animal rights nuts. Do they *have* to be ours?

I can't help but believe that there is some linkage between rhetorical violence and actual violence. The explosion of rhetorical violence on the right has been astounding in recent years, beginning with talk radio and then expanding dramatically on the Internet, and there simply is no liberal equivalent to it. The signature of this kind of violence is the routine equation of even the mildest liberal views with totalitarian communism. Your typical hack-writer on the Right makes no distinction between Ted Kennedy and, say, Mao. Loud accusations of "socialism" are commonplace even from the leaders of the Republican Party. What's worse is that this dishonest demagoguery draw from the Right's infatuation with its own imagined victimhood. Now we have the likes of Randall Terry proclaiming, in effect, that the mere existence of liberalism is so intolerable that violence the is inevitable result, while Jon Voigt addresses a Republican gathering and talks of Obama's "oppression." This sort of thing is deeply irresponsible.

I can't think of any lefties who went out to kill people. They may blow up a Hummer, but not the people who make them.

Some of the animal rights people are going in that direction -- several researchers' homes and cars have been firebombed and it's only luck that no one has died. When someone attaches a bomb to your car that's supposed to go off when you start the car, they ain't aiming for property damage.

But, again, they're a tiny, tiny part of the left to begin with, so it's hard to argue that, say, Krugman supports firebombing university researchers just because they're both on the left.

Well, a big part of this is undoubtedly the fact that the Overton Window has moved so far right that even moderately left voices are deemed to be at the fringe. The true fringe of the Left has no national voice at all.

How often have you seen articles comparing left/right wing commentators where Olberman/Maddow are compared to Hannity/Limbaugh/Beck? That should tell you something right there.

I suspect that part of the issue is that the right targets a different "psychographic." A Democratic pollster once referred to a key conservative voting cluster as the "fuck you boys" -- men with low education levels who work blue-collar jobs and like to do manly things like shoot guns. Their anger can be more easily channeled into physical acts than the hard left, which tends to be dominated by coffee house intellectuals.

The other part of the equation, of course, is that the wingers on the Right are a lot more likely to own guns ... and use them. They're kind of self-selected for a propensity to commit violence.

Duuuhh. If you believe in violence as a way of settling political grievances, you would never be a lefty in the first place.

On a fully serious note, the conservative control of the media is a big factor. If a liberal was allowed on the TV, and if they said anything vaguely extreme, they would be fired or permanently barred in a heartbeat. Conservatives can say absolutely anything without fear of being reprimanded because that is what they are paid to do by their bosses.

As a member of a church whose morning services were picketed five years ago by Operation Save America (allied with, if not identical to, Operation Rescue) for its progressive theology, acceptance of female clergy, and support for same-sex relationships, I view the shootings at Tiller's church in Wichita and at the Unitarian church in Knoxville with particular concern. I might disagree with everything a particular church espouses, but I would never dream of picketing its services. If there has ever been a case of a crazed liberal shooting up a conservative church, I'm not aware of it.

In response to an earlier post, Bush and Cheney were fascists, according to the strict definition of the term. Wikipedia's definition is actually pretty good:

Fascism, pronounced /ˈfæʃɪzəm/, comprises a radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology[1][2][3][4] and a corporatist economic ideology.[5] Fascists advocate the creation of a single-party state.[6] Fascists believe that nations and/or races are in perpetual conflict whereby only the strong can survive by being healthy, vital, and by asserting themselves in combat against the weak.[7] Fascist governments forbid and suppress criticism and opposition to the government and the fascist movement.[8] Fascism opposes class conflict, blames capitalist liberal democracies for its creation and communists for exploiting the concept.

How Jonah Goldberg ever wrote that ridiculous book without recognizing himself and his ilk is just beyond me, although maybe he really is just stupid. Or very, very cynical. I've often thought that book was really one long piece of singularly inept snark.

On the main point, the reason the left doesn't whip up violent hatred against the right...first, we don't really have a Left in this country to match our Right. Our home-grown fascistii have moved very far out beyond the bleeding edge of sanity at this point. Our left is nowhere near that, except maybe in the outer-reaches of the Animal Rights movement.

Bigger picture: in general true leftists advocate for the commons, for sharing the wealth and for the rights of ALL the people. Implicit in that is that authoritarianism is out. Right wingnuts on the other hand LOVE corporate authoritarianism..they are sure having a Big Daddy to keep everyone in line is the best way to go. And if that Daddy requires violence to insure fealty, by God, the wingnuts are on it.

Richard Hofstadter dealt with all this in his work. The paranoid Right can't DO politics any other way then by whipping up violent hatred against all "enemies."

Another large factor - the effectiveness of the coordinated Right Wing Orchestrated Hissy Fit. Like a 3 year old throwing a tantrum in the grocery store because Mommy won't buy him a tootsie roll, they have perfected the art of shrieking and moaning and flailing to such an extent that it takes an enormous act of will to say anything at all that will likely provoke them.

It is all Obama's fault.

If he had just waited a few more election cycles till the Republican and conservative statesmen like Newt and Limbaugh and Palin had prepared their constituencies for a negro President, none of this extreme rhetoric would have been used by Savage and Beck and Rush and Levin, and infinitely reasonable Jonah Lucianne's writings would have become the intellectual core and guiding principles of the Republicans and the rightwing, and, as a consequence, Obama's Presidency would have been welcomed with open hearts minds not just by lefty Americans but by everyone.

I'm sure there are "lefty" opinionators of the extremist genus out there somewhere, but they clearly do not have invitations to the public discourse. Said discourse as it exists today is book-ended by Hannity, Rush et al on the right and Robinson, Schultz & Co. on the left - i.e. one end is moderate, the other nutjob. Moderates tend not to incite folks to burn buildings, shoot fellow citizens and such. Also.

Indeed, leftists are so courteous and diplomatic compared to conservatives.

The aftermath of the Holocaust Museum shooting is a clear example of such liberal principles: the museum guard, Stephen Tyrone Johns, who was shot by Scott Roeder, wasn't even pronounced dead yet before leftists exploited this tragedy to demonize conservatives for partisan gain.

Hypocrites. God damn you all.

Mnemosyne: Some of the animal rights people are going in that direction.

But one of the big differences between the right and left is that the animal rights people don't have major media championing their cause like OReilly or Beck are cheering and egging on the anti-choice movement. The animal rights people are very much on their own. What there is of the liberal media does not support or encourage the violence those groups may use.

My own view is that the most common weapon of choice for angry violent liberals seems to be the cream pie, and no one has died yet from a pie in the face.

"...the museum guard, Stephen Tyrone Johns, who was shot by Scott Roeder..."

Try getting your facts straight. Roeder killed Dr. Tiller. Von Brunn killed Johns. Or was that too discourteous for you?

Atanarjuat: Project much?

The right wing terrorists are killing so many innocents, they seem to have confused their supporters.

From Wiki: Fascism, pronounced /ˈfæʃɪzəm/, comprises a radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology and a corporatist economic ideology. Fascists advocate the creation of a single-party state. Fascists believe that nations and/or races are in perpetual conflict whereby only the strong can survive by being healthy, vital, and by asserting themselves in combat against the weak. Fascist governments forbid and suppress criticism and opposition to the government and the fascist movement. Fascism opposes class conflict, blames capitalist liberal democracies for its creation and communists for exploiting the concept.

So, going by this definition, I think that the previous administration had enough points in common with fascists, especially their disregard for law and constitution because of an "emergency" that they could easily be called a proto-fascist regime--headed that way if not stopped. And I think I did hear Olberman use that term once or twice in regards to Bush/Cheney, and I certainly have read blog authors calling Bush/Cheney fascists on more than one occasion.
But the question why the media on the right so frequently accuse the left of fascism? I think preemption and projection. And the fact they are so swift to propose or use violence, once again because of the "emergency", pretty much tells me that proto-fascists is a fair term for these guys and projection has a lot to do with it.

Stephen Tyrone Johns, who was shot by Scott Roeder, wasn't even pronounced dead yet before leftists exploited

Wow, that's the dumbest thing I've seen all day.

And how is talking about your violent tendencies "exploitation"?

I'd tell you that the truth hurts, but your comment about Roeder shows that you wouldn't know the truth if it jumped up your ass.

The other part of the equation, of course, is that the wingers on the Right are a lot more likely to own guns ... and use them.
Posted by: menthol on June 12, 2009 at 3:12 PM

Are you sure about that? Guns are found in 1/2 of all American homes. I know a lot of lefties who own guns and use them appropriately for sport.

A few years ago a strong left wing media voice, whose name escapes me at the moment was found to have a gun in his DC home (in violation of the then DC gun ban.) I would suspect that a lot of the "gun nuts" we all hear about are conservative Republicans, but I would also suspect that a lot of liberals and progressives own guns as well. They just don't advertise. I know that once you get away from the coasts and gun ownership becomes pervasive.

I think you could make the argument that Ted Kaczynski was (is?) a violent leftist and of course some Earth First!/ELM people fall into that category. Beyond that, you'd have to go back to the radical 60's groups who faded away during the 70's.

But think about it, we had 8 years of George W. Bush. There was ample time for radical leftist organizations to build up anger and act on it and yet, AFAIK they really didn't. We're a couple of months into a Democratic-dominant era and we've already got a couple of incidents.

Lefties usually believe in changing things via governmental action. Righties believe that government and lefties are evil and need to be avoided, marginalized and destroyed.

There's another reason lefties don't go around shooting people: The righties own all the guns.

How Jonah Goldberg ever wrote that ridiculous book without recognizing himself and his ilk is just beyond me

If memory serves me right, he commented, amidst his pleas for his NRO readers to do his research for him, that he wrote it because he was tired of being called a facist.

Glenn Greenwald has touched on the rights imaginary victimhood today, which i think explains some of this. But, part of the right looniness is that they truly believe clowns like beck( D.J. beck),Hannity( previous wanna be priest) and MR. weiner are just like Krugman, Moyers and Benen.....

The rules keep changing. I hate it when they keep changing the rules without telling me.

CT wrote: "There's another reason lefties don't go around shooting people: The righties own all the guns."

Actually, the cops have all the guns, as the Symbionese Liberation Army, the Black Panthers, and David Koresh among others soon learned when they endeavored to put into practice their delusions of "armed resistance" to the government.

I would suspect that a lot of the "gun nuts" we all hear about are conservative Republicans, but I would also suspect that a lot of liberals and progressives own guns as well. They just don't advertise.

I think it's because we understand the mechanisms protecting gun ownership and how hard it is to change them. The NRA and the Right treat the Second Amendment like it's a light switch -- able to be flipped on and off on a whim.

Enough already with the false equivalency between "eco-terrorism" and the anti-abortion movement, militias, and the Aryan Nation.

"Eco-terrorism" is a fantastic example of conservative branding success. Environmental extremists at Earth First and ELF have committed acts of vandalism and arson that have resulted in the destruction of tens of millions of dollars of private property. That is illegal and it should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. That said, setting unoccupied or partially completed buildings on fire at night is not "terrorism" nor is it in any way comparable to assassinating abortion providers and police or blowing up abortion clinics and federal buildings. To the best of my knowledge, "eco-terrorism" has resulted in exactly zero deaths. Yes, there are extremist environmental and animal rights activist out there who have engaged or will engage in illegal activity but the threat to human life is no where near that posed by the extreme right in this country.

what has been startling to me in the MSM discussion of wingnut hate mongering and inciting of violence and domestic terrorism is that no one I've heard yet has brought up the queen of rancid hate and violence: her majesty the vomitacious coulter. Has she not written several books directing her bilious hate at all democrats, progressives, and liberals; did she not advocate for bombing the NY Times and killing Supreme Court justices. Did I miss someone bring her up and how the MSM has made her a media star and given her a national platform from which to spew her hate.

She is really the poster child for hate mongering and inciting violence against people she doesn't agree with.

Indeed, I typed Roeder's name when I should have written James von Brunn. Thanks for the correction, even if it was provided with the usual sneering disdain that is the hallmark of liberal attitude.

Meanwhile, my point still stands, and you ankle-biting partisans continue to affirm your undying, anti-conservative hatred with all the subsequent responses.

Thanks again.

"Indeed, I typed Roeder's name when I should have written James von Brunn. Thanks for the correction, even if it was provided with the usual sneering disdain that is the hallmark of liberal attitude."

You're most welcome.

Now, ignoring any attitude - no sneering disdain from Rush, Hannity, Savage, Coulter, Beck, et al - when was the last time a crazed American liberal killed someone due to a political or ideological disagreement?

But one of the big differences between the right and left is that the animal rights people don't have major media championing their cause like OReilly or Beck are cheering and egging on the anti-choice movement. The animal rights people are very much on their own. What there is of the liberal media does not support or encourage the violence those groups may use.

Yes, that was my second paragraph. I was more pointing out that there are a few leftist terrorist groups out there, so we can't really argue that only people on the right are using violence to get their way.

As far as nutty groups on the left go, I think the animal rights people are more dangerous than the Earth Firsters or ELF. So far, only their own incompetence has prevented them from killing anyone. The environmentalist groups seem to stick to property damage.

... before leftists exploited this tragedy to demonize conservatives for partisan gain.

Yes, to hell with the left and our goal of not having anyone else get shot.

Hypocrites. God damn you all.

Just as patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, so is false equivalency the last refuge of a sleazy conservative trying to rationalize the indefensible.

More inclined to believe that leftists would love too shoot up the offices of FAUX news but there are no progressive media sources inciting such activity.
Rather we are more inclined to pressure congress to ban this media from the airwaves...based solely on a compilation of their rhetoric over the past few years. Hopefully they will reverse the process for media consolidation and break up these conglomerates. O'Reilly cultivated the actions of the Tiller killer as if he had pulled the trigger himself and that is just one example.

This violence will continue as long as perpetrators are encouraged and incited by the likes of Hannity, Rush, Beck...you know who they are...who continue to demonize the 'people' who disagree with them so some fill justified in murdering them. The left believes in law for everyone; the right believes in the law for 'you'. the left believes in discussion; the right believes in telling you how it's going to be. The left talks of principles, the right talks of personalities.

Education and critical thinking vs faith without reason and making money as intelligence. A majority has decided in favor of open minded discussion and changing course from what has clearly been destroying our democracy---greedy conservatism.

The Washington Post's Gene Weingarten raises a good point

No. No, he doesn't.

"no one accuses "lefty media" of "whipping up hate speech and violence" because the "lefty media" avoids "whipping up hate speech and violence."

I figured you were working up to discussing Scarborough's comments that Krugman is whipping up left-wing hate with his column today. So you don't have to go too far down the list of wacky righties to find those accusations. But, again, where is the violence resulting from all this left-wing hate? Joe didn't say.

... even if it was provided with the usual sneering disdain that is the hallmark of liberal attitude.

Only where deserved. It's always interesting to me when conservatives cry like babies when they're criticized when they say stupid things.

Here's an idea: don't say stupid things. It's certainly possible to be a conservative and not be a completely dishonest moron.

Right?

But, again, where is the violence resulting from all this left-wing hate?

Invented bogus equivalency is the most common gigantic lie that conservatives always, always, always go for in order to excuse horrible things that conservatives do.

Always.

KTinOhio:

I'll reiterate. I think Ted Kaczynski is a leftist murderer.

Assuming that is the case, here's an interesting question though. The conservative case for von Brunn being a leftist is that racism is a collectivist attitude [must!...stop!...eye!...rolling!]. Kaczynski was the epitome of the rugged individualist (isolated, Montana cabin, all that stuff). Does that mean that Goldberg et al would argue that Kaczynski is a rightist?

Or the left is more proned to ignore the actions of their words.....

Gunshots shattered the plate-glass front doors of a local Bush-Cheney campaign headquarters Tuesday morning before volunteers reported to work.

A shot was fired at the Republican Party headquarters in Huntington Thursday night, while two dozen supporters of George W. Bush watched him accept his party's nomination on television.

Someone burned an 8-foot-by-8-foot Nazi swastika on a home's lawn near where Bush-Cheney signs were posted. The vandals used grass killer to spray the symbol.

Daniel Andreas San Diego, a 31-year old “animal rights extremist,� is wanted for allegedly placing nail bombs at two San Francisco-area buildings in 2003, apparently part of a campaign against researchers involved with animal testing,

Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty—is wanted for his alleged involvement in bombing two biotech facilities that did business with Huntingdon Life Sciences, a company that conducts animal experimentation for the medical and pharmaceutical industries

do feel I’m not guilty,� Abdulhakim Muhammad told The Associated Press in a collect call from the Pulaski County jail. “I don’t think it was murder, because murder is when a person kills another person without justified reason.�

Sometime between 2 a.m. Friday, when campaign workers went home, and 8 a.m., when the office reopened, a person threw a rock through the window of Jon Seaton, executive director for the state's Bush campaign, said Chris Vance, state GOP chairman.

Or the left is more proned to ignore the actions of their words.....

I assume you mean "prone".

And have you proven that anonymous gun violence and Nazi symbology are products of the "left"?

Or are you just assuming that they are because they were directed at Bush/Cheney? Because it couldn't possibly be paranoid right-wing "New World Order" extremists who hate Bush as much as they hate everyone else.

But admitting that you're just pulling a connection to "the left" out of your ass would undermine your whole point, wouldn't it?

Posted by: c4logic on June 12, 2009 at 2:55 PM

Yours is a distorted view, especially of the weatherman. What was opposed was the military industrial complex and an oncoming military police state. They had the weapons and to these groups it seemed an 'insurgency' should be developed. But everything was being aimed at the controllers of the military and their armed civilian henchmen. Thankfully most of us were more along the lines of Ghandi...but the violence was always aimed at the violent.

The terrorists who have beaten America don't say "look at what we did to America"...they say, "look at what we made America do to themselves"

9/11 began the destruction of our constitution. Cheney was the main terrorist. We were raped, robbed and plundered by the Bush administration and left for dead. It was all brought to us by the MSM's support and approval.

Taking our country back begins with ending media consolidation and breaking up their monopolies...throwing the lobbyists out of Washington with mandatory public campaign financing, and removing corporate personhood. Now that's change I can believe in.

Mnemosyne wrote: "I think the animal rights people are more dangerous than the Earth Firsters or ELF. So far, only their own incompetence has prevented them from killing anyone. The environmentalist groups seem to stick to property damage."

A problem with -- and for -- loosely defined "groups" like the Animal Liberation Front (or the ELF or Earth First) is that they are not actually an organization, just a name, and anyone can claim to be "the ALF" and do whatever they want.

The majority of individuals who have publicly identified themselves as being associated with the Animal Liberation Front assert that the ALF does not and will not take actions that harm any living being, and have denounced those who take such actions as not being the "real" ALF. And the credo of the ALF calls on those who act under the banner of the ALF to "take all necessary precautions against harming any animal, human and non-human".

However, since the ALF is not an organization and has no actual leaders with any authority over anyone, no one has any power to stop anyone from taking such actions under the name of the ALF.

Having said that, it is important not to conflate the ALF with "the animal rights people" in general.

In common usage, the term "animal rights" encompasses everyone from traditional animal welfare organizations like the Human Society of the United States, to animal protection organizations like PETA, to organizations and individuals that actually advocate legal rights for animals (which is the strictly correct meaning of "animal rights"), to scholars like Cass Sunstein (who President Obama recently appointed as head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs) who have published academic analyses of the concept of legal rights for animals.

The "direct action" groups like the ALF are a very small minority of the animal welfare / animal rights movement, and the ones who engage in violent action that targets human beings are an even smaller minority within that small minority.

That this tiny minority succeeds in discrediting the entire movement as "extremists" should be a lesson to anyone who labors under the delusion that violent action is an effective means to further any just social cause.

Jesse Walker was, in that Balloon Juice thread, exactly right: hate media is heavy metal or gangster rap for grumpy old white people. And serious people don't blame Slayer or 50 Cent for what their stupidest and most deranged fans do.

But 60-year-olds usually aren't into metal or gangsta, so what gives, wingnuts?

"I'll reiterate. I think Ted Kaczynski is a leftist murderer."

Two points: First, you have to go back 14 years to find a murder committed by TK, and second, I have a hard time considering TK a "leftist" at all. (He's no righist either; more like an extreme libertarian.)

"The terrorists who have beaten America don't say "look at what we did to America"...they say, "look at what we made America do to themselves"

Correction: it should read..."made America do to 'itself'.

9/11: the myth vs the reality. Good lecture video.

Gene Weingarten: "A rabid follower of Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson ..."

And thus at that very moment of superlative overstatement, Weingarten undercut his own credibility on the issue. The eminently sober and droll Eugene Robinson may well be a lot of things to a lot of people, but his is hardly the sort of cult-like personality that would attract a plethora of unhinged adherents who await only his word before unleashing mayhem.

Weingarten's over-the-top allusion to Robinson's innate charisma simply flies in the face of common sense, for the very same reason audiences once laughed intuitively with the young Carol Burnett back in 1957, as she sang "I Made a Fool of Myself Over John Foster Dulles" (an old-line, stick-in-the-mud Democrat who was then-President Eisenhower's Secretary of State) on The Ed Sullivan Show.

You heard the prediction here first: the next lefty terrorists who kill someone will be those anti-whaling fanatics on the Sea Shepard, as documented in the TV series Whale Wars. It's not that they want to hurt anyone, necessarily, but they are so dangerously incompetent that a fatal accident is inevitable.

My sense is that modern leftist extremists tend to prefer older rhetoric--this is purely anecdotal, but it seems like a lot of them tend to channel '60s-style, SDS-type rhetoric that no one's really spouting anymore. The radical right wing, however, is a fairly new phenomenon.

When Glenn Beck tells his followers that elected U.S. leaders are reminiscent of Nazis, and if left unchecked, will impose a fascist dictatorship on all of us, it might lead a small handful of people in his audience to consider taking matters into their own hands.

Wait wait, wouldn't that make all those Righties loyal supporters? I mean, don't they want a fascist dictatorship? What would they find objectionable about all that.

Sure sure, they fear the black helicopters of the current State, but if they knew the leaders were with them then maybe they'd like black helicopters.

Conservatives are soooo confused. They don't know what they stand for except that they want power.

Emily: "The radical right wing, however, is a fairly new phenomenon."

James von Brunn is 88 years old, with a documented history of radical right political activity that goes back near half a century.

Further, the late and infamous domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City 14 years ago.

20 years ago, members of the American National Socialist Party were petitioning for the right to assemble in Skokie, IL.

55 years ago, millions of people were at once intimidated and mesmerized by the bullying Capitol Hill antics of Sen. Joe McCarthy, his associate Roy Cohn, and their legion of anti-Communist agitators.

Finally, back in the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan effectively controlled state government in Indiana for a few years.

Given that, how can we define the radical right as "a fairly new phenomenon"? Short answer: We can't.

Let's note, instead, that most of us Americans until fairly recently have been either dismissive or just simply not paying attention to what the far right was saying or doing. I think that's a fairer statement that hits closer to the mark.

But let's not ever delude ourselves that the radical right is a rookie movement populated by misguided novices. Variations of right-wing zealots, i.e., the mid-19th century nativist movement, have been part of the seedy undercurrent of our country's politics for at least 160 years, and sometimes when we've ignored them in the past, it's been to our ultimate chagrin and lament.

Aloha.

Mark: "Conservatives are soooo confused. They don't know what they stand for except that they want power."

And thus, we see the ultimate conservative conundrum: The ongoing pursuit of power, while simultaneously burdened with a well-established and documented record of failure that denotes their innate incompetence once said power's been attained.

Olbermann actually criticized the comedian who, at the White House Correspondents Dinner, said she hoped Rush Limbaugh would lose a kidney. - so it is actually the opposite on the left; the lefty media calls for peace and non-violence. what a concept! Hey, it worked for King and Ghandi!

Just jumping in to point out:

1) there is no leftie media
2) there is a fundamental difference between property crimes and murder.

Krugman is actually center-left. He once worked for Reagan, fer Christ sakes.

There were leftie wackos in the 1970s - think of the Weather Underground and Black Panthers. But the leftie extremists dwindled to nothing in the 1980s and 1990s, partly because liberals believe in policing their end of the spectrum. There is simply an insufficient mass of apologists for those like the Unabomber to gain any traction.

Classy, never waste a good tragedy perpetrated by a whack job for political points. Predictable.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/06/12/the_lefts_game_of_connect-the-dots_96972.html

And be sure to queue up the obligatory sanctimonious Bushitler hyperbole from the chorus:

"We were raped, robbed and plundered by the Bush administration and left for dead."

"8 years of horror via the Bush Administration. Thieving, thuggish, raping the country and the environment for personal gain, rule of man vs. rule of law, you name it. It was horrid."

"For almost 8 years we were told any criticism of Bush or his minions was tantamount to treason, that we should be imprisoned at best and hanged as traitors at worst."

Even more predictable. Libs, please. Get some new material.

I am really shaking my head here.

You all do know, any freshman in psychology would recognize the absurd attempts by FORMER freshmen psych students to explain why THEY are superior to those "other" guys and the others guys are pathetic and sad.
Oh and why it is okay to do what our friends want not the other guys.

Here is a comparison for you to look at. Not position or rhetoric. But behavior.

Chaining yourself in front of a doorway, blocking any entry by the patron, physical grabbing the patron to prevent them from entry and asking why they want to become a murderer.

Pro-life advocates at an abortion clinic?
Put them in jail for organized crime under the RICO act.
Code Pink at a marine recruiting office?
Give them a better parking spot to make life easier.

Guess what is criminal BEHAVIOR for one group is worthy of a reward for another.
All depends on your politics.

The end justifies the means ... so long as it is progressive ends.

big jack: Libs, please. Get some new material.

how's this...

"You have absolutely no reason, none, to trust our word or our actions at this point." - RNC Chairman Michael Steele on Fox 2/13/09

Sinop85 on June 12, 2009 at 5:40 PM,

Thanks for the list of examples of "Liberal Terrorism." I'll note that no one died in any of the examples. So, that would make them acts of Liberal Vandalism.

Stand: I'll reiterate. I think Ted Kaczynski is a leftist murderer.

He most definitely is a murderer and he may be a leftist — he may even be a terrorist — but what mainstream media personality's rhetoric helped inspire his hatred?

The point of this post is that MSM personalities appear to be whipping up the unhinged loners of the extreme right and that those loners are committing what can be reasonably called acts of terrorism, politically motivated murder for the purpose of changing the political landscape of the country.

My guess is that most people are more terrorized by murder than by acts of vandalism.

The American left cherrypicks when it comes to hate speech and violence; it romaticizes the terrorism of William Ayers and the antics of Ward Churchill; it minimizes or apologizes for violence committed by Palestinians against Israelis; it turns a blind eye to state violence against religious groups, such as China's crackdown on Falun Gong or the FBI's violence against the Branch Davidians; it allows for political purposes the demonization of Hispanic immigrants; it creates and delights in a film that portrays the assassination of an American president it despises . . .

I am waiting for the RWM to blame Obama for Von Brunn.

Oh wait, if Obama were not black Von Brunn wouldn't have shot anyone. QED.

Speaking of Eco Terrorism, I think any time anyone is guilty of parroting back verbatim the words of a MSM political personality, like say Rush Limbaugh, it should be referred to as an act of Echo Terrorism.

Meanwhile, Tom: The American left cherrypicks when [...] it creates and delights in a film that portrays the assassination of an American president it despises.

From Wikipedia: "Death of a President (2006), directed by Gabriel Range, is a British fictional documentary about the assassination of George W. Bush, the 43rd U.S. President, on 19 October 2007, in Chicago."

As a member of the American left, I: chose not to watch the movie; felt the US [wasn't it the ATF, not the FBI?] overreacted to David Koresh, but ultimately the Branch Devidians sealed their own fate when they set their own compound on fire; am well aware and disdainful of the repression of religious freedoms in China and other parts of the world; am not the one demonizing Hispanic immigrants [seriously, dude, WTF?]; and believe William Ayers has served his time and now leads a productive and charitable life.

Please ignore my post above. It has already happened. Obama is to blame.

This from Media Matters for America:

Predictably, conservative media figures responded to the museum shooting by attempting to shift attention away from themselves and onto political liberals and even President Obama himself. On June 10, the day of the museum shooting, financial analyst and radio host Jim Lacamp said on Fox News that "we have an administration that's really done a lot of class warfare, a lot of class-baiting. And so, it sets the stage for social unrest." That same day, conservative Tammy Bruce wrote that the Obama administration's "increasing anti-Israel rhetoric and the pandering to the Jew-hating world Arab world ... encourages all the beasts among us." Newsmax.com published an op-ed, cited on Friday by Michael Savage, claiming that Obama "is most certainly creating a climate of hate against" Jews. Colorado radio host Bob Newman even raised questions about whether Obama's recent visit to a concentration camp, or his statement about Israeli settlements, were factors in the shooting.

I was a faculty member at Northwestern when the FBI was investigating the Unabomber there; of course a crazy lone individual can kill people inspired by broadly "left" ideas. Crazy lone individuals do all sorts of things. But this "your hate is more hateful than my hate" politicizing of these tragedies is terrible, and by this morning, both sides were in full swing. I feel for the families, whose pain is being exploited in this way.

I can't begin to count the number of times I've been called a racist, neo-con, redneck for expressing even MILD opposition to ANYTHING Obama is doing. IMO the vast majority of hatred comes from the Left.

Are there haters on the Right? Of course there are. And what's the solution? Apparently...if I'm to believe congress...it's censorship...but of course, only censorship of the Right.

THe absurdly named Fairness Doctrine would only impact Talk Radio which is overwhelmingly on the Right. How convenient. The FD is dead...but count on the Left to try to resurrect the thing on the back of these murders.

"I, too, have been pondering this, but, not having access to column inches at the WaPo, have kept silent. It is a releif, nonetheless, to see that my take is largely the same as the Big Voices.

But I do have one additional observation: Lefties, being largely university educated and well schooled in discourse, use the power of thought, "logic", if you will, to press their point(s).

The generally under educated and ignorant Right, on the other hand, being unable to pick up the mantle of the late Wm. F. Buckley, have no recourse but to employ unadulterated verbal and physical rage against the left.

Intelligence Quotients are Hereditary. . ."

I am not sure I have ever read anything that clearly demonstrates the just how far out of touch the left is in this country. I happen to be one of those awful people on the right. I also happen to have a masters degree, have managed to care for my family, have never struck anyone in anger let alone displayed physical rage against those who disagree with me,...so what does that make me.

I am truly happy that the educated left uses logic in everything they do and it is unfortunate that the great unwashed in this society simply has no logic. There are mountains of evidence of the logic that has brought his country to its knees and will continue to push it further down the slope. Take a look all the states lead by the logic of the left....how are they doing?

Lets see how Michigan does after the all the logic gets poured into the Government Motors debacle. Oh it really doesn't matter as long as the UAW is in control. It was truly liberating to see logic at work when the Obama Administration decided they need not worry about the rule of law in this country when it came to the foreclosure proceedings of the automakers...oh yeah...there really weren't any...who needs that when you have logic on your side.

I could go on however I am sure the educated logic will prevail and will and won't even bother to read it.

I think it's pretty simple. Culturally, Americans on the left don't covet guns, and don't own them. Culturally, those on the right do. One side gets whipped up into a letter-writing frenzy. The other starts shooting.

I see all the Ditto-Heads are here now, slavishly typing up the scripted talking points that are being spoon-fed to them by the corporate-owned, phony "conservative" media machine.

Conservatism is nothing but self-imposed mental slavery to corporate propaganda that pretends to be an "ideology". To be a grassroots "conservative" in America today is to be a weak-minded, ignorant, mean-spirited and -- above all -- pathetically gullible dupe.

Dear "conservatives" -- Rush Limbaugh is laughing at you all the way to the bank.

Tom: "The American left cherrypicks when it comes to hate speech and violence ..."

... and then you proceed to show why you and your widdle white-wing fwiends have no credibility whatsoever on such issues.

Liberals have spoken out vociderously and repeatedly against China's treatment of Falun Gong and other movements deemed dissident. You just refuse to listen to them.

Further along that line of thought, you probably have no idea that liberal academic Juan Cole of the University of Michigan just today accused the rulung Iranian theocracy of stealing the just-held presidential election in that country. You're too busy ogling that fat-assed oxycontin addict shaking his moobs, to pay any attention to other learned individuals who might actually encourage you to start thinking for yourself.