Inciting Assassination

(2:00PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

Progressives are very reluctant to talk about the possibility of Obama’s assassination, they don’t even want to think about it.  Well we’d better start thinking about it, we’d better start talking about it, we’d better start doing something about it, because right wing talk radio thugs are inciting assassination, they’re inciting it every day, they are not only inciting violence against the government and the President of the United States, they are glorifying it, they are sanctifying it as a moral obligation, as a patriotic duty.  They are telling the rabid RePug base that violence against the government is justified, that President Obama is the enemy, that he’s a tyrant, that he must be stopped.

These talk radio thugs aren’t directly inciting assassination, but they don’t have to.  When they compare Obama to Hitler, when they condemn him as a fascist, when they denounce him as a tyrant and brand him a traitor, kill him is the message being sent and received, kill him is the message being heard and acted upon.  Assassination threats against President Obama have increased 400 per cent. He is being threatened with assassination 30 times a day, 300 times a month, and the number of threats is increasing as the incitement escalates and the reaction intensifies and the compulsion to kill him spreads like a plague through the batshit insane Republican base.

What else do progressives have to see before they call this what it is?  

I don’t have to see any more of it, I’ve seen more than enough to call this what it is.

RePug politicians are complicit in this.  Boehner, Bachmann, Gingrich, Palin, and Coburn have all praised inciters of violence and gun-packing townhall thugs as “patriotic Americans” who love their country and will not allow it to be destroyed.  They aren’t the only ones, the list of RePug politicians directly or indirectly involved in inciting it keeps getting longer and longer, and the corporate media is inciting more of it by portraying threats against the government and the President of the United States as “legitimate anger”.  They are escalating it by rewarding townhall gunmen and fringe extremists with national television time to denounce Obama and Democrats as fascists, they are desensitizing Americans to these outrages and conditioning them to accept whatever outrages are coming next.                      

Rachel Slajda at TPM reports . . .

12 people were carrying guns, including at least one semi-automatic assault rifle, outside a building where President Obama was speaking on Monday.  The man spotted carrying the assault rifle and a pistol, who gave his name only as “Chris”, was asked why he was armed. “Because I can do it,” he said. “In Arizona, I still have some freedoms.”

Yes, the freedom to be a delusional tool of the corporate killers of democracy, the freedom to strut around with his guns so other delusional freaks will strut around with their guns at Obama’s next event, so even more will bring guns the next time and the time after that, so intimidation and threats of violence will destroy what’s left of American democracy, so the crazed right can finish what it started on November 22, 1963.    

lawsch.uga.edu . . .

During his presidency, right-wingers utterly detested President John F. Kennedy; extreme right-wingers hated Kennedy with a venomous, malignant ferocity bordering on insanity. Because he was a liberal and pro-civil rights, right-wingers–particularly, the segregationists and racists, the opponents of civil rights, the states-righters, the free enterprise loonies, the wealthy ultra-conservatives, the religious bigots, the anti-Castro Cubans, the U.N. haters, and the lunatic fringe anti-Communists-all regarded JFK as dangerous, destructive, and downright traitorous.

In 1963, the RePug base hated President Kennedy with a venomous, malignant ferocity bordering on insanity.  In 2009, the RePug base hates President Obama with a venomous, malignant ferocity bordering on insanity.

Same insanity.

Different target.

batocchio . . .

To the conservative, right-wing base, Obama is both a socialist and a fascist, and simultaneously a weak appeaser to foreign rulers but a ruthless dictator domestically.  For the right-wing, only Republican politicians have legitimacy.  The diehard right-wingers view Obama as a dangerous usurper, a liberal, black, Muslim, foreign-born, socialist, fascist, trying to take their guns, trying to kill grandma, trying to put conservatives in camps, trying to give the unworthy health care.

Right wing hatred of President Kennedy was intense, but right wing hatred of President Obama is even more intense, and it’s escalating.  This targeting of Obama isn’t just happening, it’s being orchestrated, it’s being incited every day by thousands of talk radio thugs, it’s being broadcast on national television, it’s being condoned by the corporate media, it’s being portrayed as legitimate, it’s leading to another Dallas, it’s leading to another assassination, that’s the RePug agenda, that’s their intention, that’s what this is all about.  

If progressives don’t call this what it is, no one will.  We can no longer limit our response  to expressions of general concern, couched in euphemisms, when the assassination of the President of the United States is being brazenly incited through slanders so vile and inflammatory that their intent and purpose can only be to incite an assassin to kill him.  

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  1. If Obama is assassinated, his blood will be on Rush Limbaugh’s hands, it will be on Glenn Beck’s hands, it will be on the hands of O’Reilly and Hannity and their lethal clones, it will be on the hands of Republicans in Congress, it will be on the knuckledragging hands of every mouth breather in the Republican base.  

  2. Homeboy Stupidity!

    Emergency, Emergency, please to get from street!

    The full eight years of Bush’s ugly War of Error based upon the false flag of 911.  Oh, the “terrorists” were from Saudi Arabia….so let’s attack…..WTF…Afghanistan?…Iraq?

    And not to mention what possible chance anybody has of

    A getting even close to Obama and

    B the assasin has the required skills to not shoot his own foot.

    C Handguns are a very close range weapon and

    D Totalitarianism evidenced by the continuation of it under and “opposing” political party does in fact work.

  3. …the specter of assassination hangs in our subconscious/ conscious mind, whenever a charasmatic, progressive–or even a centrist powerful minority–leader gains prominence.  Sadly, we know that such things aren’t in the realms of overactive imagination-they are horrifying historical reality that can be repeated.    

    To see the hatemongers actually proudly and defiantly bring guns to events where he is present immediately takes one back to the not so very distant past in our country, when the status quo was so threatened by “change” that they did the unthinkable to halt that change and frighten those that sought it into fearful submission.  

    Their message is being sent again, and those of us who heard it before know exactly what they are conveying now.  And it is very ugly, and should be dealt with loudly and immediately by all in power–whether they are right-wing, left-wing, or centrist in their politics.  They need to understand that the anger in this nation isn’t just limited to the right-wing, and what they unleash may not be able to be contained.

    • Alma on August 18, 2009 at 18:34

    of the Pres. I also worry that the loons will start shooting us at these townhall meetings, possibly starting riots and a mini civil war.

  4. GOP congressman encourages people to bring guns to town halls.

    Atmosphere of danger for Obama

  5. I’ve visited 2 diaries so far today; both have caused me to feel itchy-crawlies under my skin.

    In both I sense others who have similar itchy-crawlies under their skins.  These lead to the need to scratch, to irritation, anger, and arguements.  These arguments are a form of violence, a mild form, but nonetheless violence; it is violent speech, or what Buddhists call ‘wrong’ speech.  A key component of this ‘wrong’ speech is the need to be ‘right’ (correct).

    The need to be right is a seductive and very dangerous quality.

    I want to thank you for this essay, Rusty.  I think it is important that this be said and discussed.  But here, as in my diary, I wish the discussion could be a little lighter, a little more productive.

    Being right and needing to be right are different things and are best kept separate.

  6. I still don’t have one.

    Yes, the possibility that you present is a real one and one I think we’ve been aware of (silently) for a long time.  On the other hand, I’m not at all convinced Obama would be the target, but his girls?  Yes, I think that’s more possible.  An auto accident, you know.  His girls are everything to him.

    On the other side of the coin, I think the right-wing nutcases are really pulling out all stops more as an effort to keep the fear ignited at all times through constant intimidation.  While I understand your point, I think that were a genuine right-winger hate-filled nut-job to read this, he’d have a big smile on his face and interpret this that you bought into the intimidation  — just what he/they want!

    I think push-back is better served by using a tactic, such as NPK used recently.  When referring to the “grandma deaths,” she mentions all the “grandma deaths” caused by Katrina — so, it falls squarely on the shoulders of those in office at the time and their role in those deaths.  That sort of thing.  Fighting the comment(s) with truth:  The economy, for example, who ordered the $700 billion bailout for the Wall Street scum?  etc. And, I’m thinking, too, that some of this vile, hate speech may border liable, in legal terms.  

    If investigations and prosecutions had been commenced, we would be seeing very little of this sort of thing, at least for a while.  This is the price!

    So, my thinking is slightly more in line with that of dharmasyd, Joy B. and davidseth.

    Thanks, Rusty!

  7. BarbinMD just posted a diary raising the same issue that Rusty’s essay discusses:  

    At what point will the Republican leadership have the guts to step up and say, stop?

    During two recent Obama events, we’ve seen a protester with an assault rifle slung over his shoulder, and another where a man wearing a holstered gun is carrying a sign saying “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” God knows what we haven’t seen. And while both may have been within the law, their message was clear — and we’ve already seen what an amped up rightwinger on a mission from God is capable of…

    As Josh Marshall at TPM pointed out:   Let’s be honest with ourselves: the American right has a deep-seated problem with political violence. It’s deep-seated; it’s recurrent and it’s real. And it endangers the country. It just makes sense to say something the first time they hit the sauce and not wait for things to get really out of hand.

    The question is, will the Republican leadership, in their ongoing quest to kill health care reform, continue to either ignore these implied calls for violence, or worse yet, cheer them on? Because pretending that these Republican fringers are simply disgruntled citizens concerned about the public option is as dishonest as the talking points the Republican Party has been peddling. But the consequences are potentially much more dire.  

    Josh’s entire post, linked in the quote above, is well worth a read, IMHO.  

  8. right wing militia groups, the CIA’s Counter IntelPro operation aimed at creating dissent in the rabid right wing.  What seems like a straight forward case of crazy right wingers is something totally different.  Manipulation is part of the process being used on citizens to achieve the elite’s goals.  Be careful how angry you get with other citizens, regardless of views.  Guns were brought to every parade, get together and event my great grandfather ever went to and they didn’t go off and kill politicians.  Don’t give in to the fear being created.  

  9. right wing militia groups, the CIA’s Counter IntelPro operation aimed at creating dissent in the rabid right wing.  What seems like a straight forward case of crazy right wingers is something totally different.  Manipulation is part of the process being used on citizens to achieve the elite’s goals.  Be careful how angry you get with other citizens, regardless of views.  Guns were brought to every parade, get together and event my great grandfather ever went to and they didn’t go off and kill politicians.  Don’t give in to the fear being created.  

  10. what planet she spends most of her time living on . . .

    • Alma on August 19, 2009 at 17:02

    job openings sign today.  It was for needing 1000 pistol instructors all over Michigan.  Think there’s many new guns owners in Michigan, and new militia members?  I sure do.

    • Arctor on August 19, 2009 at 17:09

    there were supported anecdotes of folks being investigated by the Secret Service for being overheard in a bar criticizing Bush…Now, Joe the Putzach can publicly threaten Nancy Pelosi without concern and others can carry assault weapons outside the President’s venue?!!

  11. link here

    And some of these wingers even look normal, perhaps too normal!  Give me the long haired DFHs any day.

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