Right-wing backlash against Obama? (BBC) [View All]

[jefferson_dem]

Right-wing backlash against Obama?

Following the fatal shooting of a guard at the Holocaust Museum in the US capital, the BBC's Kevin Connolly in Washington asks whether Barack Obama's election as president is provoking right-wing fringe groups to commit violent acts.

An elderly fanatic shoots dead a black security guard at the museum in Washington DC where America commemorates the Nazi's attempt to wipe out the Jews of Europe.

A week earlier, thousands of miles away in Wichita, Kansas, another lone gunman enters a crowded church and shoots dead Dr George Tiller, who ran a busy abortion clinic.

Within hours of the latest attack, blogs and social networking sites are buzzing with talk that the two incidents taken together confirm the rise of right-wing extremism in America.

On the left there is a strong belief that the attacks confirm a report prepared by the Department of Homeland Security earlier in the year which warned that the current political and economic circumstances in the US were creating a hothouse atmosphere within which right-wing extremism would flourish.

Those political circumstances, of course, include the election of America's first black President, Barack Obama - an event greeted with rage and horror on the extreme right.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8096065.stm