Loughner's ramblings appear rooted in far right

[TomCADem]

Source: LA Times

The ramblings of accused Arizona killer Jared Lee Loughner are difficult to tie to a coherent political philosophy, yet in them can be discerned a number of themes drawn from the right-wing patriot and militia movements, experts said.

* * *

Most wind up concluding that Loughner suffered from mental problems. But experts said that several oft-repeated phrases and concepts — his fixation on grammar conspiracies, currency and the "second United States Constitution" — seem derived from concepts explored with regularity among elements of the far right.

"What you can see across the board in his writings is the idea that you can't trust the government — that the government engages in mind control against its citizens," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has long monitored the radical right.

Loughner's assertion that he would not "pay debt with a currency that's not backed by gold and silver" is a running theme among right-wing opponents of the Federal Reserve system.


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-arizona-shooting-extremism-20110112,0,7697607.story

---

Of course, this appears to be a no brainer, yet in the interest of being "fair and balance," even the LA Times quotes some folks who insist that he was from the left even though he attempted to assasinate one of Arizona's few Democratic members of Congress.

[snot]

1. Any good summary available of evidence that he was a lefty?

[TomCADem]

2. Nope, But As Noted By Media Matters, This Does Not Stop Right Wing Talk Show Hosts...

...from insisting that he is a liberal as noted in this thread discussing a media matters story collecting such claims.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x179682

[Rainbow Wave]

3. They stay on their talking points.

So there's a good chance people will be repeating ad infinitum that he was a liberal - never mind that liberals have not been known to be violent in the US since the Revolutionary War. They also don't know the difference between a liberal, a socialist, a communist, or even a generic leftist. Hell, a lot of them seem to have slept through their high school history class and don't even know the Nazis were the far right.

[Bragi]

17. Yep, facts be damned, he's a liberal

The right will keep saying he's a liberal, the left will keep saying he is right wing, and most people will conclude that he was one or the other, depending on which message fits their pre-existing bias, except for those who think he's just nuts, along with everyone who is trying to blame the other party for his killings.

Which is to say: no-one will win this debate based on facts, because most Americans are too ill-informed to understand what a fact is even if it drives up to their house and parks in their driveway.

[Rainbow Wave]

19. No one is "just nuts."

That's a facile way of dismissing the whole discussion without bothering to think about it. It's entirely possible to be "nuts" AND political at the same time.

That this is political seems obvious, even if it's not a politics you and I would recognze. Mass shooters always choose the scene of their carnage for symbolic effect. He chose a political event.

It's also clear that he is familiar with the writings of the far right militia movement. People who study far right groups, like the Southern Poverty Law Center, recognized his tropes right away. This is not about "blaming the other party." We're talking about far right extremists, not Republicans and Democrats. People stuck in the loop of the two major parties have to understand that.

[Kolesar]

20. Very good

welcome to our forum :hi:

[Rainbow Wave]

21. Thanks.

I was actually here years ago, but I can't remember what my username was back then.

[Bragi]

25. No disagreement from me

My posting was more about the fact that facts don't matter much anymore. The right doesn't have to prove that he is a liberal, they just have to signal that there is debate on the subject. The ill-informed and lazy public can then conclude that if there's debate, either side could be correct.

It's like climate change. Though there is no real debate among informed experts on the facts, lazy people still think that there is doubt as to what is happening because there continues to be debate, and they eventually just support the side they most associate themselves with.

I think the same will be true about whether the shooter here was of the right or left persuasion. Moreover, the easiest position to sell is that he was crazy, and thus he cannot and does not represent a political perspective. I agree with you that this is a false argument, I just don't think it matters.

(Sorry if this is confusing, but this is just a quick, drive-by response. Suffice it to say that there's nothing you wrote with which I disagree.)

[Rainbow Wave]

26. I think Republicans

are doing themselves a disservice by being so defensive about this. Instead of trying to "prove" he's a liberal or becoming defensive about their own previous political speech they should simply distance themselves from him - and, in the case of those who did insinuate violence in their previous discourse, just give it up as a political tactic. By constantly trying to deflect the blame to the Democrats/liberals/leftists they only look like they have a guilty conscience.

And anyone who is liberal or leftist and is defensive should just relax. One book on a confusing reading list and the hearsay testimony of someone who is unreliable does not a case make. Everything else about this guy indicates he's heavily influenced by the far right - a place a lot of lunatics end up. Here we're talking neonazis, militias, Tim McVeigh, etc.

[jvanm]

36. Attending the Giffords event in 2007 is hardly apolitical

...nor is carrying around a copy of the Constitution to wave under the noses of employees of a employment center, as Loughner did (irc Beck, among others carries around and waves a copy of the Constitution as if it were writ from on high).

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/crime/article_0bb54d4e-1ead-11e0-97a1-001cc4c03286.html

[Arrowhead2k1]

4. The only things that they have on him as being a lefty are "The Communist Manifesto"

being in his list of random favorite books, even though he's got some right-wing books in there too. And some random high-school peer on twitter claims that when she knew him in 2007, he "appeared" left of centre.

[DallasNE]

7. The Missing Element

To tie him to the left is the subjects he actually wrote about. Every last one of them are far right-wing. He never quoted any ideas contained in The Communist Manifesto nor any anti-war statements to tie him to his alledged tastes in music -- perhaps because he is not actually familar with the works he cites -- they are hard to read and understand, after all, and a stretch for a high school dropout.

[Turborama]

9. Mein Kampf is on that oft cited list, too

On his YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/Classitup10

[Arrowhead2k1]

11. Yeah, I don't know many lefties who care to read Mein Kampf... nt

[fascisthunter]

16. just to research maybe

that's why pinning anything on what folks read is hard to do. However, what they read, then say and do help connect those dots more. And what he did was rant the way most far -right tea baggers do.

[jakeXT]

22. friends said he did it to uppset his Jewish mother

Loughner's family was in no way Jewish, nor was his mother -- but she might have mentioned her Jewish grandfather, beloved enough to live on in her brother's name, with pride or interest. Under those circumstances Loughner, who sought "chaos" according to Tierney, might have sought to provoke his mother and his uncle by pretending to admire (or actually admiring) Adolph Hitler. He might have told Tierney that his mother was Jewish as a shorthand, or might have seen her as Jewish -- like I said, not the most reliable reporter. Or he might have explained the lineage, and Tierney might understandably have conflated it as "mother Jewish."http://blogs.jta.org/politics/article/2011/01/12/2742519/loughners-jewish-mother-not-so-much

[Rainbow Wave]

23. What kind of communist

likes Ayn Rand, one of the world's most famous anti-communists? He probably included the Communist Manifesto in his list because of its shock effect. It's really quite silly to use that as evidence he is a communist or leftist. Even conservatives read the Communist Manifesto. Contrary to popular opinion in the US, Marx was an economist who wrote books, not a violent revolutionary. And in that book he's describing what he foresaw would happen given the abuses of the industrial revolution. He was right on some things, wrong on others, just like every economist. People in the Soviet block countries used rhetoric derived from Marxist theories, but what they actually applied did not adhere to Marxist principles.

Then there's Ayn Rand, whose philosophy is based solely on opposing communist theory. So if they're going to decide his politics based on his reading list, they have to account for that too.

[Kurovski]

27. He also liked Alinsky, which is recommended by Glenn Beck.

Beck advises viewers to know the enemy by reading Alinsky.

[laconicsax]

5. I'm pretty sure you summed it up right there. n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. I pegged him as right wing, Libertarian with randian

leanings... with a sense of militia and anti guv'ment... but hey... go over to places even here, and some are still in denial.

That does not mean this man was not crazy as a loon either. He is... and the discusion should also involve mental health and all that

[No Elephants]

8. NS, S.

[Turborama]

10. The one and only favorited video (made by him) on his YouTube channel has a militia feel about it

Here's where he favorited it: http://www.youtube.com/user/Classitup10

Here's the video which has his style of writing in the description: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L1lsLU-kUw

[wordpix]

28. talks about "political business information" and government; however, he is "conscience dreaming" so

he's nuts

[Turborama]

33. He was into lucid dreaming

There are lots of sane people who are into lucid dreaming.

[boppers]

12. he's crazy.

he's left, and right.

He's crazy.

This conversation is not unlike arguing whether or not Manson supported sustainable agriculture....

He's crazy. Gone.

[thecrow]

15. Kind of classic paranoid shizophenia at work here

Classicly, paranoid shizophrenics feel that "the government" is after them.

I know of one who decided that his own father had been replaced with some
sort of government agent, possibly the CIA, to "spy" on him. So he attacked his father.
As I said in another post, there is no reasoning with Crazy.
This particular person is on medication now and lives with his father again.

But I can't say that all this political "eliminationist" (ala Krugman) rhetoric
did not influence and fortify Loughner's thoughts. That is the danger of
this offensive discourse in American politics.

Schizophrenia develops in the teenage years and becomes (without medication)
full blown by the 20's. If people around Loughner had acted with concern instead of fear
and had gotten him help, maybe Gabby would have had a nice day on Saturday.

Please, if there's someone around you who is having a lot of trouble, who is self-isolating,
ranting with twisted logic, talking to invisible people, please see about getting help for them.

[wordpix]

29. re: "getting help for them"---if an adult won't commit himself & a mental hospital releases him

guess what? There's nothing anyone can do. I have a friend who's young adult child is schizophrenic and she got him admitted to a hospital, which said he was sane and let him go. He's now back at home, refuses to take meds, up all night, sleeps all day, unemployed, suicidal, won't talk to anyone including his family...This worries me but if a parent can't keep his grown child in a mental unit for more than a few hours, what is a friend of the family supposed to do?

[SpiralHawk]

13. The k and the r

to help stop the tidal wave of Republicon fear, hate and lies.

[One_Life_To_Give]

14. People grasping straws to explain the unexplainable

Maybe he's Righty and maybe he's so far out there that Nucking Futs is the only applicable descriptor. Are we sure he wouldn't have shot Palin for being to far to the Left? Would that still make him right wing?

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[EFerrari]

31. Yes, it would have. And, btw, most people who commit this kind of crime

are just like him, white right wing men under thirty that don't formally belong to any group but whose thinking takes off on right wing poison.

[fasttense]

18. There are people like Loughner throughout the US.

They are unstable and easily influenced. Like the adulterous woman who whispers to her boyfriend how she wished her husband were dead, and then the boyfriend murders the husband. The corporate media whispers to the crazies until they act on the suggestion.

If the right wing had not been pushing their violent rhetoric and hate, using guns as their symbol of strength, Loughner might have found a different target and might have used different means to attack the target. But that is not what happened.

You can NOT avoid this right wing hate and violence speech. You turn on the radio, it's there. You turn on the TV, it's there. You pick up a newspaper it's there. You go to a book store or library, it's there. You visit the internet, it's there.

Even the majority of waiting rooms, in businesses, transportation facilities and health establishments play Fox around the clock to entertain their customers. Loughner was exposed to this constant drum beat. He picked his target based on this constant drum beat and Sarah's map.

Yes he was crazy. But even crazy people are manipulated by the corporate media for fun and profit.

If instead of this constant drumbeat of hate toward liberals, glorification of violence and weapons ownership as a show of strength, he had heard that we should all get along. If he had constantly been exposed to the idea that people have every right to have their own opinions, that though liberals maybe wrong they are people too and have the same rights as you do. If he heard that instead of what is out there, then he may not have been so violent and would have chosen a different target.

Sarah and the RW hate corporations did not pull the trigger but they aimed Loughner's weapon.

[daleo]

30. The shooter was like Othello, a pawn in someone's game

The right-wing media like was Iago, encouraging his madness (and other's) for their own dark purposes. The victims were like Desdemona - they were the innocent victims of the scheme.

But these Iagos don't get caught.

[Brother Buzz]

32. What the hell are these grammar conspiracies all about?

My radar missed this one. :shrug:

[jvanm]

34. Disruptive Loughner was tossed out of job-help center

. . . .“He had a video camera with him and was taking pictures in the building,” Mary Brodesky wrote to her supervisors. “Front desk staff asked him to turn off camera and he refused. When job developer went up front to greet him he was using the camera. Job developer asked him to turn it off and Mr. Loughner refused.”

When Brodesky was called out, she wrote, “I said the staff person had not given him permission to use camera and he had to stop using it. He put camera in his pocket but it was still on and recording. I asked him to turn it off. He refused.”

“He pulled a crumpled copy of the Constitution out of his pocket and waved it at me saying it was his right. I attempted to calm him down but eventually had to ask him to leave the building, which he did.”
That was just the first of two times Loughner was ejected that day due to disruptive behavior involving his interpretation of the constitution. . . .


http://azstarnet.com/news/local/crime/article_0bb54d4e-1ead-11e0-97a1-001cc4c03286.html

[The Magistrate]

35. This Article, Sir, is Worth Taking Note Of Here

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/01/sovereign-citizens-jared-lee-loughner

These 'sovereign citizens' shoot....

[jvanm]

37. Wow ... libertarians on steroids!

[KurtNYC]

38. his video embedded there is spooky

wow.

[Youth Uprising]

39. I think it's pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain that Loughner is no Liberal...

He is part of the right-wing Libertarian lunatic fringe. Just take a look at his YouTube page; it is obvious that he is a right-wing Libertarian conspiracy theorist. He talks about the government engaging in mind control; he talks about his support for the gold standard, and he also lists We The Living, an anti-Communist book, by darling of the libertarian right, Ayn Rand, as one of his favorite books.

I think all this violent rhetoric coming from the right did have an effect on Loughner's fragile, impressionable mind, but I think it has less to do with Sarah Palin and more to do with the likes of Glenn Beck and Alex Jones.

[Raine]

40. *IF* he was from the left than wouldn't it be

even more important for them to watch what they say? It doesn't seem too smart to set off some deranged lefty who might go after someone on the right.