Organizing to Stop Far Right Violence by Frank Schaeffer

[Shallah Kali]

http://frank-schaeffer.blogspot.com/2009/10/stopping-right-wing-violence.html or http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/organizing-to-stop-far-ri_b_310202.html

They have singled out President Obama as their target. Since the real President Obama is not who they describe -- no, he's not the Antichrist, was born in America and doesn't want to kill your grandmother -- they have resorted to lies and intimidation to try and stop his agenda of much needed change. The problem is that I believe that Religious Right leaders and their Republican base are also potentially inciting violence. Within their numbers are unhinged people who also happen to be well armed.

snip

And in case you didn't know that the far right, big time hate machine and big time religion link up these days consider this: the giant Evangelical publisher Zondervan is crashing out Sarah Palin's memoir. Zondervan is owned by Rupert Murdoch. No, it's not a conspiracy, it's just that all the bottom dwellers eventually find each other in Crazyland.

Other people, besides former evangelicals like me (who have their ear to the ground and hear what's coming before the uninitiated do), are finally starting to realize that there is a serious problem facing America. I'm no longer one of just a few voices (for instance like Max Blumenthal and Jeff Sharlet) saying that the willfully ignorant far Right (usually religion-inspired) is risking our future.

snip

I started pondering the question of what we could do right after the assassination of Dr. Tiller by a religious extremist. I felt that it wasn't enough to call for boycotts of right wing commentators who spew their hate, because that did not really address the core problems. In fact as a former right wing religious "pro-life" leader I felt compelled to publicly apologize (in the Huffington Post) for the "America-is-like-Nazi-Germany" rhetoric that my late Evangelical leader father and I helped create in the 1970s and 80s that inexorably led to justifying violence in the Tiller case.

Now I want to endorse a campaign to address these issues.

It was launched last week at

http://www.StopDomesticTerror.com

The campaign includes letters from attorney Kevin Zeese and myself to Attorney General Eric Holder asking that he take the issue of domestic terror seriously by investigating and prosecuting threats and acts of violence. I'm working with others on a campaign to reach religious leaders who enable and encourage this violence, and asking for the launching investigations into the use of the media and web organizations by the right wing to foment violence. It is time to combat hate speech.

We have a long horrible legacy of violence against public figures. The worst chapters in our history have been written in blood by extremists when they felled our moral and political leaders. We must act now to avert another tragedy.

[murielm99]

1. This thread deserves more attention. n/t

[Oldtimeralso]

2. K & R and proud to help the cause n/t

[Seldona]

3. K&R

Even though I think it is sad this is needed. People who hate their own country enough to kill their fellow citizens? Hell yes this should be on their agenda, and at the top.

[NikolaC]

4. K&R

Hopefully this thread will get some more attention. It's become scary how much the hate in this country has been ratcheted up recently.

[Lost Jaguar]

5. They are out there...

...well-armed and trigger-fingers itching. Most are actually harmless wretches who indulge these bizarre conspiratorial fantasies to avoid facing their own weakness; their inability to face reality. Their lives are marked by misery and desperation. They feel powerless, emasculated, and confused. What the majority of them need is a decent job and a caring spouse. But there is a growing, yet still small, number that are truly dangerous. I once moved among them at gun shows, and I saw the dreadful pathology in their eyes. All it takes is one or two to act out, and I fear that they will multiply, and darkness will descend upon us.