Right-wing backlash against Obama? (BBC)

[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

[rurallib]

1. just skimmed it, but I don't see anything about the media fanning

the flames of hate for the past two years against liberals and Obama in particular.

[Occam Bandage]

2. Interesting framing: Obama "provoking" a "backlash."

It implies the attacks are in response to provocative actions carried out by Obama. I do not believe this is the case.

[kenny blankenship]

3. Bad neurochemistry & upbringing causes them to explode & kill-

-not the election of a center-right African American Pres.

[EFerrari]

4. In addition to a history of racism, the US has a long history of promoting

right wing nutcases for political purposes and to intervene in other countries. We can't welcome the right wing trash from all over Latin America, for example, and expect it not to affect our own culture, our own politics.