The tagline on Shawna Forde's anti-illegal immigration Web site says her group was "doing the job our government won't do." They wanted to patrol the border, but her small band of activists needed money to do it.Related: Jazz Shaw, "Revenge of the Little People: Does right-wing political commentary really drive lonely fringe dwellers to commit hate crimes?"
So, authorities say, Forde and two men dressed up as Border Patrol agents and broke into the southern Arizona home of a man they thought was a drug dealer, hunting for money or drugs to sell. They found neither, but killed the man and his 9-year-old daughter.
The May 30 killings rocked an anti-illegal immigration movement that prides itself on being vocal but not violent, and added to a growing list of activists accused of using violence to advance their aims.
In recent weeks, a white supremacist was accused of killing a black guard at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., and an ardent abortion foe allegedly shot and killed a prominent Kansas abortion doctor.
The possibility that activists in the anti-illegal immigration movement would use violence did not surprise Heidi Beirich, research director at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups.
"We figured for a long time that we were going to get violence out of this movement," she said.
Her organization says the number of hate groups nationwide has risen 54 percent since 2000, fueled by opposition to Hispanic immigration and, more recently, by the election of the nation's first black president and the economic downturn.
Several groups focusing on stopping illegal immigration formed in the past half-dozen years, and many were drawn to southern Arizona, the busiest corridor in the nation for illegal border crossings.
"Some are using the movement to promote their own bigoted, racist ideology," said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University-San Bernardino. "But I want to be clear: That's not everyone in the movement, and it poses a real problem."
He said the movement's message attracts people with ulterior motives. Larger groups try to patrol their ranks for potentially troublesome people but have no power to stop exiles like Forde from starting splinter groups, and even from using the Minuteman name.
After the killings, some of the movement's leaders quickly distanced themselves from Forde and her Minutemen American Defense group, saying they warned for months that she was potentially dangerous.
"We knew that Shawna Forde was not just an unsavory character but pretty unbalanced as well," said Chris Simcox, the founder of one of the original border watch groups, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Fringe Activists Now Poster Killers for the Conservative Right
Here's the AP headline, "Arizona killings rock anti-illegal immigration movement, highlight risk of fringe activists." The Holocaust Museum shooting took place on June 10th. Many commenters at that time linked the suspect James von Brunn to Scott Roeder, the man accused of killing abortionist George Tiller?. It's been nearly three weeks since Tiller was killed. So why is AP running stories to build up further support for the discredited DHS domestic terror report. None of these suspected killers represent the conservative movement. All Americans should be saddended by these events, but they should not be browbeaten into silence by the left wing press and the demonic netroots hordes so quick to exploit these tragedies.
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12 comments:
Donald,
a) "None of these suspected killers represent the conservative movement."
I agree with you; but the DHS report was not saying "O'Reilly is going to shoot up the place while McCain and Palin go on a serial murder rampage." (Fill in names with people who might represent the conservative movement.) The DHS report warned of extremist right-wing violence, i.e., not mainstream right-wing violence.
So, I agree with you: fringe killers are not the face of the mainstream conservative movement. They are on the fringe of the conservative movement (which is possibly where our agreement might break down).
b) "Americans ... should not be browbeaten into silence by the left wing press and the demonic netroots hordes so quick to exploit these tragedies."
You've said something like this before about the "despicable opportunism" ( http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/thoughts-on-our-civil-war.html ), and again, I'm not seeing it.
Are people pushing through the Fairness Doctrine? Are people pushing through gun-control legislation? Are people telling right-wing media to shut up?
The last I checked, the answers to that were no, no, and somewhat--although, the last person I heard who said that the conservative media needs to change was Conor F.
If I'm wrong, please tell me where.
Just curious, but did the DHS report even mention the word "conservatives"?
If not, why do you keep using that term here?
Ben LB, you are a liar.
They are not "on the fringe" of the American Right" they are on the fringe of society, and you know perfectly well that that is exactly what was meant here.
This is pure slander, not to mention putting words in other peoples mouths.
How dishonorable of you.
An equivalent formulation from the Right would be to cast inner city gangs, drug dealers, drug users or robbers as on the fringe of the American Left. Those folks certainly justify their criminality by mouthing the anti-white racist slanders supplied by Leftist Agitprop efforts. They certainly vote democrat (whether they actually go out to a voting booth and vote or just have some democrat "activist" stuff ballot boxes with their "votes".) Most certainly, they favor a welfare state. In fact, most of these are the chief clients of Democrat Government. They are glamorized by the MSM propaganda machine of the Leftist media. They are valorized by the "victimology" culture of the Left.
No? just look at precinct and county votes in inner cities. Look at those baton welding Black Panthers at polling stations. Look at what comes out of Hollywood. Read the propaganda and cant that passes for "scholarship" n our campuses.
And let me tell you, these folks cause much more havoc than anyone than any you choose to identify as "on the fringe of the American Right".
They commit a murder every day-Violence, mayhem and thievery each and every day. Conservative shun this sort of behavior. Why deos the left court it, even respect it?
Are they a "fringe movement of the Left"? Are the Crips an action arm of the left? Latino gangs? They are certainly sympathetic to the Democrat Party. What about La Raza? What about ACORN?
(Had to break this into two because of Blogger)
The conservative movement is made up of decent people that actually make a living.. It is the guy down the street that owns a hardware store, or a worker that does not want to be in a labor union and wants to make his own way, or a small town banker that actually does his community good or a decent American in the armed services defending this country.
They have families, pay most of the taxes, do most of the work, go to church, mind their own business and are the mainstay of decency, honor, dignity, wealth and productivity in this society.
What is the left composed of?
Lawyers? Corrupt labor bosses and their thugs? Media types? Corrupt political bosses and their political machines? Wall Street Bankers? Incompetent Academics and NEA members? Gays? Welfare bums? People with government jobs or on some for of government dependency? Illegal immigrants? Trust-fund brats?
Young immature and ill-educated little ideologues like yourself with nothing real to defend in their lives, and who cannot even honestly defend the received cant that they call their "ideas"?
The Left is composed of vipers and parasites; it is a gang of thugs, hypocrites, narcissists and liars.
How dare you slander and libel the decent people in this country, people who contribute considerably more that you. They people that allow you your parasitic existence.
And how dare you put words in the mouth of the owner of this blog.
You prove his point. That the Left has no honor; that they will viciously slander their opponents at any turn. Why is that? It is because if they came out from behind their propaganda fronts and campaigns their "ideas" could not stand the light of day, and their agenda would be shown to be the treason it is. We saw this nonsense duriung the Cliton years, but the stakes are higher now.
You on the Left stomp your feet and yell to the high heavens when a blood-thirsty foreign enemy is treated as he deserves to be treated, yet you turn on your fellow citizens and make them into the enemy because they dare to oppose your dismantling of the Republic and all that is good in the USA. You should be deeply ashamed of yourself. But you have no shame. In order to have that you would have so have an atom of decency and morality left in you.
You are the enemy of this nation and people are getting wise to it.
Keep up the slander...see where it gets you.
Hey Phliippe, show me the conservatives that are calling for people "kill medical doctors or shoot people at museums." Prove it!
That nut-job at that museum was a lefty, or at least shared leftist beliefs. There is nothing at all that ties him to the right, nothing at all. He has the profile of a leftist. Prove otherwise or be man enough to apologies. (Fat chance of that!)
There is no stronger supporter of Israel or Jews in America than the Conservative movement. It is the Left that hates Israel, and the International Left has been notoriously ani-semetic for its entire vile history. Show me the Leftist that supports the Jewish state or does not believe that America is run by a "Zionist cabal" or "Jewish money". Without conservative and the GOP America would have parted ways with Israel long ago. Is not the marginalization of the Israeli-American relationship one of the chief goals of Obama's foreign policy?
You comment is wholly baseless and complete slander.
you should be ashamed of yourself.
What about people like Bill Ayers? what about people in anti war marches that carry banners that say "Troops! Frag your Officers!".
What about people like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton who incite racial hatred for their own political and economic ends?
It is the Left that incites to violence, not the right.
Once again we see leftists project their own vileness on to decent and patriotic Americans.
It's all the Leftinistra have accusing others of what they themsleves do.
Philippe,
I think your English is perfectly understandable when you write:
"Of course the conservative movement is not inciting people to kill medical doctors or shoot people at museums."
I think Mongoose got carried away and he missed that "not"--which is the sort of thing that happens to all us now and then.
(But to prevent misreadings in the future, I think you should think about bolding or italicizing certain words; for instance, in the quote above, bolding "not" would make it harder to miss.)
Cheers.
Philippe,
I've seen a lot of fights brew up from people not reading the little word "not"--or sometimes, even typing so quickly that they forgot to put in that word (and posting without proof-reading).
I may be left-wing, but I think we're all on the same side in the fight against mis-understanding each other.
Don't know who "Mongoose" is, but the intelligence level is appropriately named.
That was a remarkably stupid rant.
Again, not answering the main question...why does the right always align themselves with a report that talks about extremists, but does not mention them by name, yet conservatives take offense?
I don't get angry when I see the right claiming that right wing extreme lunatics are actually "lefties," but it does make me laugh.
Hey Tim, you wholly fail to adress my point.
I thinking that you are projecting your own intellectual mediocrity.
You just prove the point: Leftist cannot address any opposition to their ideas by any other means than personal attacks.
I would say that it is you that is the mediocrity. In fact, I am sure of it.
Phillepe, sorry, i thought that you were be facetious. My apologies.
Oh and TIm, the Left has been reposible for hundred of millions of deaths in the last 90 years, and hundreds of millions more lives blighted.
Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot--the list goes on and on. No wonder the the Right considers the Left "extremists", for that is what they truly are. Nor may you as an American leftist honewtly claim that your hands are clean in these. the American left have been aplogist and water carriers for practially every collectivist dictator of the last century. From the purges of Stalin to the outrages of teh Kmer Rouge, there is supstancial innocent blood on your hands.
To some how equate the wlanders of the left against the right with the honest concerns of the left is intellectually dishonest and morally indefensible.
That you find this "amusing" makes of yu an ignoramus, an idiot or a monster, or maybe all three together.
Oh and TIm, the Left has been responsible for hundred of millions of deaths in the last 90 years, and hundreds of millions more lives blighted.
Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot--the list goes on and on. No wonder the the Right considers the Left "extremists", for that is what they truly are. Nor may you as an American leftist honestly claim that your hands are clean in these slaughters by foreign Leftists. The American left have been apologists and water carriers for practically every collectivist dictator of the last century. From the purges of Stalin to the outrages of t Khmer Rouge, there is substantial innocent blood on your hands.
To some how equate the slanders of the left against the right with the honest concerns of the rightt is intellectually dishonest and morally indefensible.
That you find this "amusing" makes of you an ignoramus, an idiot or a monster, or maybe all three together.
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