Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Republicans Enable Domestic Terrorism

A blogging friend of mine has a post that I wanted to bring to peoples attention: How McCain-Palin are Fueling the Flames of Domestic Terrorism

The post was written by Donald Bortz (we know him as DJ), a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. He spent 6 years of his life fighting terrorists and he's not happy - rightly so - about the tone of the McCain/Palin campaign and their followers.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines terrorism as The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.

Right-wing terrorism isn't a new thing. Tim McVeigh blew up the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City. Eric Rudolph killed and wounded hundreds of people. The Army of God is still in existence. But this is the first time that not only has a wave of domestic terrorist attacks have been perpetrated against a Presidential campaign, but this is the first time his opponent has condoned it.

We've had several attacks over the weekend. At an Obama rally, over 30 cars had their tires slashed. A black bear was shot and dropped at Western Carolina University with Obama signs stapled to his head. People had their lives threatened for putting Obama signs on their lawn. And a woman was assaulted for knocking on doors for Obama.
DJ just touched upon some of the incidents - there have been other ones - but he sums up the reason behind these attacks like this:
This is what happens when you tell your supporters that your opponent is a terrorist. This is what happens when you condone having your supporters scream "kill him!" and "terrorist" at your rallies.
Why isn't the Republican leadership condemning this behavior? Do they want their candidate to win so badly that they're willing to look the other way? Someone is going to end up dead.

As for McCain, DJ nails the reason he continues to defend these attacks.
Because he doesn't want to go against his base. He tried once to stop the hate that he helped create, and he was booed for it. He's more scared of what his base thinks of him than he is of preventing domestic terrorist attacks. It's sad that a war veteran is so unwilling to put country before political aspirations.
If someone does end up hurt or dead before election day, the McCain campaign, Republicans and media will be responsible. They were quick to condemn terrorism in the Middle East, but they're enabling it here at home.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yep, and that's why it wasn't a stretch for John Lewis to talk about George Wallace rallies and McCain/Palin rallies in the same breath.

Anonymous said...

If someone does end up hurt or dead before election day...

Personally, I'm much less concerned about what happens before election day than about what happens after. For Democrats, Obama supporters, 'anti-American' liberals, the first 3 months after the election will be tough as the most 'entitled' rulers in US history suddenly find themselves out of power.

Anonymous said...

They want it. The only chance they now have is to appeal to the basest elements of humanity, and turn out every inbred Klanservative there is. The more violence they can spike, the more their Klanservative base will get wound up.

Kathy said...

Abi, absolutely, and as these incidents continue to pile up, it makes it harder for McCain to demand that Obama repudiate Lewis' comment that his campaign is "sowing the seeds of hatred and division." Lewis was right and the evidence is there for the world to see.

Kvatch, good point. There are good losers and sore losers and Republicans have never been graceful by any stretch of the imagination.

Jollyroger, that appears to be their motive, but they're preaching to a minority. I believe Americans are better than that and won't fall for their tactics.