Showing posts with label David Ignatius. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Ignatius. Show all posts

Friday, September 4, 2020

A Final End To White Male Grievance Support of Trump? Maybe Now After He Dismissed Fallen Troops As 'Suckers' & 'Losers'





"It doesn't matter much whether Trump is crazy, crazy like a fox, an incompetent boob who keeps getting lucky - or all three. What matters greatly is stopping him now before it is too late.  This is a tipping point, a time of trial for the soul of America.  We will protect our democracy from Trump's frontal assault or we will lose it."  - Allen Francis, 'The Twilight Of American Sanity', p. 101.


"How dare this guy make such comments when he, his kids, and the rest of the whole Trump clan never served one minute in the military, or the Peace Corps,  or sacrificed for this country in any capacity.

This guy Trump is disgusting and those who continue to support him are in the same category.  We are now in a new low in this country when we tolerate degrading the very people who sacrificed their lives to defend our country."  - Stan Hrincevich, Denver Post letters, Sunday, Aug. 6


"Donald Trump has falsely told us that only 9,000 people have died of the coronavirus in the United States, that shooting an unarmed man in the back seven times is like a bad putt at golf, that protests are being led by an airplane full of black-jacketed "thugs," and refused to condemn a vicious murderer who killed two people and blew the arm off a third. Now, he is threatening the Mayor of Portland with federal troops again.


Which raises the question, is this the America the majority of voters want to live in?  A country where the police act as an occupying force and are immune to oversight or discipline? A president who pits people against each other based on their religion or the color of their skin? An administration that lies about science as over 200,000 people die? Corrupt former lobbyists in charge of virtually every federal agency? Cutting the Social Security tax so the entire program collapses by 2023?

If the polls are any indication, almost half of America is right there with him.  WHY is This?"-  Thom Hartmann, ' Why Are So Many Americans Willing To Support Hate And Division?'

"The last four years have been deeply traumatizing to millions of Americans as we have watched our nation in the stranglehold of a maniacal, dictatorial and compulsively deceptive president. But it is worth examining the relationship that President Donald Trump has with his voters in order to understand why he won the 2016 election and why he continues to command such fervent loyalty a few months ahead of the next election. Willing to overlook his lies, improprieties, and corruption, Trump’s voters have a transactional relationship with the president that is practical, powerful, and surprisingly instructional to the rest of us.


While a majority of Americans might be stunned and horrified by Trump’s casual racism, unscientific claims, sexist attacks and more, his rambling rhetoric matters little to his base, and perhaps Trump voters don’t even bother trying to make sense of his words. To them, it matters what he does and how loyal he is to them. Trump’s reelection campaign website is literally called “Promises Kept.” Although several of his claims of promises are not true, the point is that he touts decisive action and convinces his supporters that he has fulfilled his pledges to them. He works for them and they know it. They are willing to overlook the ugliness that accompanies his rule. It is a practical and effective approach to transforming America into the country they want."  -  Sonali Kolhatkar, on smirkingchimp.com

It is beyond belief in these maddening times, that more than 2 in 5 Americans accept the surreal Trump-RNC Lie fest  and if the polls tighten in crucial "swing states" (WI, MI, PA) Trump could sneak into power again and wreak total havoc as an authoritarian, fascist dictator.   Thus, blogger Thom Hartmann's plaintive question in the caption at the top 'Why is this?' And his additional question from his full text:   

 Is this the America the majority of voters want to live in?

Well, maybe not an absolute majority but perhaps a majority of  working class, less educated Whites who remain filled with white grievance.  This lot are terrified of the massive BLM protests and also believe - following the RNC lies and propaganda- the poor blacks are coming for them in their (mostly) white suburbs.   They continue to feel, for some odd reason, that Trump has their back or sympathizes with them or wants to protect them. All of which is bunkum given Trump hasn't done one damned thing to protect them from the coronavirus. 

Most recently, WaPo reporter David Ignatius warned the white grievance and rage are still simmering, e.g.


Opinion | The rage that fuels Trumpism still burns - The ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-rage-that-fuels-trumpism-still-burns/2020/08/27/f76f554e-e898-11ea-970a-64c73a1c2392_story.html


Warning:

"When historians try to understand what happened to the United States in these years, they will study what spawned the Trump spasm of rage. Perhaps the most striking demographic change in the years preceding his election was the catastrophic decline in the health, income and cohesion of White men without college educations. That group voted 64 percent for Trump in 2016, making it one of his largest voting blocs, according to the Pew Research Center. 

The best account of this White collapse is “Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism,” published this year by economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton. Deaths from drug overdoses and other poisonings, suicide and alcohol-related diseases (which they grouped together as “deaths of despair”) among White people aged 45 to 54 “tripled from 1990 and 2017.” White men in particular were dying earlier; they were getting married less; they lost jobs and dignity."

Which makes my head spin just reading it. As for Janice, her understandable reaction was: "What is their problem, anyway? It's black men getting shot and smothered and choked, not white men! The cops give young white terrorists water bottles while they walk down the street with long guns!"

Ouch!

For me it's difficult to process all this white rage because my dad was also a young white man without any college education.  But he didn't piss and moan about any imagined plight, his Arkansas background, or blame black men or other minorities for grabbing jobs he wanted. No, he joined the WW II war effort - before Pearl Harbor- and ended up fighting in the Battle Of Buna - Gona in New Guinea. He lived to relate his war experiences in a diary which I read from time to time.

What's noteworthy is there's no self pity, no feeling sorry for himself - even after contracting malaria in the New Guinea jungles.  Nor did PTSD from his war experience make him turn to drink or drugs on his return to the states.  He had a million excuses to become an  angry a-hole and bum but he didn't.  No, he manned up, sucked it up and worked hard for his family.  Nonetheless, I am very glad he was not killed in that horrific battle (which rivaled Guadalcanal) .  Because - irrespective of my not being around to write this -  Trump would  be calling him a "sucker" or "loser" as he referred to those who put themselves out there (like coward Dotard didn't) but didn't come through.  See e.g.

Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are 'Losers ... - The Atlantic

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-americans-who-died-at-war-are-losers-and-suckers/615997/

According to the piece:

"When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris in 2018, he blamed rain for the last-minute decision, saying that “the helicopter couldn’t fly” .....In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed."

 Trump insisted in the wake of the ensuing firestorm:  " I'd be willing to swear on anything that I never said that about our fallen heroes!"  But of course there is nothing, nada, available to support this thug's lies.   So of course, Trump denies having ever said these things, because he knows there is nothing, no one to hold him to account. What would you expect of a  guy who's reeled off over 9,000 lies and counting?  That he'd suddenly acknowledge the truth of  those deplorable claims?   Of course not!  His defective character makes it 1,000 times more likely he'd deny that "losers" remark than admit it.    After all, look what he said about John McCain 4 years ago, i.e. "Sorry but I like heroes who don't get captured!"   So given Dotard Donnie's lying streak it's just as probable he'd spew out a negative lie (denial) as a positive one.  See e.g.


by Cody Fenwick | September 4, 2020 - 8:26am | permalink

Besides, James LaPorta - senior correspondent for Newsweek, has received confirmation from two top Defense Dept. officials who "confirm the Atlantic story in its entirety".   He made that known in an interview on Maddow Thursday night.  So if there's any "grieving", non-college white man, that should be all he needs to know about the character of the 2-legged  cockroach fouling the White House. Indeed, even FOX News' own national security correspondent (Jennifer Griffin) has verified  she was contacted by official sources confirming  what Trump said. See:
  And that begs the question: Why in hell's bells would anyone even remotely consider supporting such a roach given his disrespect and disdain for our nation's war dead?  And if he has no respect for them, or their grieving families - like those Marines that fought at Belleau Wood- why would he have a scintilla of respect for you?  As Alex Wagner put it on All In last night.

"Trump has a categorical aversion to empathy.  He was asked what words he'd have for the family of Jacob Blake. He couldn't even muster a shred of kindness and just said, 'it's bad for anybody'.   This goes back to the Atlantic article.  The cruelty is the point. The cruelty has always been central to Trump's brand and empathy is a rebuttal to cruelty.  So for personal and other reasons  he's just unable to open himself up to the crushing humanity of this moment. "

This is what I'd like all those millions of non-college educated white men -  with all their axes to grind -  to think about when they cast votes in the coming election.  Also, how Trump and his fascist brigade are trying to deliberately heap on risk for vulnerable citizens (grandparents of the aggrieved white men)  to vote by condemning the use of mail ballots. This, despite Trump encouraging his voters in NC to vote twice, and Toad Barr insisting that mail voting carries "substantial voting fraud" - which is an outright lie.  The  Brennan Center for Justice notes the actual fraud rate below 0..00006%- over years..  White men now in Trump's corner should consider all of that.  

However, one must acknowledge there are some white men (even college educated)  in Trump's camp, who are beyond redemption or help.  One such is the truculent Barton Swaim of the WSJ:


Swaim like the rest of the hacks in the WSJ op-ed stable has a problem with critical thinking as well as discerning when a leader (like Trump)  is a piece of crap and when he is for real.  Swaim, for example, attributes all Trump's abhorrent - even traitorous behavior- merely to quirks of his "celebrity personality".   He yearns to  see Trump as a "complex, multi-layered person, self-regarding and sometimes mean"..  Not as the inhuman, shit-eating pestilence he is, a living Turd who locks infants in cages and dismisses war dead as "losers" and "suckers".  SO why would any thinking person take anything Swaim writes seriously?   Just as he recently dismissed Trump's collusion, cooperation with the Russians (Aug. 15-16) as "a bloody minded conspiracy  theory rooted in machinations of bumbling FBI officials hyped by gullible journalists".  As opposed to what it really was - a deliberate, concerted effort to corrupt the American democratic experiment via the use of a foreign enemy state. 

All of which was amply born out in  recently released 966 -page Senate Intelligence Committee report, entitled :  Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities,”

The report "leaves no doubt that an extensive network of Russian operatives with intelligence ties worked with Trump's operatives to torpedo Hillary Clinton's campaign four years ago."

That opinion from Timothy O'Brien writing in Bloomberg News.  What every white man thinking of voting for Trump again needs to do is read as much of the report as possible. He will then see first hand why this  maggot traitor finds it so easy to dismiss U.S. war dead - who fought for all men's liberties - as "suckers" and "losers."

Amidst the  unending confusion, chaos, simmering anger and strife infecting the nation and the prospect of the most critical election in modern times, it is fair to ask are non-college white men really considering giving Trump 4 more years? Especially if it means turning our governance over to the truth slayers at FOX News?   What would be a genuine tragedy is to have millions of  non-college educated white men - mainly in the 5 swing states that swung the Electoral college to Trump 4 years ago - do so again. Despite how the man has already proven himself an incompetent traitor and perpetually dyspeptic 5- year old in a 74 year old's body. Not a leader who can steer this nation to more stable times over the next four year.

 Under Adolf Hitler the German state  became an agent of criminality as well as the principal perpetrator of  heinous atrocities, e.g. the slaughter of 6 million Jews and many others.  It is a state the U.S. is rapidly approaching under Adolf Jr. Trump.  Most distressing to read was the opening paragraph of a recent review of the book, 'Hitler- Downfall: 1939-1945', in The Denver Post,  showing glaring similarities between Hitler's deformed character and Trump's,  e.g.

"The impulsiveness and grandiosity, the bullying and vulgarity, were obvious from the beginning.  If anything, they accounted for Adolf Hitler's anti-establishment appeal for Germany's unpopular conservative elites.  Hitler's energy and theatrics made him an enticing partner when they appointed him Chancellor in 1933.  But anyone who thought Hitler and the Nazis would rise to the occasion were summarily purged from the system as an utter impossibility became indomitable reality: The Weimar Republic had become the Third Reich.

It would take another world war, a genocide and millions of dead before the dictatorship finally collapsed in 1945, a full 12 years after Hitler was invited into power.""

A kind of repeat of history is on the verge of happening again with Trump. if U.S. citizens (especially white males lacking college educations)  become too besotted by his bullying, fake macho and authoritarianism to think clearly. Or believe this criminal tyrant really has their interests - and safety - at heart.  Newsflash, he doesn't, he only has his interests at heart.  Which is why he signed a set of executive orders as a PR stunt but with precious little Covid benefits delivered. 


Just ask yourself: Do I really want four more years of this rage -tweeting crybaby,  and wannabe  authoritarian dictator?  A guy who calls your Vietnam war dead relatives "suckers" and "losers".  Really?  As Princeton Emeritus professor of politics Nancy Bermeo put it, in a NY Times piece by Farhad Manjoo:

"He’s doing things that are reminiscent of authoritarians in much less-developed countries with much shorter histories of competitive politics.

Which reinforces what John Dean told Chris Hayes on Wednesday night, in conjunction with his new book:

Do white guys really want this nightmare?  Do the white men who've counted themselves as Trump's bosom buddies truly relish a future - at least the next 4 years- with this orange cockroach's  pro-Putin paws on the nuclear codes? 

 If so, there really is no hope for this nation, and evidently  my dad fought all those WWII battles, and came home with malaria and PTSD for nothing.  But maybe now as word and confirmation of Trump's denigration of military vets killed in action spreads we will finally see retribution, political payback and an end to this vile fungal  excrescence.   We will see if the Atlantic story gets enough 'legs' and takes the maggot down once and for all, especially with the white male fans.  Is white nationalism and authoritarianism more powerful than vile putdowns of the fallen as "losers"?  That's the question to be answered in coming days.  Still, as Amanda Marcotte notes - as she writes (first link below):


"The Trump base, which is stable enough to keep Trump within stealing range of the 2020 election, loves to talk about how patriotic they are and to make a big show out of how much they supposedly love the troops. As this unquestioning loyalty to Trump makes clear, it's all nonsense. Given a choice between white supremacy and support for the men and women of the military, Trump voters will pick racism every single time."

The issue may already be settled for many Trump followers-  who are as shameless, gutless and unpatriotic as the roach they worship.

See Also:

And:
by Amanda Marcotte | September 2, 2020 - 7:46am | permalink


by Dave Lindorff | August 30, 2020 - 5:00am | permalink


AND:
by Dave Lindorff | September 3, 2020 - 5:25am | permalink

AND:


Trump is ‘Fox’s Frankenstein,’ insiders told CNN’s Brian Stelter — and here’s the toll it’s taken


AND:

by Bob Burnett | September 5, 2020 - 6:59am | permalink

Monday, January 14, 2019

More Reasons Why Donnie Dotard Will Soon Have To Cave In This Shutdown Standoff


Trump acting as a Russian Agent has never been a surprise to most of us. With this and other bad news piling up, the degenerate will have to yield by the State of the Union - or be booed off the dais.

"Now, the economy is hurting (S&P Global Ratings put the damage at $3.6 billion so far, nearly the amount Trump sought for his border wall), and most Americans correctly blame him (he is, after all, the one who boasted: “I’ll be the one to shut it down”)."  - Dana Milbank, in The Washington Post ('Please Help Donald Trump Find Work During The Shutdown')

The bodies -  displaced federal workers - from FDA food inspectors, to FBI agents, to TSA screeners,  Park rangers, the Coast Guard and contract workers,  are piling up and the degenerate traitor and Russian puppet Trump is at the center of it all.  (Well,along with his consigliere, Mitch McConnell, see below).   This is now the longest government shutdown (at 24 days) in U.S. history and like a drowning rat trying to grab at a floating plank crowded with his fellow rats (Mulvaney, Pompeo, Pence et al) he has nowhere to go but down.  None of his stunts or attempted bullying moves have worked and Nancy Pelosi is no more likely to give in to his extortion than Martians will land tomorrow atop the Empire State Bldg.   But with only 1 in 4 deplorables backing this scum he has to realize his hostage taking will not last.   I predict that by the SOTU on January 29th, with two million more cable and network TV optics gone south - gov't workers struggling, their disabled kids in need of care, oldsters tossed out of gov't supported housing in FLA (Sec. 202 support) and piling up lawsuits - this swine will be advised to throw in the towel.

His support will further dwindle as even more news reports about his acting as a Russian agent get out showing he has no more interest in the national security of the U.S.  than he has in breaking up with Putin.  But this grifting con man is hoist on his own petard, especially -as Joe Scarborough put it this a.m. - he continues to skunk his own team's negotiating efforts with more and more demands. As David Ignatius also noted, Trump "wants a 100 percent win" but he can't get it. There is no "art of the deal" that will bail him out because elections DO have consequences - and that refers to the one in November last year in which the Dems took the House in a Blue wave.  The consequence is that Trump can no longer get a one -sided  deal and he will have to now give something in return.  Or go down as the most deplorable, disgusting vermin president - worse than James Buchanan and Richard Nixon - in U.S. history.

Of course, some in the media only partially get it, still opting to play their "both sides are to blame" games. Such was the case with Peggy Noonan ('End This Stupid Shutdown', WSJ, Jan. 12-13, p.  A13) who only after slobbering past two columns with 'both sides' malarkey, finally admitted (making one wonder why she didn't lead with this):

"The president at the center of this drama is an unserious man. He is only episodically sincere and has no observable tropism toward the truth. He didn't get a wall in two years with a Republican Congress and is now in a fix. He is handling himself as he does, with bluster and aggression, without subtlety or winning ways. He likes disorder."

With her admission, finally near the middle of her piece, Noonan reveals how and why this is all a big nothing burger  about Trump's ego:  a narcissist McGuffin about getting a cheap win for Right wing rabble rousers, nothing more. It also accounts for why the so-called border wall has nothing to do with any serious border security. (As Ezra Klein also noted.)  Trump, if he truly wanted this wall, could have had it with $25 billion in 2017 - when all he had to do was remove the rescission on DACA,  the Dreamers' Act.  He didn't do that, despite promising he would at an Oval Office meeting. Once again, he tuned into Rightwing Screech TV-radio and the bombast caused him to back down. Just as it did 4 weeks ago when he was ready to sign a CR, then tuned into Limbaugh, Coulter and Co.  and saw them castigating his sorry ass. He turned chicken shit and dumped the CR pledge, leading the nation into the current shutdown shit storm.  So all of Noonan's doggerel about the Dems playing a role and "pretending to be the non-racist party"  is just that, doggerel.

The biggest pressure point now is with all the displaced, income -less federal workers - including associated contract workers who number in the millions. As they collect more and more pay stubs labeled $0.00 and more and more screen shots show them lined up at food pantries, and TSA lines snake around the airport terminals, and more lawsuits are filed, you can be sure Dotard will have to crack.

But the real cracking point will be when the 22 Reep Senators up for re-election next year (including many in blue or purple states) tell Mitch McConnell this farce cannot go on and he needs to bring any or all of the House Dem bills to a floor vote.  For reference,  67 "yay" votes on any one of them renders it veto-proof, and the bill passes.   Once this happens the shutdown ends and all Dotard's protests and blusters won't change that.  But this also tells us that a hidden collaborator in the shutdown hitherto has been Mitch McConnell.  He constantly uses the balderdash that he "can't bring anything to the floor that Trump won't sign"  - but refuses to 'fess up that it doesn't freaking matter once the two thirds majority is reached. Most observers - like Scarborough and Ignatius - believe this won't be a problem at all, and provide an 'out' for many Reep Senators under the gun for inflicting so much pain.   The takeaway here? Bitch McConnell (Trump's bitch, that is) is running covert interference for Dotard while he holds the real key to stopping the shutdown on a dime. As wifey has put it; "Of course McConnell is to blame, maybe even more than Trump,  because he can stop it with one floor vote! He's a guppy -faced, miserable coward and enabler!"     Ouch!

Nor will this wall bunkum effort at diversion work, via Trump's attempts to deflect attention from the tightening Mueller probe.  But also from the continued press disclosures of how Trump not only tried to keep the Putin translator notes (from assorted meetings)  a secret, but also the fact the FBI had to open a counter-intelligence investigation into his unseemly behavior.

Let's also get it straight the Trump shutdown has been selective, allowing public lands to remain open for hunters as well as oil and gas development. (Denver Post, Sunday, p. 1A).   As reported, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this past week, announced using "left over funds" from 2018 to "return staffers to work, ensuring planned activities on those lands, including organized hunts".  So the Trump shutdown is selective where it wants to be and will pay affected workers where and when it chooses. Just not the hard -working TSA agents, or park rangers at national parks - or the FBI agents - who as the NY Times reported investigated Trump being a Russian agent after he fired James Comey.

We also know the Trumpies, degenerates that they are, have explored end -arounds to get their stupid ass wall done. That includes appropriating any and all funds allocated for the hurricane disasters that clobbered Puerto Rico, Texas and Florida in the past year  or so. Yes, it is true! This is what the government that's also caged infants has mutated into: a kakistocracy, or government of vermin.

As for the national emergency bullshit, Trump's minions (like the execrable coward Lindsey Graham) are still calling for it, but sensible conservative pundits (what few there are, like George Will) know it's a non-starter. Even if Trump could declare it (according to a specious 1976 act) he would set such a precedent for a low bar, mock "emergency"  that any future president could invoke it for the flimsiest of pretexts. For example, a President Elizabeth Warren could use it to stanch inequality or fight climate change.  A President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2032 could use it to eliminate all student loans - thereby freeing millions of debt-loaded grads. So no, the Trumpies, dumb and desperate as they are, don't want to open that door.

I predict that with the pressure mounting, and soon from the Senate, this shutdown  will be over by the State of the Union on January 29th. If it isn't, the assembled congress needs to stand with the still out of work federal employees not with this mock "president". They need to  forget all "decorum" and boo Trump as he walks in with his shit -eating grin, and keep booing him as he tries to pump out more lies and excuses.  That is the American free speech way, and the only way to deal with this two- legged maggot now.

The TV networks already erred by giving him prime time to deliver what was basically a campaign speech to arouse his asinine base. What we don't need now is the State of the Union used as another prop for his lies, degeneracy and bad faith.

See also:



Friday, December 4, 2015

Rhetoric and Radicalization - Controlling the Terror Meme

Even as many (especially Reeps) have already rushed to judgment on the origin of the San Bernardino mass shooting, former CIA security specialist Michael Morrell - as well as columnist David Ignatius - have warned about getting ahead of the story. Morrell on CBS Early Show observed, while admitting the couple may have been "radicalized":

"They may not have been planning this particular event. They may have gone to this party, got angry and decided to do this event based on that anger rather than a series of plots they were actually planning"

Which would explain the huge store of weapons left in their home, including 4500 bullets and 12 pipe bombs.  It also discloses the case may not as be as simple as labeling it "Islamic terrorism' when a workplace anger issue could have been the proximate trigger. Indeed, one of the victims - a 52 year old health inspector - Nicholas Thalasinos was one of the victims and a "Messianic Jew" who also "wasn't afraid to give his political and religious opinions" according to reports on MSNBC yesterday afternoon. One can then easily imagine him getting into a ferocious argument with Syed Farooq leading to him rushing out in a fit of anger then returning with a hell-bent Pakistani wife (who indeed may have radicalized him as some co-workers believe). The argument scenario is backed up by this report from The Times of Israel:

http://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-victim-of-california-attack-had-argued-with-shooter-about-islam/

The piece notes "a heated argument weeks before the attack" but it may well have been revived at the party before Farooq "lost it" and decided to respond with violence. This also may be a lesson for us all, when we gather with family at Christmas to leave out politics and religion as topics for discussion! Because it turns out close family members are the prime murderers though you wouldn't know it from the media reports.

Morrell added one of the most salient points of all and Reepos ought to take note:

"Although they may have been (radicalized) terrorists, this may not have been a terrorist event. It depends on their motivation."

Morrell isn't being cute but simply separating proximate from distal causes. If in fact Farooq was enraged by what Nicholas Thalasinos said weeks earlier or at the party, say that he also "needed to be saved"  - then the motive wasn't explicitly a terrorist one, to sow fear in a community. It was to get even with Thalasinos and any perceived as backing his views.

As for David Ignatius, he warned on 'Morning Joe' that it is unwise to jump to conclusions (as the Reeps have done) just based on the names of this pair, and also added that Obama is wise not to move too far ahead of the actual facts.

What worries many of us, as Charlie Pierce framed it on Chris Hayes last night, is how hateful rhetoric may stir the pot even more - leading to brutal attacks on peaceful Muslims just trying to live their lives - and who condemn this recent attack as vigorously as any white Anglo.  This take recognizes how hateful rhetoric can prey on weak minds and lead to tragedies such as we've seen lately,

While the GOP candidates' histrionics is now forming a convenient political prop for exploitation, they forget that the actual nature of the shooters is not so critical as their access to mass destruction weapons and the rhetoric that triggered their radicalization. This is where "the bear sits with the buckwheat".  Whether lone wolf killers infected by right wing memes (Robert Lewis Dear), or garden variety lone nuts (Jared Loughner, James Holmes, Adam Lanza), or right wing terrorists (Dylan Roof, Tim McVeigh)   or Muslim terrorists (Nidal Hasan) - none could have wrought the slaughter they did without: a) access to lethal weapons, and b) having brains triggered by hateful rhetoric.

In the case of (a) irrespective of who or what group, none of the mass slaughters and mass shootings would have transpired if this nation had serious gun laws such as Australia's. (See the end of yesterday's post for details). Nattering gun lobby nabobs always insist "guns don't kill people, people kill people" but that trope got demolished when the first doggie that accidentally plopped on a loaded shotgun (resting on a couch) killed its human owner.  One exception disproves the rule, or the trope.

The unholy truth is that most shootings are  NOT ideological or random but rather domestic (in people's homes) - either suicides or one spouse (usually male) killing the other after a fiery argument.   Assaying all mass shootings between 2009 and 2015, the Huffington Post found that 70 percent occurred in the home. Of these, 57 percent involved a family member or current or former intimate partner. 81 percent of the victims were women and children. These killings were not done by 'crazies' but usually normal people who simply lost it in the midst of a heated argument and reached for the weapon nearest and dearest - a gun.

The true fact here is that over the past several decades, the U.S., which once scrutinized the use and ownership of guns, has now been gutted by the crazies and their lobbies, mainly the NRA. Meanwhile, craven politicos genuflect to them at every turn and even yesterday the Repukes didn't even have the balls to vote for a sane law to close the terrorist watch list loophole (allowing those on the terrorist watch list to buy guns).

In respect of the hateful rhetoric issue (b), no, it doesn't have to be ISIS that creates the rhetoric to turn people into murderous zombies. In the case of Robert Lewis Dear, even in the wake of his butchery at the Planned Parenthood clinic here in the Springs, politicos were making excuses and blaming the target. The Denver Post in its Dec. 2nd Editorial ('Disgraceful Talk After The Shootings'), noted the vile words from Rep. JoAnn Windholz (R-Commerce City)   even as the victims' bodies were laid to rest:

"Violence is never the answer but we must start pointing out who is the real culprit. The true instigator of this violence and all violence at any Planned Parenthood facility is Planned Parenthood themselves"

Which is nearly as disgusting as Hitler blaming the Jews for being gassed in his Auschwitz death chambers because they should have been sensible enough "to leave when they could".  (cf. 'The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler', Robert Payne) . As the Post put it, the words:

"are almost chilling in their implicit acceptance"

Not only that, but many of us understand those  words as a cue for other weak minds, or frustrated, angry ones - to take violent action.

On the same page, an article ('The Moral Blame for Violence in Colorado Springs')  by the WaPo's Ruth Marcus makes this very point and ties the despicable rhetoric of the Right and Repubs in the months leading up to Dear's violent act. As she writes:

"If initial reports of alleged gunman's Robert Lewis Dear's comments about 'no baby parts' prove true - and logic suggests it was no coincidence, the Republican politicians who fueled the overwrought and unsupported controversy over selling baby parts bear some measure of responsibility"

Indeed, and as reported on the front page of the same edition, Colorado Dem Diana DeGette - on the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives- reported that in the course of the hearings eight Republican member used the phrase "baby parts" no less than 33 times. Did they not realize what they were seeding with their rhetoric? I have to believe they knew as much as ISIS does when it seeds the social media landscape with its own PR, hateful rhetoric and propaganda.

The ultimate source of the anti-PP rhetoric is encapsulated again by Marcus:

"The current effort to demonize Planned Parenthood....is a manufactured issue, cobbled together from doctored videotapes and overheated accusations. The organization has been so mischaracterized, and the practice of providing fetal tissue so overblown and manipulated by lawmakers and politicians that blame for the ensuing violence falls more heavily on them."

This again, re--introduces the issue of the limits of "free speech" and whether it can be prosecuted when it veers into hate speech or terrorist instigation. If we can prosecute ISIS renegades for spreading ISIS crap (like making homemade bombs) then surely we can go after right wingers for sowing mental bombs in the febrile minds of too many of our fellow citizens..

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/william-rivers-pitt/65051/what-rough-beast-slaughter-is-the-standard-in-the-us