The alleged shooter at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum today has an online book excerpt revealing his deep roots in historic White Supremacy and antisemitic conspiracy theories, including references to the hoax document The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. His website includes links to White Supremacist and Holocaust denial sites.
People who believe conspiracist allegations sometimes act on those irrational beliefs, and this has concrete consequences in the real world. The shooting today is a prime example of why it is a mistake to ignore bigoted conspiracy theories. Law enforcement needs to enforce laws against criminal behavior. Vicious bigoted speech, however, is often protected by the First Amendment. We do not need new laws or to encourage government agencies to further erode civil liberties. We need to stand up as moral people and speak out against the spread of bigoted conspiracy theories. That's not a police problem, that's our problem as people responsible for defending a free society.
Demagogues and conspiracy theorists use the same four "tools of fear." These are 1) dualism; 2) scapegoating; 3) demonization; and 4) apocalyptic aggression. The tools of fear are a connected constellation of frames, narratives, and processes used by demagogues to mobilize resentment and undermine the democratic process.
The basic dynamics remain the same no matter the ideological leanings of the demonizers or the identity of their targets. Meanwhile, our ability to resolve disputes through civic debate and compromise is hobbled. It is the combination of demagogic demonization and widespread scapegoating that is so dangerous. In such circumstances, angry allegations can quickly turn into apocalyptic aggression and violence targeting scapegoated groups like Jews or immigrants.
Apocalyptic aggression is fueled by right-wing pundits who demonize scapegoated groups and individuals in our society, implying that it is urgent to stop them from wrecking the nation. Some angry people already believe conspiracy theories in which the same scapegoats are portrayed as subversive, destructive, or evil. Add in aggressive apocalyptic ideas that suggest time is running out and quick action mandatory and you have a perfect storm of mobilized resentment threatening to rain bigotry and violence across the United States.
What historian Richard Hofstadter famously described as the "paranoid style" in American political rhetoric can quickly move far beyond the conscious intent of those who practice it.
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Chip Berlet is Senior Analyst of Political Research Associates and the author of a new study entitled Toxic to Democracy: Conspiracy Theories, Demonization, and Scapegoating. He also is coauthor, with Matthew N. Lyons, of Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort.
Our "democratic" process? Reread your Constitution. We are a republic. For a useful discussion of the differences between them, see Aristotle's Politics. The Reeve translation is good.
-Chris Henderson
Politguard.com
-Chris Henderson
Politguard.com
http://www.tremblethedevil.com/my_weblog/2009/06/overtaken-by-events.html
Racist Museum Shooter Outspoken Liberal
http://giovanniworld.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/racist-museum-shooter-outspoken-liberal/
It is funny that you rarely hear the leaders of the African American community rail against prejudice coming from their community.
Jesse (Hymietown) Jackson and Louis Farrakahn are the loudest and now Jeremiah Wright.
Isn't jt the left who are decrying the U.S.assistance to Israel?
Lets also not forget Senator Robert Byrd was a KKK member and was given a lifetime achievement award from them. ( http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/650968/posts )
More interesting info about the good Senator. http://www.strangecosmos.com/content/item/7281.html
Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (1966)
Carroll Quigley was a noted historian, polymath, and theorist of the evolution of civilizations.
From 1941 until 1969, he taught a two-semester course at Georgetown on the development of civilizations. According to the obituary in the Washington Star, many alumni of Georgetown's School of Foreign Service asserted that this was "the most influential course in their undergraduate careers".
In addition to his academic work, Quigley served as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Navy, the Smithsonian Institution, and the House Select Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration in the 1950s. Quigley served as a book reviewer for the Washington Star and was a contributor and editorial board member of Current History. His work emphasized "inclusive diversity" as a value of Western Civilization long before diversity became commonplace, and he denounced Platonic doctrines as an especially pernicious deviation from this ideal, preferring the pluralism of Thomas Aquinas. Quigley said of himself that he was a conservative defending the liberal tradition of the West. He was an early and fierce critic of the Vietnam War, and he was against the activities of the military-industrial complex which he saw as the future downfall of the country.
Quigley’s claims about the Milner Group
In his book The Anglo-American Establishment: From Rhodes to Cliveden, written in 1949 but published posthumously in 1981, Quigley purports to trace the history of a secret society founded in 1891 by Cecil Rhodes and Alfred Milner. The society consisted of an inner circle (“The Society of the Elect”) and an outer circle (“The Association of Helpers”). The society as a whole does not have a fixed name:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carroll_Quigley
According to Quigley, the leaders of this group were Cecil Rhodes and Alfred Milner from 1891 until Rhodes’ death in 1902, Milner alone until his own death in 1925, Lionel Curtis from 1925 to 1955, Robert H. (Baron) Brand from 1955 to 1963, and Adam D. Marris from 1963 until the time Quigley wrote his book. This organization also functioned through certain loosely affiliated “front groups”, including the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the Institute of Pacific Relations, and the Council on Foreign Relations. After 1963 the organization’s activities were “greatly reduced.”
In addition, other secret societies are briefly discussed in Tragedy and Hope, including a consortium of the leaders of the central banks of several countries, who formed the Bank for International Settlements with the intent to “create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole.”
This radical Right fairy tale, which is now an accepted folk myth in many groups in America, pictured the recent history of the United States, in regard to domestic reform and in foreign affairs, as a well-organized plot by extreme Left-wing elements.... This myth, like all fables, does in fact have a modicum of truth. There does exist, and has existed for a generation, an international Anglophile network which operates, to some extent, in the way the Radical right believes the Communists act. In fact, this network, which we may identify as the Round Table Groups, has no aversion to cooperating with the Communists, or any other group, and frequently does so. I know of the operation of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960’s, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments. I have objected, both in the past and recently, to a few of its policies...
"History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance." James Madison
"The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest." Abraham Lincoln
"You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the Eternal God, I will rout you out... If people only understood the rank injustice of the money and banking system, there would be a revolution by morning." Andrew Jackson
You need a history lesson in European Banking, because you have no idea what is happening in the world we live in .
I imagine what drove this nut over the edge was Obama's visit to a concentration camp. The only plus side is that Obama's visit combined with the contempt this hateful attack deserves, will likely prevent at least some conservative supporters from joining rabid right hate groups.
who might have said.... Just do IT!!