Rense.com : mouthpiece for neo-Nazi lies

Rense.com helped 'info-launder' the lies of neo-Nazi, Jamie Kelso's WhiteNews website:



Free and honest journalism? From Nazis? Are you sure, Mr Rense?

Surely unwarranted when the article in question appears to be nothing but malicious lies dripping with antisemitism. "Loughner's actually Jewish and the media aren't telling you....because they're all Jewish too!" Well, errr....no, but I don't suppose you're interested in that?

It's pure coincidence too, of course, that Rense.com prominently features the cartoons of Holocaust denier, David Dees. [When challenged on his Holocaust denial Dees' first effort at providing evidence was a link to Hal Turner! Brilliant.]

It's even more of a coincidence perhaps that when Rense fell out with Mark Glenn of Crescent and Cross he sent his mate David Duke around to.....well, who knows why he sent him? But send him he did, apparently.

A quick search for Willis Carto at Rense leads straight to Holocaust denial from Carto's minions - Piper Collins at TheBarnesReview (Holocaust denial, Nazi legitimisation)


Typical Holocaust denial. There's Nazism all around Rense.....and Rivero....and Alex Jones.....around the entire "patriot movement". All the same people regurgitating the same old guff. And Nazis all around. Just coincidence.....like these other connections.

In April 2003, Barnes Review announced that it is the exclusive distributor for Jewish Supremacism, a new book by Holocaust-denier and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. The journal's web site advertises the book as including "a panoramic summary of fifty years of findings by Holocaust revisionists who have left the official version of 'the Holocaust' in shreds."
SOURCE

Small world?

Law of the Jungle

In Praise of Idleness

By Bertrand Russell
[1932]

Like most of my generation, I was brought up on the saying: 'Satan finds some mischief for idle hands to do.' Being a highly virtuous child, I believed all that I was told, and acquired a conscience which has kept me working hard down to the present moment. But although my conscience has controlled my actions, my opinions have undergone a revolution. I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached. Everyone knows the story of the traveler in Naples who saw twelve beggars lying in the sun (it was before the days of Mussolini), and offered a lira to the laziest of them. Eleven of them jumped up to claim it, so he gave it to the twelfth. this traveler was on the right lines. But in countries which do not enjoy Mediterranean sunshine idleness is more difficult, and a great public propaganda will be required to inaugurate it. I hope that, after reading the following pages, the leaders of the YMCA will start a campaign to induce good young men to do nothing. If so, I shall not have lived in vain.

Before advancing my own arguments for laziness, I must dispose of one which I cannot accept. Whenever a person who already has enough to live on proposes to engage in some everyday kind of job, such as school-teaching or typing, he or she is told that such conduct takes the bread out of other people's mouths, and is therefore wicked. If this argument were valid, it would only be necessary for us all to be idle in order that we should all have our mouths full of bread. What people who say such things forget is that what a man earns he usually spends, and in spending he gives employment. As long as a man spends his income, he puts just as much bread into people's mouths in spending as he takes out of other people's mouths in earning. The real villain, from this point of view, is the man who saves. If he merely puts his savings in a stocking, like the proverbial French peasant, it is obvious that they do not give employment. If he invests his savings, the matter is less obvious, and different cases arise.

One of the commonest things to do with savings is to lend them to some Government. In view of the fact that the bulk of the public expenditure of most civilized Governments consists in payment for past wars or preparation for future wars, the man who lends his money to a Government is in the same position as the bad men in Shakespeare who hire murderers. The net result of the man's economical habits is to increase the armed forces of the State to which he lends his savings. Obviously it would be better if he spent the money, even if he spent it in drink or gambling.

But, I shall be told, the case is quite different when savings are invested in industrial enterprises. When such enterprises succeed, and produce something useful, this may be conceded. In these days, however, no one will deny that most enterprises fail. That means that a large amount of human labor, which might have been devoted to producing something that could be enjoyed, was expended on producing machines which, when produced, lay idle and did no good to anyone. The man who invests his savings in a concern that goes bankrupt is therefore injuring others as well as himself. If he spent his money, say, in giving parties for his friends, they (we may hope) would get pleasure, and so would all those upon whom he spent money, such as the butcher, the baker, and the bootlegger. But if he spends it (let us say) upon laying down rails for surface card in some place where surface cars turn out not to be wanted, he has diverted a mass of labor into channels where it gives pleasure to no one. Nevertheless, when he becomes poor through failure of his investment he will be regarded as a victim of undeserved misfortune, whereas the gay spendthrift, who has spent his money philanthropically, will be despised as a fool and a frivolous person.

All this is only preliminary. I want to say, in all seriousness, that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of work, and that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organized diminution of work.


http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
-----------------------------------


Sloth was a sin? And still is. I've always found that diffcult to understand. Also, why do so many people believe it? I find it amusing how pervasive and insidious the idea is, even as every empirical fact seems to scream otherwise.

Why not take-up self-flagellation instead? It surely beats overtime?

We have plenty of labour - a surfeit of labour - yet being idle can be a curse of poverty. Unemployment seems a major problem and yet full-employment could be relatively easily achieved through reducing the hours worked by every individual. I guess it's already happening and we call it casualisation, or whatever - people working part-time, "flexibly". However, this isn't really being met appropiately by the wages/salary side : pay-rates are staying the same per hour, which forces people to work as many hours as they can get, and reasonably do. Antagonistic forces, whilst at the top, everything just gets ever better by ever greater amounts. Compounding luxury.

But when there are people starving for food and employment, let alone luxuries, it just doesn't make sense to have any unemployment. It's a dreadful failure to have mass unemployment. Especially in a culture that claims sloth is a sin.

A completely "free" market will never get us there. Yes, it has its laws and logic - the law of the jungle. It works .... as it does. But why shouldn't we intercede? Why must we accept it as it is? Like we should have accepted we could never fly? Well, why can't we have full employment? Why should we accept the law of the jungle instead? We tend not to accept it in any other sphere other than the most basic of economic relationships.

I don't see how precious-metal based currencies can address full employment either. The supposed strength of precious metals as currency is its weakness - there's a limited amount of it. How do you expand the economy? Discover more gold? Oh brilliant! Everything now depends on how much gold there is. What a success!

[Ron Paul has substantial investments in precious-metal mining corporations. Ron Paul does very well out of high demand for and gold and silver, presumably, eh? Ron Paul appears on Alex Jones' show, which drives fear about the collapse of the American currency and advises people to invest in gold - for their 'security'. Because he cares, right? Alex Jones' show is of course sponsored by a gold salesman, Ted Anderson, and his show appears on the radio station owned by....the gold salesperson, Ted Anderson. Small world?]

And people all across America are storing their little nuggets of precious metal?

Yup - that's obviously really helpful. Certainly helps full employment, doesn't it?

Loughner was member at conspiracy forum - AboveTopSecret

So, Loughner was a member at conspiracy central - ATS - along with all the other nutters.

ATS describes itself thus:

AboveTopSecret.com is the Internet's largest and most popular discussion board community dedicated to the intelligent exchange of ideas and debate on a wide range of "alternative topics" such as conspiracies, UFO's, paranormal, secret societies, political scandals, new world order, terrorism, and dozens of related topics with a diverse mix of users from all over the world.

Loughner was posting there as "erad3" - DARE backwards, his longtime pseudonym at the online game, Earth Empires.

I haven't yet had time to go through his posts at ATS, and doubtless it's going to be a dreary task to do so. (Can I be bothered?) Still, whilst ATS are doing a fair job ATM suggesting there's no connection between their site and Loughner's actions, this does prove a direct connection between paranoid goof-ball conspiracism and Loughner. ATS is a central clearing house for conspiracism, it is everywhere, and all the goofball ideas can be found there.

Of most interest to me atm is how much far-right influence there is operating at ATS. Searching for Stormfront links to ATS I immediately came across this thread at ATS:

Over the course of the past year, the intensely hateful political environment of the U.S. has been a breeding ground for a rise in subtly phrased racism as well as fiercely overt bigotry. We all know why and we all know the cause, there's no reason to spend time reviewing such.
SOURCE

Interestingly I was following a link to Stormfront, but an ATS message appeared, saying that Stormfront had linked to ATS, that ATS didn't like it, and took a strong position against it. That was the context of the above quote. Clearly, ATS is conscious of having had "issues" with racism, and also the entryism of Stormfront's interest in (anti-semitic) conspiracism.

This post appears in the thread mentioned:

Jews and Muslims are routinely bashed on this board, I've seen Muslims members of ATS mocked and insulted for defending moderate Muslims and their religion.

In my opinion, extreme as it may seem, ATS is dead. As I've said before, this site will be listed as a hate site soon, her soul has been corrupted and killed by an ugly force.

Hmmm. Well, there we go. A member of ATS says it themselves. [This speaks of exactly the processes I found myself amongst conspiracism and of which I have been warning these last 5 years - the entryism of the far-right into conspiracism. It is questionable whether there is any conspiracism without anti-semitism - at the very least, Nazi anti-semitism is essentially a conspiracist worldview. Conspiracists should take careful note of their shared methodology with Nazism, but seemingly never do.]

Some more quotes from that ATS thread:

I have seen people on ATS be blatantly racist and I have seen people on ATS be ignorant to the point of being racist.

Maybe because conspiracism innately provides a vehicle for expression of racism under the cover of vague euphemism, as exemplified by Alex Jones and his use of classic anti-semitic tropes? Leftwing circles do *not* suffer this euphemistic racism, though they are susceptible to anti-semitism on the grounds of supposed anti-imperialism. ATS again:

I find it interestingly [sic] that for the last 8 years we have had this "War on Terror" I have seen on ATS tons of racist posts directed at Muslims, Arabs, Jews, and pretty much anyone from or near the middle east. No one on the staff seemed to care very much. You saw little action other than a few random warnings against the people who were obviously calling for genocide and other big no-no's.

Tons of racist posts at ATS according to this poster. In reply, a mod states that:

We did make efforts to stem the tide of hatred:

Political Baiting and Sniping on ATS

also:

The END of Hate Speech, subtle or otherwise, on ATS

Use the search titles feature with the word "hatred" to find MANY more discussions about it.

The problem is not with the management of this site it's with the membership and the overwhelming number and instances of this kind of behaviour being posted on the boards.

So, an "overwhleming number" of instances of such behaviour at ATS. Thanks for making my case for me......

The second link from that last quote leads to an ATS thread titled - "", which opens with this:

It has become apparent that our beloved ATS has either become the target for or an easy mark for those who would seek to spew their demented hatred for their fellow man based on nothing more than religion, ethnicity or personal preferences...

Uh huh. I'd never have guessed a conspiracy site could be subject to such an outrage. Sure. The post continues:

We have seen an increase in hate speech couched in "news articles", subtle innuendo hidden behind professed disagreement with government policies and blatant, outright ignorance spewed forth for all to see.

The catalyst has been the sad, and horrid conflict happening on the Gaza Strip.

Gee, I'm really shocked, honestly.

Well, I am pleased to see some efforts by the Moderators at ATS to address the rise of the far-right and their racism at ATS. However, their need to do so simply affirms my general point about conspiracism being an attractive vector for the propagation of racism and the far-right, anti-semitism in particular. What the ATS mods seem to miss is that Nazi anti-semitism is essentially conspiratorial, a product of conspiracism: how could it exist without the conspiracist element?

Furthermore, I do think conspiracism has a greater connection to Nazism than is commonly understood - it breeds populism (us and them); it simplifies all problems down to one of identification (us or them) whilst ignoring underlying structural components; it's paranoid; it's mythical; it's syncretic..... Ack - I need to be a smarter cookie to put this together properly.


Stormfront seems down atm, so I can't continue. Anyway - type this into google "site:stormfront.org abovetopsecret.com" and find some interesting crossover posts at Nazi Stormfront to ATS. No wonder ATS felt a need to 'take a stand'.

----

ETA - Having now read much of (what is said to be) Loughner's posts at ATS, there's one inescapable conclusion imo. But I'm not a psychiatrist so how to say it? Loughner seems somewhat deranged. Delusional. He shows obvious difficulty communicating and thinking (even though he appears to believe himself to be accomplished at it). He seems mostly to be absolutely devoid of any passion for politics. I don't get any sense of a seething Red, no inclination of a deep malevolent Nazism. Nothing, really. I find it hard to imagine he could actually think about 'politics' as his thinking is so sort of rigid and....just peculiar. I don't think 'politics' was his concern at all, rather he seems to just bump into it in the course of his peculiar interests. It all seems fractured and barely connected. Indeed, he seems barely functional. I can't help thinking it must have been somewhat obvious to the people around him that he had...issues. He seems really quite ill. And he had access to guns. To a degree the whole community is implicated: how can you be so ill, and yet be abandoned to such an illness whilst granted the right to acquire guns? It isn't fair on sick people, and it isn't fair on the community. But of course, mental healthcare and community support is expensive and who wants to pay for it? If you aren't sick yourself, one doesn't wish to pay. And if you are sick, you can't pay. So it just gets left until something like Arizona - it's cheaper?

It seems striking that Loughner's school would only allow him readmittal if he had psychiatric evaluation. But that's where the medical/psychiatric story ends, it seems. He doesn't go back to school, and so nobody else has any obligation or interest in pursuing the boy's illness. And so off he drifts.

I struggle to believe people didn't know this boy was ill. They surely must have, and yet with no support at hand, and nobody interested, what could be done? If true that's a very sad indictment of the entire community, USA wide, I suspect. [Because looking after Loughner would require 'stealing the income from others' aka socialism, right Sarah?]

Even if Loughner was entirely unswayed by any 'politics', of left or right, I think it's no bad thing he be a catalyst for some self-contemplation. At least some good might come out of that.

The conspiracists and far-right responded to this shooting by treating the 'fact' Loughner and his family 'were Jewish' as if it were the primary fact. Also that his mother attended the local synagogue (along with Gifford) and that the congregation and entire world media had covered it up. Jamie Kelso's WhiteNews story about Loughner 'being Jewish' has quickly propagated right across the Patriot Movement and conspiracist cricles. Google is flooded with it.

Steinski & The Mass Media-The Motorcade Sped On

Loughner NOT Jewish

Anti-semites, whitesupremacists and nazis have been quick to promote the notion that Loughner was Jewish, thereby apparrently removing any anti-semitic motivation for Loughner's attack (supposedly). But seems it just isn't true:

It is appalling how one comment---a friend of Jared Loughner telling a Mother Jones’ reporter that Jared Loughner’s mother is “Jewish”---goes viral in an instant.

In hours, "this fact" was all over on anti-Semitic sites. And, of course, there are the “commentators” who love to ‘blame the victim’ via some pop psychology theory that Jared acted out of “Jewish self-hatred.”

I figured that this was the moment to try and get “truth” dressed, and into the public arena a lot faster than usual. In other words, to use the tools of the internet to determine the veracity of what this friend told Mother Jones.

I cover Jews in popular culture for Jewish newspapers and I know how often famous people are mis-identified as Jewish or mis-identified as not Jewish. I also know that a lot of people are not outright lying about claiming someone is Jewish---they just get it wrong.

So, with my friend Michael, we ran down everything we could from public records on Jared Loughner’s mother’s family background. It took a lot of “search terms” and databases to find what we did.

Here’s what we found:

Jared Lee Loughner’s mother is Amy Totman Loughner;

Amy Loughner---Known Parentage from Public Records:

Her [Amy’s] parents were Lois May Totman and Laurence Edward Totman.

----Lois M. Totman died in 1999 and Laurence E. Totman died in 2005. Both were registered nurses. Laurence worked at a VA facility in Tucson. We both found this info via google news archives, social security death index.

From 1930 census records

Laurence E. Totman was born in Illinois in 1925.

His (Laurence’s) parents were Laurence A. Totman and his wife, Mary.

Laurence Totman pere (the elder) was born in Kansas to a Pennsylvania father and an Illinois mother. Mary was from Illinois, as were both of her parents.

A sister-in-law named Myrtle M. Brennan is listed as living with them also.

1920/1910 census records---Totman Family:

In 1920, Lawrence Totman, (Jared’s) great-grandfather, is living with his aunt, Rosa Clarke, who was born in illinois to two Irish-born parents.

Rosa is his mother's sister. On the 1910 census, his (Laurence, the elder) maternal grandparents are listed as Irish-born.

Father, Orvie Totman was born in Ohio to Ohio-born parents.

Amy Loughner’s Mother’s Line:

See obit, below, from Arlington (Illinois) Daily Record, June 24, 1999---Obituary of Helen Medernach of Virgil, Illinois. Helen was the sister of Lois M. Totman (the mother of Amy Totman Loughner). Helen was the great aunt of Jared Loughner.

As you can see, Helen’s funeral (mass) was held at a Catholic church. Helen (and Lois) were the children of Anton Bleifuss and Jessie Bleifuss (nee Anderson). Lois M. Totman died just days after her sister, Helen.

According to the census records, Anton Bleifuss was born in Bremen, Germany, to German parents. Jessie Anderson Bleifuss was born in Illinois to a father born in Denmark and a mother born in Illinois.

Conclusion---It is exceedingly unlikely that Amy Loughner has any Jewish ancestry. The only “line” not traced his Amy’s father’s mother’s family. The other three lines (Amy’s father’s father, Amy’s mother’s father, and Amy’s mother mother)---show, to all but the most obtuse, that these were/are not Jewish families. Moreover, it is quite clear that Amy’s mother, Lois Bleifuss Trotman, came from a Catholic family.

Also, we have this from an interview with the Rabbi of the synagogue that was claimed to be Loughner's mother's place of worship:

"We had a meeting of the Tucson Board of Rabbis. We all looked at our rosters from many years back. No one has ever heard of the family -- him, his parents, any of them. I can say with absolute certainty that we do not know him in pretty much the entire affiliated community."

I would add this: Bleifuss may be a Jewish name. (The noted investigative journalist, Joel Bleifuss, is Jewish.) Anton Bleifuss, Jared Lee Loughner's great-grandfather, might then have been Jewish -- but not so committed that he didn't defer to his wife when it came to raising the children as Roman Catholics.

As I noted in my earlier posting, Jared Loughner is not the most reliable of reporters, and Tierney's recollection was added as an aside. Mix into this the fact that Amy Loughner's brother is Anton Totman -- apparently named for his mother's father.

Loughner's family was in no way Jewish, nor was his mother -- but she might have mentioned her Jewish grandfather, beloved enough to live on in her brother's name, with pride or interest. Under those circumstances Loughner, who sought "chaos" according to Tierney, might have sought to provoke his mother and his uncle by pretending to admire (or actually admiring) Adolph Hitler. He might have told Tierney that his mother was Jewish as a shorthand, or might have seen her as Jewish -- like I said, not the most reliable reporter. Or he might have explained the lineage, and Tierney might understandably have conflated it as "mother Jewish."

So........seems he wasn't Jewish. I notice that Rivero is carrying this story about Loughner being Jewish as FACT. It's also appeared at Rense.com, with the attribution being Jamie Nazi Kelso's WhiteNews website. Kelso's website started this story.....and who is this Jamie Kelso, trusted by Rivero, Alex Jones and Rense?

Kelso joined the neo-Nazi group National Alliance in 2003. He then spent two years living in former Klan leader David Duke’s house while working as his personal assistant, all the while serving as a moderator for hate web guru Don Black’s forum, Stormfront. In 2010, Kelso joined the racist political party, American Third Position, where he is a key behind-the-scenes operative.

What a source! Trustworthy, of course......

Real Fascists in Our Midst

This article better conveys something of what I was attempting in my last post:

From ZNet

Real Fascists in Our Midst

What if the Tucson shooter had been a Muslim?
January 12, 2011

By Zoltan Grossman

When the Tucson shooter Jared Loughner was publicly identified on Saturday afternoon, I immediately googled his name and found his now infamous video on YouTube. I was Hit # 304 at the time, and by Monday at least 1.3 million people had viewed his video. Perhaps attracting the world to his message was a central reason for his terrorist attack, and his message was not as irrational as it first appeared.

The first part of Loughner’s video consisted of text about dreaming and consciousness, easily dismissed as rantings of a mentally disturbed individual. But the last part focused on currency, federal conspiracies, government brainwashing, and other tenets of the far-right populist movements and armed anti-government militias. Loughner mixed these conspiracy theories with millenarian prophecies that the world is ending in 2012, for a extra-toxic brew of paranoia and chaos.

Like many others who have worked against fascist movements, I quickly recognized Loughner as a constitutionalist fascist, cut from the cloth of the Posse Comitatus (“Power of the County”), a Wisconsin-based survivalist militia founded in the 1970s. The Posse threatened judges, killed a number of people, and outgunned police SWAT teams at the time. It has since spun off into a variety of “plenipotentiary judges” (affiliated with the Sovereign Citizens Movement and other “common-law” groups) that issue their own liens, and refuse to pay taxes or apply for identification. Like Loughner, they deny the worth of U.S. currency as not backed by gold or silver, which they claim the Constitution requires.

The motivations of constitutionalist fascist movements are quite different than the current Tea Party conservative populists. They tended not to follow Christian fundamentalism, but promoted their own brand of “Christian Identity,” heavily racialized and driven by global conspiracy theories dominated by Jews (or euphemisms thereof, such as bankers or the Federal Reserve System). They may be mentally unbalanced, but somewhat rational in how they emulate and follow the example of earlier far-right militants such as Tim McVeigh

Much like McVeigh or the followers of Lyndon LaRouche, they do not defend the capitalist status quo, but pose themselves as a right-wing revolutionary alternative to it. They often oppose the same things as leftists--such as military interventions, trade deals, corporate power, and government surveillance--but for entirely different reasons. Their goals are to “protect U.S. sovereignty,” cut off contact with foreign peoples and the United Nations, and attack the global financial conspiracy.

Sarah Palin’s rhetoric, including her gunsights on Gabrielle Giffords’ district, certainly helps to legitimize violence and set the stage for the attack. But that does not mean that she would necessarily be the ideological inspiration for the likes of Jared Loughner. A far-right revolutionary would no more respect a Republican Party vice-presidential nominee than a left-wing revolutionary respects a Democratic Party vice president. (Glenn Beck, on the other hand, has served as a key ideological connection between conservative populists and the far-right conspiracists, a role once played by Pat Buchanan).

Loughner repeated another hallmark of most fascists, by declaring in his video that the government is practicing “mind control” and brainwashing citizens through the educational system--even through the structure of English grammar itself. Some of these views are promoted in American Renaissance, a magazine that describes itself as “America’s premiere publication of racial-realist thought.”

The New York Times noted on January 10 that Loughner’s views on grammar closely reflect those of David Wynn Miller, a Milwaukee-based far-right activist, and founder of the Sovereign Citizens Movement. Miller himself admitted that Loughner’s “argument sounded familiar,” and “He’s probably been on my Web site, which has been up for about 11 years. The government does control the schools, and the schools determine the grammar and language we use. And then it is all reinforced by newspapers, magazines, TV, radio and everything we do in society.”

Unlike earlier incarnations of the Klan or Nazis, the far-right militia movement no longer relies on centralized organizations or personality cults, but on the concept of “leaderless resistance.” Based the 1970s Nazi classic The Turner Diaries, ideologues such as Miller (like William Pierce and Tom Metzger before him) inspire others to commit acts of violence through media or the Internet. This same concept of “leaderless resistance” has been taken up by other militant groups around the world, such as the loose Islamist network sometimes called Al Qaeda.

The U.S. government accuses a U.S.-born cleric in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki, of inspiring young Islamist militants to commit acts of terror around the world. The homeland security state has accused al-Awlaki’s websites of ideological responsibility for acts from the Fort Hood shooting to the so-called “underwear bomber” and the FedEx package plot. The Obama Administration has targeted him for assassination, and worked with the Yemeni military to bomb and launch missiles at Islamist insurgents that may or may not sympathize with Al Qaeda.

It speaks volumes to see how the U.S. government has treated the threat of Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen differently that the threat of David Wynn Miller in Wisconsin. Although the young Islamist militants may themselves be psychologically unstable and have done poorly in school, they are presented as ideologically influenced by al-Awlaki’s websites. Jared Loughner, on the other hand, is depicted as a mentally ill loner, even though David Wynn Miller actually admits that Loughner’s far-right perspectives closely match his website.

If the Tucson shooter had been a Muslim, the media would have demonized the local Muslim community and mosque, launched an investigation of his ties to global groups, and probably launched commando raids, missiles or bombs in some Muslim country. But President Obama is not going to order the assassination of David Wynn Miller, not is he going to bomb Wisconsin in retaliation for the Tucson attack. Tim McVeigh’s hometown of Lockport, New York, was not raided or bombed after the Oklahoma City bombing. But if the culprit had come from Yemen, Pakistan or Somalia, we can be sure that military action would have followed against the terrorist’s home community.

This double standard shows the skewed priorities in the so-called “Global War on Terror.” Why is it so easy to accept that a website in Yemen can influence someone in Texas to commit violence, but not that a website in Wisconsin can inspire someone in Arizona? By defining Islamist militants as committed “terrorists,” but white Christianist militants as merely “lone wolves,” we are ignoring the underlying political motivations for violence in our country. In scouring the world for so-called “Islamofascists,” the government is ignoring the real fascists in our midst.

Dr. Zoltan Grossman is a professor of geography at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. His website is at http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz and can be reached at grossmaz@evergreen.edu

The Arizona Shooting and "the movement"

WhatReallyHappened.com is spinning the Arizona shooting spree as a provocation intended to distract the US public (from what Rivero imagines to be some huge, all-encompasing mortgage-scam.) Here's Rivero's take on it -




















"A staged incident to distract the media." Right.......

"If he had really intended to kill the congresswoman...."? I have read reports that she was shot through the temple. How much more intent to kill can one show? Jeezuz, Rivero is disgusting enough anyway, but how out of touch is he? A child was killed too, but for Rivero the shooter "hadn't really meant to kill the congresswoman". And a child's murder isn't as "attractive to the media" as that of a Congresswoman, according to Rivero.

So, instead of the child being a victim of one of those amongst Rivero's own audience ("the movement") rather he'd have us believe it is "staged" and "fake":-



The dead child was faked? What?

And nevermind that the shooter appears to have been fuelled by the very propaganda that Rivero lives off and which he describes as "the history the government doesn't want you to learn".....? This shooter was probably a big fan of Rivero and Alex Jones, and likely an adherent to the "ideas" that characterise and distinguish what they like to call "the movement". This "movement" (911 Troof, patriot movement) is essentially an american fascism - a populist ultranationalism based on conspiracy theory. (Amongst all the posts on the Arizona/Gifford shooting Rivero includes a link to a Google Translation of some Holocaust denial. Google translate your pro-Nazi history? Great stuff, Mr Rivero, I'm sure.)

Rivero also links to two articles from the Alex Jones stable (here and here), both of which seek to spin the Gifford shooting with a view to distancing themselves from any responsibility and even suggesting any such charges of responsibility are evidence of 'the establishment' exploiting the attacks to attack "the movement". It's all a setup see, and nothing to do with "the movement" at all. Well, of course, what else? [It's a neat way of escaping having to deal with any responsibility, isn't it? And notice how Rivero lacks any irony when he says this story will be everywhere and is being "spun" by everyone for their own ends? Nevermind he's doing it too?]

One of the articles ends

"Stock up with Fresh Food that lasts with eFoodsDirect

For the elite, the problem is not violence. It is the existence of and threat posed by a viable and growing constitutionalist movement that demands the Federal Reserve be closed down and the banksters responsible for the unfolding global economic crisis be arrested and tried for crimes against humanity."

So, it's not people like this shooter who pose a threat, it's people like this shooter. Eh?

The other Prisonplanet article, penned by the idiot Paul Watson, claims that

Despite the fact that Jared Lee Loughner was a psychotic loner with “left-wing” beliefs according to those who knew him, the establishment has hastily exploited yesterday’s tragic shooting in Tucson to demonize conservatives, libertarians and gun owners while ordering Americans to “tone down the rhetoric,” which is nothing more than a euphemism for stifling dissent and coercing people to roll over on Obamacare, bailouts and whatever big government is preparing to unleash next.

So....the supposedly "leftwing" shooter attacked a "big govt. socialist Democrat"? And thus it's going to be exploited to attack conservatives and libertarians? How does that make any sense at all? [It illustrates how far-gone "the movement" is that such utter crap can be posted at Alex Jones and echoed throughout the movement's propaganda organs such as Rivero's WhatReallyHappened.]

Here's an advert that accompanied the Prisonplanet article quoted above:










More soberly The Guardian writes

Of course, there's no suggestion that the suspected gunman – a college graduate from Arizona who lists reading as his favourite pastime – was particularly inspired by Sarah Palin or Jesse Kelly. But it's this kind of rhetoric that is lighting a fire under extremists who believe that Obama is, in fact, the devil – and, by association, so are all Democrats.

That may sound ludicrous, but last year, civil rights organisation the Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC) said extremist groups had exploded in the United States since Obama's election. These groups, it said, had increased by 244%, were "steeped in wild, anti-government conspiracy theories" that exploited populist anger across the country and had infiltrated the mainstream.
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Much of this is clearly the paranoid ramblings of a messed-up conspiracy theorist. But, if the SPLC is to be believed, these are paranoid ramblings that have been gaining currency.

Following the release of the SPLC report, I interviewed an armed militia group in west Texas. Many of their fears, I discovered, were of a kind of post-apocalyptic future in which the very infrastructure of civilisation collapses – something that could come about, apparently, if the government imposes public healthcare or increased gun control. One man recruiting for a new militia in Oklahoma told me he wanted to be "prepared to put down a tyrannical government". A member of a group in Mississippi said that if the government "did something crazy" – like take away their guns – he couldn't predict what people would do: "This could get real ugly, real quick."
SOURCE

Elsewhere the Guardian adds that the attack is.....

....disturbing set against a background of heated rhetoric. Much debate has painted American politicians in general, and the federal government in particular, as somehow being a force for evil. Indeed many rightwing commentators have portrayed President Barack Obama and senior Democrats as socialists or even Marxists bent on fundamentally changing the American way of life. Some fringe groups and conservative politicians have even hinted at resorting to illegal measures in order to defend the nation from what they see as a dire threat. Giffords's own offices were vandalised after she voted for healthcare reform.

Elsewhere, there has been a rash of attacks on government targets from individuals pursuing extremist aims. Last year in Texas Joseph Stack flew a private aeroplane into a branch of the Internal Revenue Service tax authorities. He left a rambling suicide note that contained numerous anti-government statements. Neo-Nazi James von Brunn shot dead a security guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington in 2009. In the same year a doctor who performed abortion was killed in Kansas City and several incidents occurred in which people with links to white supremacists killed people or were found with explosives caches.

Gun-rights advocates across America have made a point of turning up to some political events carrying weapons, including powerful rifles, in order to demonstrate their right to bear arms. That is a fact that might become relevant given that the shooting of Gifford occurred in public at an open "meet and greet" political event.

The rise of political extremism in recent years has been tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Centre which issued a report in 2009 that warned of rising numbers of potentially violent right-wing militia groups. The numbers of hate groups grew from 602 in 2000 to 926 in 2009, the organisation has found.
SOURCE

Sad to read all this:

Surgeons at the University Medical Center said Giffords, a 40-year-old Democratic member of the House of Representatives, was communicating with them and able to follow simple commands, such as holding up two fingers when asked. A single bullet travelled the length of her brain on the left side, doctors said.

"This is about as good as good can get," said Dr Peter Rhee. Giffords had undergone surgery to remove bone fragments and some damaged brain tissue, and remains in a critical condition.

Six other people, including a nine-year-old girl, a federal judge and a member of Giffords's staff, were killed when a gunman opened fire outside a supermarket in Tucson where the politician was meeting with constituents, shooting 18 people.

A 22-year-old, identified by investigators as Jared Lee Loughner, was arrested at the scene and remains in federal custody.

The nine-year-old girl who was killed has been named as Christina Taylor Greene. Born on September 11 2001, her parents described her as the "best daughter in the world". She was featured in a book called Faces of Hope: Babies Born on 9/11. She had a keen interest in politics, was on her school council, and had wanted to go to the event to learn more about the political process.

The other victims were named today as John Roll, 63, a federal district court judge; Gabriel Zimmerman, Giffords's 30-year-old director of community outreach; Dorwin Stoddard, 76, a pastor; Dorothy Murray, 76; and 79-year-old Phyllis Scheck.

At a press conference following the attack, the Pima County Sheriff, Clarence Dupnik, blamed political vitriol for fuelling the attack.

"People tend to pooh-pooh this business that we hear about all the vitriol we hear inflaming the American public by people who make a living doing that," he said. "That may be free speech – but there are consequences."

He said Arizona had become "a Mecca for prejudice and bigotry" and that "people who are unbalanced are especially susceptible to vitriol".
SOURCE

It's despicable.

Poor little girl.

But of course, the shooter probably wasn't trying to kill a woman and a small child, instead he likely imagined he was killing a Congress Critter and some of her sheeple. The shooter surely thought he was making his stand against the dark forces of "the New World Order", fighting for "his rights", life, liberty, the American way, blah blah blah.

Pathetic. And dangerous. Obviously.