by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
The incendiary language deployed by Sarah Palin and her allies against even mild opponents of the rightwing agenda is sometimes described as a thinly veiled call for violence – but the fact is, there is no veil at all. The appeals are blatant. However, “if Americans fear fascistic trends taking control of our society, they should not look solely at raving Tea Partiers and crazed gunmen.” The most dangerous elements are already firmly entrenched in power, at the highest levels of the state.
Freedom Rider: Extremist Threat to Democracy
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
“If we are to be outraged because a member of congress is shot down in broad daylight, we should also be outraged when our system is assaulted.”
The news that Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head while meeting with constituents in Arizona gave rise to well founded concerns regarding right wing activism and its accompanying propaganda. Giffords is a so-called “Blue Dog” Democrat in a district which leans Republican. In 2010 Giffords emerged victorious against a Republican who like his political comrades used violent language to elicit support for his campaign.
“Get on Target for Victory in November
Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office
Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly”
The man who shot Giffords and nineteen other people, killing six of them, has a history of mental illness, but he wasn’t so ill that he couldn’t enunciate right wing talking points about a treasonous government and currency that ought to be backed by gold.
The shootings in Tucson should be of concern to everyone. There are millions of people who already feel aggrieved and angry and they have now been incited by right wing invective calling for “Second Amendment remedies.” The sheriff of Pima County Arizona observed that his state had become “the mecca for prejudice and bigotry” and akin to the old west town of Tombstone. Unfortunately, Arizona’s ever rightward political stances and this awful example of violence is not where the greatest concern ought to be placed. If Americans fear fascistic trends taking control of our society, they should not look solely at raving Tea Partiers and crazed gunmen.
“There are millions of people who have now been incited by right wing invective calling for ‘Second Amendment remedies.’”
On the same day that Giffords was shot, another story broke which received little attention. It came to light that the United States government is asking Twitter and Google to turn over messages related to Julian Assange and Wikileaks. The Obama administration Justice Department has already expressed a determination to prosecute Assange for leaking government cables and other information. One of those being investigated is a member of Iceland’s parliament. Her status as an elected official in an allied nation gives her no protection from the security state. No niceties will get in the way of American hegemony.
Our government continues its unending need to continue its wrongdoing and to keep it secret from us, citizens who have a right to know what is happening in our supposedly democratic society. Contrary to what politicians and corporate media would have us believe, the Wikileaks revelations were a great gift to the people of the world.
It is important that a video distributed by Wikileaks showed American troops indiscriminately killing Iraqi civilians. It is a good thing that we now have proof of our government’s pressure on Ethiopia to invade and destroy Somalia. We are constantly brainwashed into a state of orchestrated disinformation where we are kept in the dark about how our government makes decisions harmful to us and to the rest of the world. Wikileaks lifted the covers off of this rotten system and opened our eyes on subjects about which we previously could only express conjecture.
“We are constantly brainwashed into a state of orchestrated disinformation.”
While Democrats wax indignant, rightly so, about the Giffords shooting, most turn a blind eye to the Obama Justice Department’s imitation of their Bush administration counterparts. The effort to prosecute Assange and his colleagues is a direct attack on the spirit of democracy that is so casually invoked by a government that in fact cares nothing about it.
Democracy should not just mean that we periodically go the polls and vote. It is also supposed to mean that we have a government that seeks to act in our interests, and not in the interests of finance capital, war profiteers and a state security apparatus. Wikileaks proved that we have just the opposite, a government devoted to maintaining an empire and helping the have mores, corporate interests and wealthy individuals at the expense of the people. If we are to be outraged because a member of congress is shot down in broad daylight, we should also be outraged when our system is assaulted.
Once again, Democrats cannot find the courage to look at the dangers inherent in our system. These dangers don’t disappear because a Democrat resides in the White House instead of a Republican. In fact, if the Republican is hated and the Democrat is loved, the Democrat actually has the ability to do greater damage.
While the president asks for a moment of silence to remember the victims in Tucson he is also planning to hunt down Julian Assange and his colleagues and bring them to the United States for prosecution. The crocodile tears and maudlin statements shouldn’t fool anyone. There is great danger in this nation, but it doesn’t emanate from Arizona. It begins and ends in Washington DC with the most powerful people in the country.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.com.
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