Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Who should we fear?

The danger isn't from Islamic refugees.  No refugee from any of the recently targeted countries has committed any crime.

Indeed, more Americans have died at the hands of other Americans than at the hands of Islamic terrorists, since 2002. Yet One Republican Congressman explicitly says that attacks by whites are "different".
Left unmentioned during that speech and during any other public comment Trump has made is a January 29 mass shooting at a mosque in Quebec City that left six dead and was reportedly perpetrated by a white nationalist, anti-immigrant Trump fan. And Trump’s list of underreported attacks omits recent mass shootings in the U.S. like the murder of nine African American worshippers at the historically black Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston in June 2015 and the murder of three people at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs a few months later that were committed by white non-Muslim men linked to extremist ideologies.  Think PRogres


 Newsweek reports,
These Americans thrive on hate and conspiracy theories, many fed to them by politicians and commentators who blithely blather about government concentration camps and impending martial law and plans to seize guns and other dystopian gibberish, apparently unaware there are people listening who don’t know it’s all lies. These extremists turn to violence—against minorities, non-Christians, abortion providers, government officials—in what they believe is a fight to save America. And that potential for violence is escalating every day.
Especially because the GOP has deliberately stoked the fire, supporting hysterical suggestions about martial law in TX and lawlessness of Obama.
Republicans continued their drumbeat of conspiracy theories to bring out the base, capturing the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2012. And imagine what these right-wing extremists thought. Where were the impeachment proceedings? Why wasn’t Obama under arrest? The man was a murderer, a tyrant spitting on the Constitution, a fraud holding the presidency unlawfully. There were only two possible answers for the extremists: accepting that the Republicans had been lying to them, or deciding that these politicians had sold out the minute they won control.

And so, the far-right wing—including the violent militants—has turned on the Republican Party. The establishment Republicans now fumble about, trying to understand why their preferred candidates are being kicked aside in favor of Donald Trump, who rages about sellout politicians and makes promises to do things that radicals adore. Forums like Stormfront fulminate with praise and devotion to Trump, while all but spitting on the more traditional candidates.

The Republicans played a dangerous game by giving credence to all those conspiracy theories about Obama, a game that made them a target of the right-wing rage they engendered. They have been the author of the rise of the radicals, peaceful and violent, that in turn is tearing the party apart.  
The GOP is in danger of succumbing entirely to become a white nationalist party.   I hope that most Americans are revolted by that, but I'm not sure that's true.

There have been numerous attacks against Muslims--and others who are different including a Sikh Temple.  Dylan Roof killed nine in Charleston.  Alexandre Bissonnette killed six in Québec.  Jewish organizations are getting bomb threats. And despite the clear and present danger that white supremacist groups offer to our safety, the Trumpians have removed them from a list of potential terrorist organizations. 
 The Trump administration wants to revamp and rename a U.S. government program designed to counter all violent ideologies so that it focuses solely on Islamist extremism, five people briefed on the matter told Reuters.
The program, "Countering Violent Extremism," or CVE, would be changed to "Countering Islamic Extremism" or "Countering Radical Islamic Extremism," the sources said, and would no longer target groups such as white supremacists who have also carried out bombings and shootings in the United States.
Nothing makes their white nationalist goal clearer.   Which is why the neo-Nazis are gloating.

I know who frightens me most, and it's not a refugee family from Sudan.



 

2 comments:

Brother David said...

IT, please research your first sentences claim. It is incorrect. The judge here in Seattle that halted the Executive Order was in error when he made that claim.

http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/ap-fact-check-no-arrests-from-7-nations-in-travel-ban-nope/?utm_source=The+Seattle+Times&utm_campaign=d11bf4a8b3-Morning_Brief_02_07_2017&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5beb38b61e-d11bf4a8b3-120322933

Kevin K said...

Certainly the most lethal attacks in the United States involving Muslims have not involved refugees. Oddly, they have been the children of immigrants. The mass murders in San Bernadino (the wife was an immigrant but not a refugee) and Florida involved persons born in the United States to immigrant families. The Ft. Hood shooting is similar but is not officially treated as a terror attack.

However, if you look at the total number of killings attributed to "terrorism" in the United States since 9/11 the number is not very large. About a 1 in 45,000 chance of the average american dying from a terrorist related reason.