Only fools play with time bombs

The investigations have barely begun into the two now infamous recent tragedies involving right wing violence. Time will tell, but here is my best bet as to what they’ll ultimately conclude: both Scott Roeder, who killed Dr. George Tiller, and James Von Brunn, who opened fire at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, were acting alone. There were no grand conspiracies, no grassy knolls or magic bullets: just two pathetic losers, each nursing a grudge — or a pile of them — against the world.

Who needs a conspiracy when you have a human time bomb with a short fuse?

Roeder has been busy calling reporters from jail, something that’s no doubt deeply troubling to the victim’s family, though a gold mine for future prosecutors. He apparently boasted to one of these reporters that a veritable army of other right wing fanatics remains out there poised to strike, something that would suggest an ongoing conspiracy. Maybe so, but my guess is it’s just a lot of big talk from a small man.

But to doubt the likelihood that conspiracies were involved in these specific crimes, is not to question the existence of other wrongdoers. They’re out there alright, spewing poison on the sets of Fox News and preaching hate on right wing talk radio: the “intellectual” leaders of the far right may not have conspired with these two specific human time bombs — but they almost certainly helped inspire them to action. And try as they may, there’s no way they’re going to be able to beat that rap in the court of public opinion if the violence continues.

After all of the years these far right entrepreneurs have been buying and selling hatred — anger and bigotry commercialized like so many tons of pork bellies — it’s finally turned around to bite them. As the old standby of science fiction stories goes, they’ve stirred forces beyond their control. And, as a result, the survival of their entire pathetic movement now lies in the balance.

I have to wonder: are they smart enough to see it?

Through their words, they’ve started a thousand time bombs ticking, two of which have just gone off. How many more explosions are still to come? And just how quickly will the American people turn on the keyboard warriors and political hacks who incite them? My guess is the blowback won’t take long — not if there’s more violence.

And then, of course, there is the ultimate nightmare in this story. We have the nation’s first African American president. That by itself would be enough to cause the Von Brunn’s of the nation to hate him. Add to that the long litany of right wing nonsense about Barack Obama being un-American, a terrorist, a secret Muslim, a socialist — and we have the perfect recipe to cause an unstable mind, a time bomb, to explode.

What if one of them were to get through? It would, of course, be one of the greatest tragedies in the country’s history — sending the nation and much of the world into mourning. But it would also be Armageddon for the conservative movement, turning the nation angrily against them for a generation.

Do they even see this? Do they understand how much they have on the line? And will they now finally dial back the hatred — if just a little, if just for a time?

If not for common decency and for the sake of their country, then out of self-interest, will they at long last stop: stop before someone else has to die.

6 Responses to “Only fools play with time bombs”

  1. richl Says:

    The talk shows, magazines, blogs and newspapers selling right and far right ideologies are selling a product the in the same manner as Coca Cola, Apple or Ford do. They develop a fanatic following based on market feedback. Coke has no redeeming nutritional value whatsoever, Ford is no better or worse than any other so, so, quality vehicle and the i-phone is a mediocre phone married to a downright rotten ppc yet their devout followers will actually get into fights defending their product.

    Until someone figures out how to get the average person thinking critically the problem will continue. Personally I hold lack of quality education and health care far more responsible for the Charles Whitman’s, Timothy McVeigh’s, Fred Phelps’ and Scott Roeder’s of the world more than I do the Limbaugh’s or Orson Card’s or Louie Gohmert’s.

  2. Chuck Says:

    Golly! I guess I’m not supposed to call him “Bush lite”. Still he did order a “Surge” of 20,000 into Afghanistan, the same number as the Cheney/Bush cabal ordered into Iraq,, & he did give as a rational 9-11, just like the Cheney/Bush regime. did. He has caused the killing of more Pakistanis than Cheney/Bush did, & is probably creeping up on the former regime’s kill numbers in Afghanistan too.

  3. Chuck Says:

    I sure do miss Riverbend.

  4. alwayshope Says:

    There’s no incentive here for the bloviators to stop their hate talk.
    First,it profits them.
    Don’t really a second, but to dial back the inciteful hatred would require some admission of responsibility for the violence and there’s no way that will happen.
    As for patriotism, common decency……..they don’t understand those concepts.
    These guys like limpbow, beck and o’liely have been spewing crap for so long, they no longer know how to reason or listen to anything except their own voices.
    I’m afraid the violence will continue and the right wing talking heads will blame the left for the violence and the left will be appalled.
    Anger and ignorance are the foundation of the right’s power and that ain’t gonna change. They feed the anger and the fear and reap huge rewards from the scary, illogical, intolerent
    and well-armed “base”. And as they continue to reinforce the lowest inclinations of the willfully ignorant and violence prone, we are going to have acts such as these. Until the corporate media calls these acts domestic terrorism and the paralyzed American public condemns these heroes to their base, these religious extremists, the crazies will remain, armed to the teeth, seething and ready and eager to kill.
    What’s a tree-hugging liberal to do? Turn the other cheek, hate them back, sit on your ass and type some frustrated rant or write to your crooked congressman?
    Hell if I know.
    While I’m pondering what to do about the crazies among us, I’d like to buy everyone a couple of cold ones, for starters. (better make Chuck’s a double)

  5. Chuck Says:

    Just to emphasize/justify what I said above, read the 6/14 http://www.tomdispatch.com.

    (I’m SO Prescient! I scare myself sometimes. )

  6. Larkrise Says:

    Chuck, go ahead and call Obama anything you like. He has done some impressive things; but he has also unloaded a truckfull of BS. Expanding the war in Afghanistan, putting in a crony of mining interests as Sec. of the Interior, the whole torture issue, Guantanamo, Tim Geithner, dumping on the issue of Gay Rights, and numerous other nasty nominations to high-level positions are just a few of his sins. He will find himself without nearly as much support in the next go-around, if he continues along this path. The people who went out and shoved the undecideds and independents into the voting booths may sit on their hands. When politicians get in office, they metamorph into big heads full of hypocrisy. I wish it werent so.

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