Showing posts with label political violence. Show all posts

Perspective: A Lesson In Political Violence From Lebanon


I haven't been writing much on international news lately, but the latest reports from Lebanon have a certain resonance, given all that we've heard this week about vitriol and political violence in America. It seems that Hezbollah has pulled out of the coalition government there because - get this - the other coalition members were unwilling to go along with a whitewash that would absolve the Hezz for their role in the carbombing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri:

Lebanon's government collapsed Wednesday after Hezbollah and its allies resigned from the Cabinet in a dispute with Western-backed factions over upcoming indictments in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.


A U.N.-backed tribunal investigating the truck bombing that killed Hariri and 22 others is widely expected to name members of the Shiite militant group, which many fear could re-ignite sectarian violence that has erupted repeatedly in the tiny nation.


Hezbollah's walkout ushers in the country's worst political crisis since 2008 in one of the most volatile corners of the Middle East.

Hezbollah has its own private army, funded by fundamentalist forces outside the country, and which is much larger and better equipped than the "real" Lebanese army. It maintains a permanent state of war with Israel, the country immediately to the south, lobbing missiles in the hopes of provoking a response. It has murdered Israelis, Americans, and its fellow Lebanese by the hundreds. If any American leftists want to see an example of political violence, go to southern Lebanon for a dose of the real thing. Drop me a line if you make it out alive. (And spare me the line about how groups like Hezbollah are "like" America's fundamentalist Christians. The Hezz combine murder with "good works" in the classic manner of the Black Panthers and other left-wing heroes).

The westernized elements of Lebanese society try against all odds to maintain a semblance of a sophisticated, bourgeois lifestyle. Even now, they have set up a "care taker" government while Hezbollah schemes to place one of its allies in the prime minister's office. Want to make sure everything is legal and constitutional, right? Yeah, like that matters to the Hezz. If they can't take over Lebanon through parliamentary politics, they'll do it through war. That's what political violence looks like.


Climate of H8: SF Bay Area Slowly Going Mad From Political Rhetoric


We've been hearing a lot about how the vitriolic political climate in Arizona is responsible for the mass shooting/assassination in Tuscon. I scoffed at first, until I had a look at the police blotter for the San Francisco Bay Area. The distinctively left wing climate of the Bay Area - and California for that matter, which has just inaugurated its most left-leaning governor since Jerry Brown - has clearly driven people over the edge. Just look at these headlines:

A former LA prosecutor went on a Christmas Eve rampage at the SFO Peet's.

A former Los Angeles deputy city attorney has been charged with assaulting police with a pole after creating a scene at San Francisco International Airport in which she vandalized a coffee kiosk, authorities say.

Angela West, 50, a Harvard Law School graduate, was seen by airport police officers smashing merchandise, milk containers and other food items with a 3-foot-long metal pole at a Peet's Coffee kiosk at SFO on Christmas Eve, said San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.

When officers tried to speak to her, West "raged" at them and began swinging the pole, which she had taken from a janitor's cart, Wagstaffe said.

An officer had to use a chair to fend off at least 10 blows, authorities said. West then calmed down and sat in a booth, only to start throwing items at the officers, Wagstaffe said.

When the officers tried to arrest her, she kicked one of them in the groin, Wagstaffe said. After being subdued, West shouted out that she was a lesbian and that the officers "should stop trying to have sex with her," the prosecutor said.

West was taken to a hospital and held in a psychiatric ward for a week, Wagstaffe said.

Only a climate of hate would cause a blond lesbian attorney to start attacking police officers with a pole, right?

Three guys died in a firefight at a (presumably) dive bar after two of them traveled from Salinas to kidnap the bar owner over a debt.

Two of the three men killed over the weekend in a shootout at a San Jose club intended to kidnap the bar's owner, and the third opened fire on the assailants before they could carry out the plan, police say.

The violence at the Mexicali Club on Oakland Road began at about 8:30 p.m. Saturday when Antonio Barraza Allon, 31, and Manuel Rodriguez Barraza, 29, both of Salinas, and a third man came into the bar looking for the owner, police said.

The three wanted to kidnap the owner over an alleged debt, said Officer Jose Garcia, a San Jose police spokesman.

But the three were confronted by a man inside the bar, Manuel Morales Mendosa, 26, who was armed with gun, Garcia said.

A shootout ensued, and Allon and Mendosa were killed, Garcia said. Barraza was also shot and managed to stumble two blocks to a Ford Explorer, where his body was found the next morning.

Another man hit by bullets during the gun battle, Humberto Velasquez Sanchez, 28, of San Lorenzo, was listed in stable condition at a hospital.

All that anti-immigrant rhetoric probably got to them. Or maybe the failure of the DREAM Act.

A nebbishy looking bank teller participated in a wacky scheme to rob his bank by participating in a robbery at his branch.

A bank employee and another man have been arrested for allegedly staging a bank robbery in San Jose, police said.

Jose Everardo Luna, a teller at the Bank of America at 565 W. Capitol Expressway, pretended to be robbed by Steven Anthony Davis at about 10:15 a.m. Dec. 28, said Officer Jose Garcia, a police spokesman.

Davis handed Luna a demand note, police said, and Luna turned over an undisclosed amount of cash.

Police investigated the case as an actual robbery until Bank of America security personnel determined that Luna had failed to follow certain procedures during holdups, police said without elaborating.

Stick it to the banksters!

And a woman in Fremont kidnapped a senior citizen and some day laborers because she thought the world was coming to an end. And who could disagree?

Think Armageddon is near and don't know what to do? Well, you might some take some pointers from Lark Ann Freeman of Fremont, who thought she could be among the survivors by hopping into a U-Haul and conning four men into the vehicle with the promises of money and cigarettes, authorities say.

Freeman, 36, believed the world was going to end in one big earthquake on New Year's Day, said Marin County Deputy District Attorney Linda Witong.

So Freeman got into a U-Haul truck and headed toward Marin County, but not before she kidnapped a 74-year-old man after luring him into the rental truck by telling him she would get him cigarettes in Berkeley, authorities said.

At some point, Freeman picked up three more men and told them she was hiring them as movers, Witong said. She locked them into the back of the U-Haul, prosecutors say.

Everyone ended up at Fort Baker near Sausalito, where Freeman ran a red light at a one-way tunnel in front of a U.S. Park Police car. She led officers on a chase to Rodeo Cove, where she was stopped.

She told police she was affiliated with "Save the World," authorities said.

Only anger over climate change denial could have caused that.

Only a "new" Fairness Doctrine that requires broadcast news outlets and big city newspapers to provide "equal time" to non-leftist views can save us from the spectacle of liberals deranged by the political climate in the Bay Area.


The Final Final: the Last Word on the Tuscon Shooting


There might be absolutely no evidence that Jared Laughner had (or even heard) any right wing or conservative views. There might be no particular piece of "vitriol" that people can point to as being a contributing factor toward his murder spree. But, that hasn't stopped certain weak-kneed Republicans from enabling the overall message that somehow Tea Party rhetoric is to blame - and thus must be curtailed - for the actions of someone who was demonstrably not a Tea Partier. Republicans in Congress are already talking about "tempering their health care repeal rhetoric." Spare me.

Republicans in Congress eager to vote to repeal President Barack Obama’s health-care law face a delicate task in tempering their rhetoric after the Arizona shooting rampage that killed six people and critically injured U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords.

House Republicans delayed a vote planned for tomorrow on rolling back the health-care overhaul while Giffords, a 40-year- old Democrat, is being treated in a Tucson hospital. When they turn back to the health law Republicans will focus on moderating their tone, strategists said, in contrast with some lawmakers’ stronger language from last year’s campaign.

“There’s going to be a natural cautiousness,” said pollster David Winston, who advises House Republican leaders. “Members are thinking through how they can have an effective debate without it being disagreeable.”

House Speaker John Boehner’s spokesman said yesterday the Ohio Republican’s priority is to keep the discourse steady and civil.

“This terrible tragedy requires that congressional leaders act in a responsible, nonpartisan way on behalf of members, staff, the institution, and most of all, the American people,” said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel.

Sorry, that just shows how little confidence many Republican leaders have in their philosophy, their goals, and their voters. I'm all for acting in a responsible manner only ... when are we going to see reciprocity from the left? Democrat politicians and media people - who, remember, all of the congressional Republicans know personally - have had no problem labeling Sarah Palin an accessory to murder, among other things. Yo, DC Republicans, you're gonna let your "colleagues" talk about one of the GOP's most visible leaders that way? (Answer? Yes, of course).

There are absolutely no grounds for liberals to allege that anyone on the right had anything to do with the Tuscon shooting. Yet, DC Republicans are falling into their familiar role of quailing before the demands of liberals and media people who would set the rules for how the GOP speaks to the public and to their voters.


Provacateur: Fred Phelps Weighs In on the Gifford Shooting


Every media jack-off in the country seems to be looking for his moment in the wake of the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gifford, but pride of place has to go to the Very Reverend Fred Phelps, who has announced plans to picket the funeral of the nine-year old girl who died in the line of fire:

The Left does some truly despicable things in this world, but this is a new low for Democrats.

Former three-time Democrat gubernatorial candidate Fred Phelps Jr. (commonly called just “Fred Phelps”) and his Westboro Hate Group have announced plans to disrupt the funeral of 9 year-old shooting victim Christina Greene.

Christina was murdered by Jared Lee Loughner yesterday in his assassination attempt on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. The little girl was born on September 11th, 2001, so her parents have been cursed with a horrific trifecta of high profile trauma: their daughter born on the worst day in our generations’ lives, their daughter murdered in an assassination attempt on a member of Congress, and Democrat Fred Phelps aiming his hate machine at their family during their daughter’s funeral.

Democrat Phelps (an enormous supporter of Al Gore’s, though the media conveniently leaves off that he’s a Democrat and instead likes to imply he’s a conservative, which he is not…he’s a Democrat, and ran repeatedly on the Democrat ticket unsuccessfully for several elected offices) disrupted the funeral of Elizabeth Edwards last month, because it is what he does.

On a day when a family is hurt the most it could possibly imagine being hurt, this horrible man makes things just a little worse for all involved.

We've been hearing a lot about "vitriol" and the " political climate" that contributed to the deaths of six people and the permanent disabling of a member of Congress. I would hope some of these earnest chin-pullers would reflect on how American law, society and culture ca. 2011 seems better able to protect the rights of Fred Phelps, than it is able to protect those of Christina Greene and her family. That has contributed a lot more to the "climate" than some silly Sarah Palin campaign graphic.

Like Laughner, everyone tries to dismiss Phelps as a nut, a loon. Sorry, but I don't think it's that easy to dismiss him. The man may be scum, but he is scum with a following, a ready-made media platform, and a serious First Amendment case pending before the US Supreme Court. Crazy he's not. Neither was Laughner. He may have been confused, his thoughts muddled; but he had a plan, and a mission, and he carried them both out to their bitter end. That's not crazy; that's evil, plain and simple.

Politics and mass movements have long attracted their share of misfits and losers. Radical politics takes those losers and cranks them up to eleven. Many of them remain trapped in obscurity. But, a chosen few find the immortality they seek. Some find themselves, as if chosen by Fate, at the exact street corner where the Archduke's car paused after making a wrong turn. Some manage to return from their outlaw existence to live a modicum of bourgeois respectability, even hosting dinners where future presidents make their political debut. And, some even manage, against all odds, to seize the commanding heights where they can inflict their sociopathy on nations, rather than their friends and neighbors.

So, yeah, I'd say there was something in the political climate that contributed to the events of last Saturday. It's a political climate where the best educated among us seem unable and unwilling to see the difference between a fundamentally decent person like Sarah Palin and a certifiable member of the lunatic fringe like Jared Laughner. (and isn't it funny how all of our modern-day Edward R Murrows couldn't tell us for hours whether Gifford was dead or alive, whether there was a "second shooter," or how many dead and wounded there were; but they knew instantly that the shooting was Sarah Palin's fault?) In an environment like that, every jerk with a gun and a used-bookstore copy of the Communist Manifesto becomes as important and impactful as one of the leading voices in the Republican Party.


The Parallax View: the Gifford Shooting


As shocking as the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and a number of other innocents was, there was a dull predictability to the aftermath which saw law enforcement looking for a (probably phantasmical) "second shooter" and progressives searching for Tea Party boogie-men. Even without that, however, this is still a disquieting moment:

A gunman targeted Rep. Gabrielle Giffords as she met with constituents outside a busy supermarket Saturday, wounding the Democrat and killing Arizona's chief federal judge and five others in an attack that left Americans questioning whether divisive politics had pushed the suspect over the edge.

The assassination attempt left the three-term congresswoman in critical condition after a bullet passed through her head. A shaken President Barack Obama called the attack "a tragedy for our entire country."

Giffords, 40, is a moderate Democrat who narrowly won re-election in November against a tea party candidate who sought to throw her from office over her support of the health care law. Anger over her position became violent at times, with her Tucson office vandalized after the House passed the overhaul last March and someone showing up at a recent gathering with a weapon.

Police say the shooter was in custody, and was identified by people familiar with the investigation as Jared Loughner, 22. U.S. officials who provided his name to the AP spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release it publicly.

His motivation was not immediately known, but Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik described him as mentally unstable and possibly acting with an accomplice.

As the shooter was a declared admirer of the Communist Manifesto and had a thing for flag burning, I think it's safe to say that he's not a right winger. Still, just as there has been a rush to judgment against "us," there has also been rush to judge this guy as little more than crazy. Sorry, but this was an attempted political assassination by a guy who went through a certain amount of effort to position himself to do maximum damage. God knows why he would target an inoffensive moderate like Gifford. Then again, moderates often take it on the chin in immoderate times. Mr. Manifesto also managed to kill a federal judge, a 9-year old girl and three bystanders in their seventies. In ways both large and small, America really is under assault.

I'm not going to point to one person on the right or the left and say that their "rhetoric" caused this. But, I will say that the last 10 years have seen a mounting fury first on the Left against the supposed war crimes of George Bush and then on the Right (and among many independents) who suddenly saw the country veer crazily from a financial crisis to a pell mell socialization of the banking, automotive and health care industries. And now, we have a resurgent Republican Party that is taking on to itself the task of dismantling at least a portion of the sprawling federal government, something you can expect will be fought tooth and nail by the people who earn their livelihoods from it.

We can only hope that violence remains a matter of rhetoric and hyperbole, but after today, I can only say: let's be careful out there.




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