Yesterday’s terrorist attack in Norway was totally expected.
Of course, when it occurred, the first fingers jabbed into the air were pointed accusingly at Muslims. The Washington Post’s necon columnist Jennifer Rubin didn’t bother for any pesky facts to come in before quoting extensively from an article in the Weekly Standard: “We don’t know if al Qaeda was directly responsible for today’s events, but in all likelihood the attack was launched by part of the jihadist hydra.” Rubin expanded the Standard’s neocon arguments to demand more defense spending. The Washington Post never published an update or retraction.
The New York Times also published a headline somewhat prematurely: “Blasts and Gun Attack in Norway; 7 Dead – Powerful Explosions Hit Oslo; Jihadis Claim Responsibility.” The problem was that no such thing had occurred.
Even President Obama got into the act. “It’s a reminder that the entire international community holds a stake in preventing this kind of terror from occurring,” he said, referring to al Qaeda.
But because of the climate of sanctioned and encouraged hate speech here in the United States, it was a surprise to me that the attack did not originate here – in the cradle of anger, paranoia, and hatred.
The proliferation of anti-immigrant and xenophobic groups like Pamela Geller’s “Atlas Shrugs” has created a large network of hate websites, encouraging violence against foreigners (Muslims principally) and giving a forum to foreign xenophobes like Geert Wilders and neo-Nazi groups like the English Defense League. It turns out that the alleged Norwegian attacker, Anders Behring Breivik, was a regular contributor to “Atlas Shrugs” over several years. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which previously used to track the KKK, now has a full-time job tracking militia groups, “sovereigns,” neo-Nazis, various “Aryan churches,” the “Christian identity” movement, and a slew of groups which violently target Blacks, gays, Muslims, abortion doctors, immigrants, “secularists,” and others.
But if you think these insects are only hiding under a couple of rocks, an NAACP study of the Tea Party movement last year identified these same elements in six of the seven Tea Party organizations [http://www.naacp.org/pages/tea-party-report].
A typical example (from the report): “Larry Pratt of Virginia is a member of two different national Tea Party networks: Tea Party Nation and 1776 Tea Party. He has been promoting the gun and militia movement for years. In 1992 he spoke at a Colorado meeting of Aryan Nations leaders, former Ku Klux Klansmen, and adherents of so-called ‘Christian Identity’ — a doctrine in which Jews are considered Satanic and persons of color are referred to as ‘mud people.'”
No rational person can claim to understand how Constitution’s protections are being applied nowadays. Freedom of association, speech, privacy, and assembly are all under attack by our rapidly-expanding security apparatus and security-friendly courts. But paradoxically we have never been freer to advocate shooting our neighbors in the head with a fifty caliber weapon. Last week a federal appeals court defended the rights of a right-wing racist, Walter Bagdasarian, who had called for Barak Obama’s assassination. In 2008 Bagdasarian, in a Yahoo financial forum, called Obama a “n––” and wrote “he will have a 50 cal in the head soon.” He posted another comment 20 minutes later that said “shoot the n––.”
This insanity occurs within religious groups that should know better. Any number of Christian churches, including the infamous Westboro church, have hosted Dutch extremist Geert Wilders. Although primarily a Christian fundamentalist assault on secularism and a competing religion, as a Jew it rankles me that even a Stoughton Jewish congregation has hosted Wilders, who has extensive links to European neo-Nazis. A Muslim I know has likened the current climate for Muslims in the U.S. to the Germany of 1935 for Jews. He’s absolutely right.
The argument for “tolerance” may well be that democracy cannot afford to legislate civility. But what kind of civil society can survive if even the most violent forms of hate speech are permitted?
So, friends and neighbors, just keep watching the news. Al Qaeda is the least of our worries. It’s only a matter of time before someone — encouraged by their fundamentalist church, a right-wing synagogue, a Tea Party congressman, or some bizarre court ruling — harvests the fruit of the pervasive hate in this sick society.
This was published in the Standard Times on July 26, 2011
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/article/20110726/opinion/107260318
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