Friday, March 05, 2010

The Crime That Dare Not Speak Its Name

On April 19, 1995, a rented truck, parked outside the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City exploded, killing almost 190 people, including children in the day care center on one of the lower floors. Of the two men responsible, one, Timothy McVeigh, was executed; he showed no remorse for the death and destruction he caused.

In the summer of 1996, in the midst of the celebrations at the Olympic Games being held in Atlanta, a bomb smuggled in to someone's backpack exploded. The man eventually charged with that crime had already bombed a couple abortion clinics in Alabama, and had spent several years hiding out in the mountains of western North Carolina, aided and abetted by locals when he came down to town looking for free food.

Two years ago, a man steeped in right-wing rhetoric about the evil machinations of liberals wrote a long manifesto, including citing various right-wing media figures as the inspiration, entered a Unitarian Universalist Church in Tennessee on their Children's Sabbath Celebration and opened fire.

A doctor performing safe, legal abortions in Kansas was murdered as he served as head usher at his church.

Last year, a man convinced that Pres. Obama was about to enter all the homes of law-abiding citizens and steal their guns opened fire on police officers in Pittsburgh. He was killed in the exchange.

A couple weeks ago, a man enraged at being taxed flew his plane in to an IRS office building in Austin, TX, killing an accountant and himself.

Last spring, a white supremacist with links to the Tea Party movement walked up to the entrance of the National Holocaust Memorial Museum and opened fire; he fatally wounded a security guard who managed to return fire ending the spree before more could be injured or killed.

Last night, a man convinced that economic regulation was a violation of the Constitution very calmly walked up to the Pentagon and opened fire.

The current President of the United States served on the board of a community organization in Chicago with a former member of the Weather Underground years after that man had ceased to seek the violent overthrow of the United States government. There are still Americans who believe that the President "palled around with terrorists".

Some Nigerian manages to set his crotch on fire and the entire right-wing establishment loses their minds.

Is something wrong here?

Virtual Tin Cup

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