Right Wing Emails and the Tennessee Shooting

by: Chris Bowers

Mon Jul 28, 2008 at 12:02


Yesterday I received the following email:

swift boat

Vets were telling the truth. The posted birth cert is a fake, and the day is coming when we spill into congress with ball bats and beat to fucking death all of the butt fucking pervert left wingers.

Have a nice day.

These sorts of emails end up in my inbox a couple of times a week. Usually, they are as non-sequitor as any other type of spam, and are unremarkable except as yet another demonstration of certain types of right-wing discourse. The frequency with which right-wing political discussion is laced with threats of fatal violence is rarely discussed, but it appears in my inbox several dozen times a year. Still, it seems mostly to be talk and macho posturing, since politically motivated violence against leftists in America does not appear common. Further, I am pretty sure that most prominent progressives who have a public email receive this sort of email on a regular basis too, and so it seems mostly like widespread eliminationist rhetoric than any actual threats.

Today, however, feels a bit different:

The shotgun-wielding suspect in Sunday's mass shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church was motivated by a hatred of "the liberal movement," and he planned to shoot until police shot him, Knoxville Police Chief Sterling P. Owen IV said this morning.

Jim D. Adkisson, 58, of Powell wrote a four-page letter in which he stated his "hatred of the liberal movement," Owen said. "Liberals in general, as well as gays."

Adkisson said he also was frustrated about not being able to obtain a job, Owen said.

Now, I don't think that this should be viewed as part of a broader pattern where politically motivated acts of violence will start occurring against leftists in America. Or, at least I hope this won't be the start of a trend. However, as Orcinus, Digby, and Rick Perlstein have discussed, there is reason to expect otherwise, especially in the event of a second Democratic landslide in 2008. Right-wing eliminationist rhetoric is still widespread.  

Chris Bowers :: Right Wing Emails and the Tennessee Shooting

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Right Wing Emails and the Tennessee Shooting | 39 comments
This loser couldn't get a job... (4.00 / 1)

 ...and it's all the liberals' fault?

 Funny, I thought these right-wing knuckleheads were all about personal responsibility and stuff.

 (Note to DLCers: This is what we mean when we say these people are not reachable. Don't bother.)

 When he's thrown in prison I hope he gets detailed to bootstrap-making...

 

"We judge ourselves by our ideals; others by their actions. It is a great convenience." -- Howard Zinn

I think (4.00 / 1)
progressives should be a lot of more reluctant to seize on incident of violence launched by a single deranged individual. Even if it's proven that the perpetrator partook of the eliminationist rhetoric of the rightwing of the act, such cause-effect linkage between words and actions is elusive.

Over at Dkos a rec'd diary is calling this an "act of terrorism," which is silly.

If we're going to peg this killer on the conservative movement, does that mean we have to claim the Unibomber?

Reading "Nixonland", David and it is possible (4.00 / 2)
that the whole divisiveness and violence of whites in the sixties may come back with the economy tanking. It is pure emotion (irrational) and fear of "the other" fueled by right wing talk radio.  
[ Parent ]
Excellent point (0.00 / 0)

   Right-wing governments become more popular, not less, when economic conditions deteriorate. People are always looking for easy answers, and right-wing rhetoric offers that in spades. Look at the current popularity of "drilling more" as a gas-price remedy for just one example.

   FDR's genius was in bucking that trend. But even he didn't run as a progressive reformer in 1932; he just won because he wasn't Hoover. It was AFTER he took office that he unveiled the New Deal.

 

"We judge ourselves by our ideals; others by their actions. It is a great convenience." -- Howard Zinn

[ Parent ]
All I'm asking for is (0.00 / 0)
 a little restraint. Dkos diarists are giddily seizing on it.

In any case, can we agree that not every hate crime is a terrorist act?

[ Parent ]
Avoid..Avoid..Avoid the Big Evil Orange Site (4.00 / 1)
Danger, Will Robinson, Danger.  You are right David.  This  shooting in Tennessee is right wing reactionary racist bigotry, not terrorism.  We do not need more police, more spying on Americans, and more fear. We need somebody that will honestly address the reason for our economic collapse.  Oh, oops, he's gone.  That was John Edwards (and Dennis Kucinich).

I can't go over to that site anymore  From its inception it was militaristic.  I only joined when there seemed to be some great issue diarists in 2003.  I left in February.    

[ Parent ]
No -- that's EXACTLY what a hate crime is, (4.00 / 2)
by definition. A hate crime is an act of violence against one or more members of a group, committed with the intent of terrorizing all members of the group.

Montani semper liberi
[ Parent ]
All hate crimes (0.00 / 0)
are acts of terrorism?

[ Parent ]
I agree with Sadie... (4.00 / 1)
...in that hate crimes have a political motive--to intimidate some group of people, hated by the perp, of which the victim is thought to be an interchangeable representative.

Depends on one's definitions of "hate crime" and "terrorism", of course.  I take it yours are somewhat different.  We all usually think of terrorism as of a much larger scale; I agree with that.  What else distinguishes them, in your view?

[ Parent ]
Yes. (0.00 / 0)
What's the difference between targeting Americans, because they are Americans (like Al Qaeda does) or targeting gays because they are gays (like rightwing groups)?

You kill or injure a few in order to intimidate the rest.

Montani semper liberi

[ Parent ]
Yes, Hate Crimes Are Acts of Terrorism (4.00 / 2)
Their intent is to terrorize, so, yes, they are acts of terrorism.  Sure, they are not, for the most part, deliberate acts of political organizations, but that's not necessary for something to be an act of terrorism.

The vast majority of lynchings in US history were not deliberate acts of political organizations, for example.  They were much more spontaneous than that, springing out of a hate-fertilized soul.

The BushCo "war on terrorism" is of a piece with the rightwing 1980s Claire Sperling "all terrorism comes from the Soviet Union" school of "thought," and your implied supposition shares something--not a lot, but something--in common with this outlook: it assumes that "terrorism" must come from some sort of organized center.

But, in fact, it's much more realistic to regard organized terrorism as just one sliver of a much broader continuum.  By viewing terrorism this way, we cast a much more illuminating light on the roles of culture, ideology, institutional legitimation, etc. in fomenting terrorism, and this in turn gives us a much better framework for organizing against it.  Another key factor, of course, is the persistence and/or re-emergence of legitimate grievances in a political system that's utterly indifferent to them, at best.

Whatever this poor slob's story, there was a time when there were much stronger working class movements aligned with the left.  Yes, there were still vicious rightwing conspiracists blameshifting all over the place in earlier days, but their targets were overwhelmingly Blacks, immigrants, and other minorities.  The focus on "liberals" is something decidedly more recent, and is symptomatic of how the centrality of the liberal commitment to working class welfare has eroded.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
Toynbee again (4.00 / 1)
The external barbarians have become internal barbarians. He hypothesizes about this possibility when he describes the quick slip back into primitivism of the civilized European immigrant when he confronts the American wilderness. He also talks about the level of civilized living in places like the mountains of West Virginia. He is speculating on the American barbarian as opposed to the European culture of Western Christian Civilization.

http://www.kunstler.com speculates on this type of citizen in our country in essay after essay.  

[ Parent ]
I think you should (4.00 / 2)
read up on the right-wing militia movement. I recommend Dave Neiwart's book.

The unibomber was a lone deranged individual, whereas there are entire communities of right-wing individuals read to commit violence. There simply is not left wing equivalent to these loose-knit organizations, which can be fairly described as terrorist organizations.

[ Parent ]
Uh, I'm well-versed (0.00 / 0)
in the militia movement, thanks. I used to work for a group that monitored hate-groups.

Is there proof that this guy was part of the militia movement?

[ Parent ]
no, and I didn't say he was part of the militia movement. (4.00 / 2)
Here is what you said:
If we're going to peg this killer on the conservative movement, does that mean we have to claim the Unibomber?

I was simply pointing out that the answer to your question is "of course not." There is no equivalency between a single crazy person and the relatively large number of conservative / right-wing eliminationist groups.

[ Parent ]
Well (0.00 / 0)
until there's link drawn between this guy and right-wing groups, he's just a crazy individual spouting political ideas, like the Unibomber.
[ Parent ]
Here's another dkos diary (4.00 / 1)
The details are still coming in about the shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, but it's becoming clear that the gunman holds a grudge against "liberals" and "gays". We have no idea whether or not the gunman listened to right wing hate radio, but the daily barrage of hate based on a person's race, sexual orientation or political affiliation, can and HAS resulted in mass murder on an unimaginable scale. I'm talking about the Rwandan Genocide.

[ Parent ]
well (4.00 / 2)
isn't finding an over the top DKos diary kind of like finding the sun rising in the east?  :)
[ Parent ]
Good point (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
But the Rwandan genocide (4.00 / 3)
WAS driven by hate radio.

Are you saying it couldn't happen here?

Montani semper liberi

[ Parent ]
This guy isn't militia (4.00 / 1)
Not from the sounds of it.  he is like the guy in that Michael Douglas film "Falling Done" or whatever it was or the guy in the Petit & Martin shooting in SF.  He is a lone middle-aged male who probably has few personal ties, nurses resentments against groups like liberals or lawyers and then goes off one day.

Eliminationist rhetoric feeds this as it stokes the resentments of the unattached and focuses them on the outgroup du jour, like gays, but it is different from militias.  Both are a problem, and they are related, but they aren't the same.

John McCain--He's not who you think he is.

[ Parent ]
I agree (0.00 / 0)
A group of them terrorized a camping site in the Ozarks a year or so ago. The camping couple who reported it hid for their lives. And I don't even think this motorcycle gang was an organized terror group, just the barbarians Toynbee talks about.
[ Parent ]
If we had a trillion dollar (4.00 / 2)
media infrastructure pumping hatred into the veins of America 24/7, then, yeah, maybe you could pin the Unabomber on "us," but somehow I don't see it.

The Right does this on purpose. This is exactly what Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are getting paid to do -- to push vulnerable people over the edge.

Don't kid yourself, we can expect to see a lot more of it after the election.

Montani semper liberi

[ Parent ]
A couple things (0.00 / 0)
CNN's Headline: "Church shooting suspect angry over job search, police say"

Another quote from CNN: "Authorities also discovered a letter from the state government telling Adkisson he was having his food stamps reduced or eliminated, police said."

Finally: "Neighbors said Adkisson was quiet and kept to himself."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/...

Locally, KNUS, one of the local righty stations here in Denver, reported the shooting on the newsbreak but gave no mention of motive. That is probably a good sign. I'm sure all the mouthpieces will disown this (except M. Savage) but mostly with a wink-wink.  

Laugh hard. Its a long ways to the bank.  

[ Parent ]
Chris (4.00 / 1)
Even if many of these threats are not acted upon, I still commend you for continuing forward. Our leaders are  protected behind bodyguards, gated communities, secret service etc. (which is good and I am glad they are protected) but the rest of us-like you- do not have that luxury.

Tip of the hat to you.  

We won the Battle. Now the Real Fight for Change Begins. Join MoveOn.org and fight for progressive change.  

this hits too close to home... (4.00 / 3)
my gf is a U.U. and being the good atheist boyfriend that I am I regularly attended Unity Temple in Oak Park when we still lived in Chicago. It is a wonderful community of people and this shooting turns my insides inside out.
Let's not bury our heads (4.00 / 7)
It cannot be understated that those of the other ideological pursuasion are fed a different sort of BS than those of our affiliation. Even on the mainstream level, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingram and even Dennis Miller portray liberals as evil, ill-intentioned, unpatriotic and the ultimate destroyers of America. That's on commercial radio.

Even though much has been made of how the righties trail us on the intertubes, I don't think anyone here understands the weight and velocity email forwards have in their community. I would guess that for every lefty that reads a MyDD or Open Left post, there is a righty that just opened their inbox to find an email forward with animated gifs of flags waving, Hillary with bulgin eyes and barack HUSSEIN obama with a shifty look on his face. Not to mention that those emails are forwarded between family, friends, church, work and other network communities that still flourish in the south and middle america.

Ultimately, my point is that on whole their movement believes they are the keepers of freedom, that we are the enemy of that freedom and they are being asked to defend that freedom by defeating us by all means neccessary. This is not new. This is not hyperbole. As I'm writing from Littleton CO, I can tell you it only takes a couple of idiots to start a pattern.  

Laugh hard. Its a long ways to the bank.  

ignorance and hatred (0.00 / 0)
Its always the pathetic of the world that have hatred for anyone that doesn't fit their warped view of normal.

I would argue that being gay, a person of color, liberal, empathetic, etc is normal, especially when compared to the hateful and violent attitudes the cons show so easily when dealing with anyone or anything that challenges their narrow
ignorant view of reality.

To the right wing cons, a mind is a terrible thing to waste, and all cons aren't stupid but all stupid people are conservative, and lastly, your actions speak louder then words ever will.

PS  -  Again truth and reality make me proud to be a liberal.

In my neon red town (0.00 / 0)
it starts with observable difference. I plant trees, flowers, veggies in my back yard and deliberately grown red clover (considered a weed) and then get ticketed for it (like a speeding ticket).

Your way of speaking, mode of dress, daily habits are watched and when you are judged different it begins.

Fortunately I took a two week legal course on how to work the injustice system anywhere in the US. I consider my recent garden ticket round two in the courts. I need the practice.

You see I just don't have mowed down weeds (prairie grass I calls it) like every other lawn bordering my back alley. It's different. And they fear difference. Just watch an animal (in my case dogs and cats) who habitually go outside daily and one day there is something really different out there-a plastic bag blowing in the wind; a parked truck or auto; someone walking by- and they are on alert. Primitive thinking people respond on an animalistic level. They need to be trained like dogs before reason can penetrate.

[ Parent ]
Why no mention of Jeffrey Feldman's book? (0.00 / 0)
"Outright Barbarous"
Jeffrey refers to how the Right's violent language has killed our ability to have civil discourse, but maybe it goes beyond that with what happened in Knoxville yesterday.
Maybe it's time to take environmental and peace organizations off the terr'ist watch list (4.00 / 4)
and add all those right-wing militias and extremist groups who call for violently ending the liber'l govermn't while stockpiling high power assault weapons.

Just a thought...

Help support "CRASHING THE STATES"--a Netroots Film!

He's the NRA.... (4.00 / 1)
At least, it seems likely; it would be nice if we could find out whether this sicko was in fact an NRA member.  If so, I'd like to see an "I'm the NRA" parody ad with his mugshot and something to the effect of, "If guns are outlawed, how will we murder the liberals?"

"A fantasy is not even a wish, much less an act.  There is no such thing as a culpable or shameful fantasy."  -----Lady Sally McGee
Oh the irony -- (4.00 / 1)
environmental and peace organizations are on the terrorist watch list, while a group which actively promotes the violent overthrow of the US  government gets a pass.

Montani semper liberi
[ Parent ]
How about the Peace Palace (0.00 / 0)
in Warsaw under the Soviet boot? Nothing new here.
[ Parent ]
Easy now (0.00 / 0)
the Ministry of Truth is probably reading this right now. And God knows I do not want to take a trip to the Ministry of Love.

Montani semper liberi
[ Parent ]
Now that's a great image for a (0.00 / 0)
documentary.
[ Parent ]
ASSASINATION (4.00 / 2)
If you have any doubt whether the wingnuts will resort to violence, just look at the very effective use they have made of assassination: Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy.   Yes, they will stop at nothing--they have proven this many times over.
Sorry...this post is not good enough (4.00 / 1)
I can appreciate the desire to respond to email death threats by saying something along the lines of 'it's just another kind of right-wing extremism,' and then referencing a few blog posts with the implied message, 'that's someone else's issue...this stuff doesn't really bother me all that much.' I can appreciate it as part of a desire to show that one is not intimidated by right-wingers seeking to shut us up.  But honestly, I don't get the logic of taking that approach right now. People were just killed by a guy espousing hatred of liberals as the motivation for his crime, and had in his home books by the very right-wing pundits who use violent rhetoric to attack progressives on a daily basis.  Given all that...now is the time we take a less-than-outraged, almost neutral stand?

Let me put this in different terms:

When a female blogger gets an email from a right-winger threatening to rape them for something they wrote, the reaction is to take it to more seriously--always.

When a gay or lesbian blogger gets an email from a right-winger threatening to sodomize them for something they wrote, the reaction is to take it more seriously--always.

When an African-American or Latino blogger gets an email from a right-winger threatening to lynch them for something they wrote, the reaction is to take it more seriously--always.

Wondering about the link between violent rhetoric and violent action is interesting, but it's not really the issue.  The question is how this rhetoric undermines our entire system of government, which is based on a civic sphere that can only function if a certain kind of talk is maintained.  Even if it doesn't result in murders, it's corroding our public sphere.

Therefore, now is the precise time to recognize that violent rhetoric is a persistent problem--a real and damaging force in our system of government that has gained in intensity since 9/11, but has much deeper roots in the history of right-wing rhetoric in this country.

Now is the time to be 100% clear and come out against this,  to state emphatically that it is a problem, that it is a constant threat against women, gays and lesbians, and people of color who voice their political views  via the internet, and that everyone in the netroots should work together to curb this problem.

That is the kind of strong message we need from front page bloggers in response to a right-winger walking into a liberal church and killing people after leaving a note saying he hates liberals and gays.

(Also: I wrote an entire book on this topic which has been out since May, called Outright Barbarous:  How the Violent Language of the Right Threatens Our Democracy,  which was followed by panel at NN called Don't Think of Violence: Framing, Media, and Policy and included Dave Neiwart, Andrea Battista Schlesinger, Michael Shaw and myself. By and large, the book and panel have been ignored by OL. Long before that, Rick Perlstein and Dave Neiwart were making salient, actionable points on this very topic, urging progressives to take right-wing violent rhetoric seriously.  And they, too, were persistently ignored.  It's too bad. Rick and Dave are two of the most insightful thinkers in this country, whose views on this topic should guide our thinking.  We are way past the point of wondering about this issue.  It's time for everyone with a large media platform to take a strong stand against violent rhetoric from the right.)


See my comment above (0.00 / 0)
I wondered why there was no mention of your book on this topic.
[ Parent ]
Right Wing Emails and the Tennessee Shooting | 39 comments
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