Domestic political violence (USA)

[bourbon]

2-Can not remember which TV Network is going to air the program but on 19 APR 10 The Timothy MacVeigh Tapes are going to be aired. These are tapes of some type of LE or Legal interview and are supposed to be very detailed. Will post the Network when I can find it, unless somebody here already knows?

MSNBC. Looks like an interesting program; McVeigh established a three year correspondence with the liberal author and activist Gore Vidal, which Vidal wrote about in a revealing essay in 2001.


Oklahoma: the day homegrown terror hit America, by Ed Vulliamy. The Observer (UK), Sunday 11 April 2010.

When war veteran Timothy McVeigh bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, the US was stunned. Why did Americans like him hate their country? And, as the rightwing militias rise again, what lessons does that fateful day hold?

[slapout9]

MSNBC. Looks like an interesting program; McVeigh established a three year correspondence with the liberal author and activist Gore Vidal, which Vidal wrote about in a revealing essay in 2001.


Oklahoma: the day homegrown terror hit America, by Ed Vulliamy. The Observer (UK), Sunday 11 April 2010.

bourbon, thats the one

[jmm99]

Two contemporaneous subject-matter related events do not necessarily a conspiracy make - they can be explained by parallelism.

For MSNBC (exemplified by the Keith and Rachel commentary shows if you watch them - I do; also regularly listened to Radio Moscow back in the day), this year is the year of the Domestic Terrorist (non-Muslim species), with SME commentary by Mark Potok (Director, Intelligence Project) of the Southern Poverty Law Center(Wiki and official site; first menu item is "Fifteen Years Later: A Grim Anniversary in Oklahoma" by Potok with a plug for MSNBC). So, MSNBC's production of a Timothy McVeigh documentary (to view Monday) is not surprising since McVeigh is the "go to guy" for proponents of an all pervasive, right-wing Domestic Terrorist threat.

Nor is the testimony of Robert Mueller that surprising since he is in the process of trying to enhance the FBI's budget. Still the tack he has chosen to take is rather surprising to this armchair observer: Fox, Mueller: Home-Grown Extremists as Threatening as Al Qaeda; UK Times, Domestic terrorists as big a threat as al-Qaeda, says FBI head Robert Mueller.

From the Times (same at Fox):

Fifteen years after the Oklahoma City bombing, the spectre of domestic terrorism has returned to haunt the Obama Administration, with a warning from the FBI that “home-grown and lone-wolf extremists” now represent as serious a threat as al-Qaeda and its affiliates.

The warning, from the FBI Director, Robert Mueller, came as the former President Clinton drew parallels between the Oklahoma City tragedy and a recent upsurge in anti-government rhetoric, while American television audiences heard Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, describe the “absolute rage” that drove him to plan an attack that killed 168 men, women and children.

An FBI spokesman told The Times yesterday that Mr Mueller was referring to right-wing extremist groups and anti-government militias, as well as American Islamists, in his testimony to the Senate committee that must approve the FBI’s $8.3 billion (£5.4 billion) budget.

Last month federal agents arrested nine members of a Christian militia based in Michigan, calling itself the Hutaree. They have been charged with plotting to murder local police with a stash of guns, knives and grenades.

I'm used to exaggeration by elected and appointed politicians (especially when it comes to filling their favorite rice bowl). However, this piece by Mueller seems a bit too much if taken literally (yup, don't take him literally). If these DVNSAs (Domestic Violent Non-State Actors) are as much of a threat of AQ, can we then expect drone attacks (and other direct actions) on their leadership and on their "affiliated groups" ?

From my armchair, all of this appears to be part of an effort (not necessarily orchestrated) to shift some dirt from very extreme right-wing groups to less right-wing groups (e.g., the Tea Party folks who to me seem more libertarian), and eventually to center-right groups and folks (NRA and JMM, for example). I don't like the tone of all this rhetoric, which has aspects of a PsyOp (of the grey kind).

Perhaps, the MSNBC documentary will shed some light on that aspect of the subject. However, the fates of pool scheduling have intervened; and tomorrow nite, we (Monte Carlo I) face off with them (Monte Carlo II) for the league championship. So, I'll have to pick up the MSNBC program on its rerun.

Regards

Mike

[Ken White]

I'm used to exaggeration by elected and appointed politicians (especially when it comes to filling their favorite rice bowl)...all of this appears to be part of an effort (not necessarily orchestrated) to shift some dirt from very extreme right-wing groups to less right-wing groups (e.g., the Tea Party folks who to me seem more libertarian), and eventually to center-right groups and folks (NRA and JMM, for example). I don't like the tone of all this rhetoric, which has aspects of a PsyOp (of the grey kind).

I think you're correct. Dumb, unnecessary and likely to backfire -- and shows how out of touch the 'political class' and the media generally are...