Sickos

I hope that the new healthcare reform includes ample mental health insurance subsidies, via TPM:

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told reporters he believed over 10 lawmakers have been threatened since they voted for the health care bill on Sunday.

Appearing before reporters alongside House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC), Hoyer expressed concern about the recent spat of incidents targeting lawmakers, and blamed the violent rhetoric surrounding the health care debate for creating a potentially dangerous atmosphere.

"When people start talking in the rhetoric of putting people on firing lines, that if they don't do something they will have physical harm done to them... or they put a target on their faces, with cross-hairs -- that activity aught to be unacceptable in our democracy," Hoyer said, making reference to a Sarah Palin Facebook post that uses cross-hairs to identify members of Congress who voted for health care reform.

Nooses being faxed to Rep. Clyburn (D-NC) and Rep. Stupak (D-MI and who'da thought I'd be a fan of hi), bricks shattering windows at Rep. Slaughter's (D-NY) district office, evil Beck is dripping his cup of poison, and you can follow the violence towards Democrats on this interactive map:



Disconcertingly similar to this map here:



Is Palin's map predictive?

Who are the terrorists now and who's siding with them, arguably enabling them emotionally and philosophically, even mirroring them with undisguised sore loser abuse of Congressional rules, threatening our national security?

Vs. those who have legislated as the clear majority of voters, making their ballot booth choices in a free and democratic election, elected them to do?

Is it somehow okay now to be a sore loser if you've read enough Ayn Rand?

I'm a hope (and change) kind of guy. But here's a fear scenario that James Vegas lays out very plausibly, based on America's long history:

While some leading conservatives are continuing to stoke the flames, others are already trying to back away from the Pandora’s Box they have opened. It is not possible, however, for them to reverse the effects of an entire year of irresponsible rhetoric -- calling Democrats Nazi’s, fascists, Storm troopers and so on --with a few brief statements to the press. To the extent that many grass-roots conservatives have become sincerely convinced by the grotesque accusations against Obama and the Democrats, it becomes no longer irrational for them to think that violent resistance may be required and justified.

Unfortunately, the problem is inevitably going to become significantly worse in the coming period because of several reinforcing social trends:

• First, the failure to defeat the health care bill will cause many of the more moderate and less committed anti-HCR protesters to become demoralized and fall away, leaving a smaller hard-core group of the more extreme protesters in control of the websites, message boards and discussion threads of the anti health care movement. This hard core will include both traditional organized extremist groups – neo-Nazi, skinhead, White Power, LaRouche followers -- and individuals mobilized by the new generation of Fox News and internet-based commentary and social networks.

• Second, within this reduced group, the failure of legal protest to stop the health care bill will generate a strong pressure in favor of more extreme acts. The inability to stop the “slide into fascist dictatorship” will be offered as “proof” of the need for violence and also provide its justification. This social process of radicalization was evident in the 1960’s and early 1970’s – in the U.S. in the case of the Weathermen and Weather Underground and in Europe with the German Red Army Faction and the Italian Red Brigades.

• Third, a vicious cycle will quickly develop. Provocative acts like those noted today force federal and local authorities to begin investigations. To the hard-core protesters, their actions then “prove” the existence of the imminent fascist takeover and justify and stimulate more extreme acts.

The problem is profoundly exacerbated in the United States today because of the increasing number of states with “Open Carry” laws for firearms and the growing movement among conservative gun owners to aggressively assert these new rights by gathering and openly carrying their weapons in public places like coffee shops and political meetings.

It is therefore likely that there will soon be organized very intentionally provocative marches and demonstrations that feature the ostentatious display of both guns and also signs expressing clear threats to use them against Democrats. There will also be the creation of secessionist “militia camps” like those in the 1990’s that will violate various kinds of state and national laws in order to deliberately dare and provoke law enforcement officials to come in and create an incident.

Interesting that this appears on the 30th anniversary of the brutal assassination of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, killed by right-wing death squads:

Our stories laid out, in the Salvadoran rightists’ own words, a vast plan to physically eliminate their political enemies and grass-roots activists based on “dirty war” techniques originally carried out by the governments of Guatemala and Argentina against rebellious segments of their own populations.

Although D’Aubuisson’s role as a leader of the death squads was always reported in the American press as “alleged,” curiously even by our own newspapers, he easily confessed to us that he had participated in death squad activities, and that he had drawn up a secret terror plan (a copy of which we had) that had become the basis of the political-military organization that evolved into the Arena Party. His lieutenants boastfully confessed to manufacturing false propaganda against the “left,” participating in arms smuggling, attacks against Jesuit priests, and assisting the security forces in identifying and killing opponents.

We just came through eight years where Vice President Cheney orchestrated a monarchical reading of Presidential powers including the ability to arrest anybody at any time without showing evidence just by calling them a threat to national security. Any legitimization of violent, democracy suppressing behavior, especially by Republican members of Congress, is legitimization of the thug class, one of the earmarks of fascism. So the Republican leaders need to start speaking out now, as McCain did quite decently at one of his campaign rallies, and that includes beginning the break with Palin.

I'll be interested to see who among them has the decency.