Are We Witnessing the First Stages of a Violent Right-Wing Open Rebellion? George Tiller Is Not a Lone Victim.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Christine Bowman

A "pro-lifer" fires a bullet point-blank into a doctor's head in a church foyer, then lands a 30-minute interview with CNN from inside his jail. Not to be outdone, a lifelong, anti-Semitic White supremacist opens fire with a rifle and kills a Black Holocaust Memorial Museum security guard in a building filled with school children and tourists. What's next from right-wing extremists?

Even as a fresh horror unfolded today at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., it looks like the opportunistic Randall Terrys and CNNs of the world have decided to turn the murder of Dr. George Tiller into the next "family values" media circus along the lines of the Terri Schiavo debacle that went down in 2003-2005. (Randall Terry was at the center of that one, too.) Right-wing extremists, with their "pro life" murder suspect Scott Roeder leading the charge from his Sedgwick County, Kansas jail cell, are once again seizing upon tragedy to push their extreme right-wing political and religious agendas even further. They refuse to allow traumatized families to grieve in peace.

The scary part is that it might be working for them. The extremists on the right have got "the big mo" -- momentum, that is -- and hungry reporters are more than willing to add fuel to an emotionally hot story that combines murder with a political angle. Here's what some war-on-women, right-wing extremists have recently done:

• One of only three high-profile doctors offering emergency late-term abortion procedures has been eliminated by execution.
• One of only three clinics offering such services nationwide has been permanently shuttered.
• One anti-abortion group claims to be interested in buying the clinic property from the dead doctor's widow.
• A high-profile leader is comparing the murder of Dr. Tiller to the Nat Turner slave rebellion and asking, "What will we do in this hour of trial?" (His answer is to gain energy from the atrocious act.) Speaking of the pro-choice opposition, he adds: "... And now consider the proponents of child killing. ... In their perverted, ethically depraved world, we - the defenders of life - are the terrorists and villains in this epic struggle ..."
• A Baptist minister, Wilie Drake in California, told his radio audience he had been praying for Dr. Tiller's death. He says God answered his prayers; and he prays now for President Obama's death. (Rev. Drake was Alan Keyes' American Independent Party running mate in 2008. Keyes had been Obama's right-wing opponent in the 2004 Senate race.)
• Dan Holman of "Missionaries to the Preborn" said of Tiller's death: "I was cheered by it." He told CNN that "all abortionists are deserving of death, and that "politicians and judges, and others who support this murder are also deserving of death. ... George Bush, Barack Obama -- any politician that gives our tax money to Planned Parenthood and organizations that kill babies or participate in the killing of children deserve the same penalty."

There's nothing like a cold-blooded murder in a church to rally the right, apparently. But how does a political movement, in this case anti-abortion activists, energize and escalate beyond murder? Hopefully, mass murder and armed insurrection won't be next -- but there is that pre-Civil War model that their leader held up this week. And the NRA has been stirring up the right with advice to build up their arsenals.

Today, of course, another person took action in Washington. (How odd it sounds, to hear the lifelong, gun-wielding hater and repeat offender referred to on cable news programs as an elderly "gentleman" -- just because he is in his eighties?)

Getting back to the abortion rights battlefront, though, on the media side, CNN's Scott Rowlands -- lead reporter on CNN's Laci Peterson coverage (enough said?) -- is helpfully bringing the message of the jailed "pro-life" extremist to "mainstream" news. Of course, Roeder himself got the ball rolling by contacting the AP briefly on June 4 from jail to complain about "being treated as a criminal." One of his remarks to the AP contained some menace: "I know there are many other similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal." That may have stirred up law enforcement people; it definitely interested reporters.

Soon after, CNN lined up a 30-minute interview with Roeder at the jail. The appreciative prisoner repaid the network with an excellent soundbite -- declaring "a victory for all the unborn children" and going on at some length with his imaginings about cut up fetuses.

Yet, a Tiller family lawyer chooses not to give Roeder's statements (or those of his unjailed allies in terrorist fear-mongering) legs by offering any response.

An attorney for Tiller wouldn't discuss the [clinic purchasing] proposal. "I'm just not going to respond to every irreverent publicity stunt or comment by these extremists," said the attorney, Dan Monnat.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jaLZyHUZ2vWSrE1Go3eZ1qUW47GgD98NSUJ00

Attorney Monnat also said:

Speaking for myself ... I am reluctant to in any way legitimize Mr. Roeder, or anything he stands for, by directly responding to his statements. I am content to let law enforcement determine whether anything he says merits attention. I do not encourage anyone else to give Mr. Roeder or his extremist views any additional attention as he awaits trial.

http://community.thenest.com/cs/ks/forums/thread/17172329.aspx

So it's "Rah, rah, hit 'em again, harder," from the right. And only restrained and silent dignity in response. Reminiscent of Germany, some decades back?

Remember when a Homeland Security memo was leaked in April warning of potential violence to come from the right-wing extremists? "The job of DHS is to assess the threat of terrorism, including home-grown terrorism," spokesperson Sara Kuban said then. Every conservative speaker in politics or the media was "outraged!"

With Scott Roeder still spewing vitriol from jail, and "right-to-life" leaders fueling the hateful rage from their perches as free citizens, and CNN, among others, enabling the radicals to spread their hate, just to get a sensationalistic scoop -- isn't it time for some citizen rage from the center and left?

Hate and homegrown terrorism ran rampant in 20th-century Nazi Germany. How ironic, that they are on a roll again, here and now, in the USA. If good people look away rather than confront that fact, just how good are they?

Related, from BuzzFlash:

WINGS OF JUSTICE --George Tiller, MD

Jill Stanek Proves That the Two Remaining Doctors Who Perform Late-Term Abortions Should Be Worried

Don't Kid Yourself; the Murder of Dr. George Tiller is Part of the War Against Women

Standing in front of a tank? Assassination? How far would you go in the name of protest?

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS