Today I watched a livestream of events in Wisconsin where the Sikh Temple was attacked by a domestic terrorist. I began watching as soon as I found out it had happened and watched the local station give info and interview witnesses. The Temple was attacked during worship services by either four terrorists or one1 leaving six innocent people dead as well as a gunman. Accounts during the livestream came from people who either escaped or who were on cellphone communication with people inside2.
Michelle Bachmann, who is on the Intelligence Committee for ironic fun, has been on an anti-Muslim crusade lately. And, of course, her supporters are amplifying her ignorant spewing. It’s on rightwing blogs, in their news and on their radio. The people who hated muslims before are really, really hate them now3. They think that the Muslim Brotherhood, with Obama at the helm, are about to take over America. They’re planning to destroy us all and create an Islamic theocracy here, so they believe. This is making them even more afraid and hateful. They’re willing to take up arms to protect themselves. These same sorts of people do not know, or even care, that Sikhs are not Muslim. They care that they look similar. Just as they did after 9/11, they see an enemy. It’s in their little minds that there is no difference between the religions or the cultures. They want a war and they’ll take it any way they can get it.
So, some of the most hateful loudmouths on the right don’t seem to understand why some liberals blame their hate-mongering on what’s happened today in Wisconsin. One in particular notes that liberals don’t know the difference between Muslims and Sikhs (as if it would have been ok had this happened at a mosque). She laughs and gets her followers riled up, while willfully4 twisting the truth to add fuel to an already blazing fire of hate and fear.
Here’s a clue: We do know the difference. The problem is the people who soak up the rhetoric of the hate-mongers, like those who listen to Michelle Bachmann’s Mccarthy-like vendetta against the “Muslim Brotherhood”, do not know the difference. They see that Sikhs are have dark skin and the men wear turbans. To the people who wallow in hate, fear and ignorance that means they are terrorists. They don’t know the difference and, likely, the group that did this doesn’t either.
Since her followers don’t know the difference between one group of brown people and the next, yes, some of the blame can be blamed on Bachmann and those of her that fuel these hate-filled people. Here’s a history of how Sikhs in the U.S. have been treated since 9/11. Maybe these loudmouths who don’t understand that we do know the difference will get a hint, though I seriously doubt they want to admit anything that will put the spotlight on their insanity. They thrive on getting their followers angry. They like them that way and if they have to distort the truth to get them there? That’s just butter on the bread for them. They know that we know the difference and they know why some liberals are blaming Bachmann’s hateful vendetta for creating such an atmosphere in which someone picks up weapons and opens-fire on a place of worship. It’s not the loudmouths that are stupid.
Plenty of people like Dana Loesch, Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Bachmann make money exploiting hate and fear in people. They love the adoration that they inspire in these ignorant sheep but mostly love the money they make off of them. We know this. We also know that the people they inspire are, on average, incredibly ignorant and love to hate. So, yes, the rhetoric may have inspired today’s tragedy. If that makes them uncomfortable then maybe, just maybe, they should shut the fuck up. 5
- The witnesses during the livestream said there were 4. The first one shot at a first responder and then was “taken down” by that same officer. Yet after that occurred there was still a hostage situation for hours. [↩]
- IF there was only one, then why were there hostages after he was dead? [↩]
- This is an effort on her part, in my opinion, to once again plant the seed of “Obama = Muslim” in the heads of idiots who lap up her nonsense. [↩]
- I say willfully because she’s not stupid. [↩]
- This was originally a Google plus post. I’ve expanded on that a bit and brought it here. [↩]
2 Comments
I talked about this with my kids when it came on. They immediately knew this was domestic terrorism and that it was wrong to hate a group for their beliefs or for the fact they were different. I’m glad that sank in with them.
Unfortunately, hate and intolerence seem to be plentifiul these days. In times of economic strife, it’s easy to blame “others” for all domestic problems instead of looking inside. Many a repressive regime has started this way. Hopefully we can convince the majority of good people to stand up against these fanatics.
Hate is a vile thing, and like a virus, it must be spread by some kind of contact. Sadly, verbal contact is enough.
I was always perplexed, since a child really, of how so many people will hate the same way at the same time. I remember seeing pictures of massive groups of Nazi soldiers marching, and I wondered, how were they all convinced to go attack others at the same time?
And when I found out about the horrors of our own CIvil War, I wondered again, how do so many people hate at the same time?
About ten years ago, I discovered that Google had digitized about a billion pages of books and newspapers. It was like being able to walk in to any library in the world, and see many of the old rare books and old newspapers/ Wouldn’t it be fun to flip thru those old newspapers!
SO I did. I flipped through old local newspapers first, and then other old papers — from before the Civil War. And I started reading the ads, mostly. I saw dozens of ads for escaped slaves — hundreds of them. I had seen such ads in history books, but did not realize there were so many.
ANd I saw ads for SLAVE DOGS — dozens of them! They advertised Dogs especially trained to attack blacks. I started to wonder –how would they place that ad? What would they say to the guy at the newspaper counter — it had to be face to face. No telephones. What did they say to each other?
Turns out, slave Dogs were pretty common. No one ever told me that. They needed dogs who were very scary — to scare slaves into not even venturing outside at night. They could not afford enough white men to guard the slaves 24 -7. and trained dogs were the perfect horrible choice. YOu don’t see that in movies about the South, EVER, but slave dogs were a big deal. Without them, so many slaves would have escaped, slavery would have ended. They were that important.
So began reading the other parts of those very papers — the ones with ads for slave dogs. The type is tiny, it’s kinda tiresome to read. But WOW, the papers are beaming with hate, particluarly as you got closer to the CIvil War.
Every vile slander was aimed at Lincoln and the abolitionist. Abolitionist were called “”Vile scum” and connected with SATAN. You can’t believe what you are reading. Is this a joke? No. I read one that said Satan was the first abolitionist. Mind boggling.
The issue over and over was the spread of slavery into Kansas. Kansas had just voted 98% -2 % to keep slavery out — but here the Southern papers were calling those voters scum, essentially working for Satan.
Every paper seemed to one degree or another , promising violence if slavery was not spread. And they castigated Northern papers for allowing anyone to publish anti slavery books, pamphlets, etc — all of which were illegal in the South.
Then I ran across a newspaper article about a hapless man who simply spoke in a casual conversation, that he thought slavery was evil. He was just talking, not preaching, not trying to free the slaves, he was “overheard” giving negative but public speech against slavery, and he doubted slavery was Godly — as most of the South were told.
This guy was HUNTED DOWN! The newspapers bragged about it. I couldn’t believe it. I never found out what happened to the guy, but I never had any inkling that you could be hunted down for speaking in a normal conversation, your belief that slavery was not from God. This was not some radical movie making up stuff, this was in the newspaper, and they were bragging about it!
SO I started looking around for OTHER viewpoints in Southern papers. Surely some newspapers in that area were voices of reason, right? Where are the anti slavery publications?
Where are the abolitionist preachers? Where are their papers? Surely someone was speaking out publicly condemning the SATAN is an abolitionist kinda stuff, right?
No. I found no such papers. Some papers were promising violence — if “our rights” to the territories were not “honored”. There was columns calling for the arrest of people in the NORTH who dared to write anti slavery books. Those books were banned in the South, of course, but I had no idea they wanted people in the North arrested — and sent to the south for punishment, for simply writing such books!
And I came on newspapers that demanded the spread of slavery –or promised war. And their own headline was “THE TRUE ISSUE”. To read it, you think, naaaaa, someone is trying to make the South look crazy Nazi like, whatever. This can’t be. They were PROUD of it.
SO if you want to know how hate is spread, its by words. Its by giving social status to men based on it. The Southern men who were more extreme, got more attention. In fact, they became Confederate leaders — Toombs, Davis, for example. The ones who could get people jumping up and down and screaming.
I don’t believe these men really wanted to spread slavery or have a Civil War. I think they were trying to get status, to outdo the other guy. If one guy got up and talking about “our rights to spread slavery” as if you can make such a speech in measured tones, the next guy got up and screamed louder, pounded his chest more.
I see something like that now, the hate for Obama is almost as extreme as the hate for Lincoln. They didn’t just dislike LIncoln — they were told, and believed, he was trying to get slaves to rebell and kill the whites. They were told Lincoln wanted white women to be “with” and “marry” black men.
When you hear Lincoln haters today quote things which SEEM to make Lincoln a racists, realize this. Lincoln was bending over backwards to just stop the SPREAD of slavery. He was trying to assure people that he was not trying to force the South to give up slavery. He knew, and said, that just stopping the spread of slavery was the way to end slavery.
But the Southern anti Lincoln rhetoric grew more and more vile, until after he won the election, the South had their people so radical, so hateful, so foaming at the mouth, that large segments of the South saw Lincoln as some kind of devil. The religious aspect of the war was amazing, as the religous defense of slavery was omnipresent in Southern speeches.
Hopefully, we have enough other outlets, besides Hate Radio and hate TV, that hate does not overwhelm us again