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Thursday, June 11, 2009

Allegedly??????
Posted by Jill | 5:06 AM
That's the word the news crawl on the New York CBS affiliate is using to describe James W. von Brunn, the angry old man who shot and killed a guard at the Holocaust museum yesterday.

Allegedly.

I'd like to know with what groups the person who prepares that crawl is affiliated, and whether this person uses the word "allegedly" when a black man is arrested for a crime..

The New York Times doesn't doubt that the guy who had the gun is the guy who did it:
The gunman was identified by law enforcement officials as James W. von Brunn, who embraces various conspiracy theories involving Jews, blacks and other minority groups and at one point waged a personal war with the federal government.

Working the crazy hours that I'm doing means that by the time I catch up with a story like this, everyone else has already said whatever needs to be said.

I just wonder how long it's going to take before conservatives start apologizing for their outrage about the DHS report on domestic terrorism -- a report which has shown not to slur loyal American patriots unjustly, but has instead been shown to be spot-on.

The screeching nutballs of right-wing talk radio and wingnut "news" who use the public airwaves to spout hate, racism, and exhort their minions to violence are spinning as fast as they can that people like Scott Roeder and James W. vun Brunn have nothing to do with them, that the vast majority of their listeners DON'T take a gun and kill doctors and security guards. That is true. But when you think about how Rush Limbaugh and Fox News are STILL claiming that Barack Obama wasn't born in the U.S. and is ineligible to be President, combine it with the economic mess that began under the previous administration (when guys like Roeder and von Brunn were curiously quiet) and the first African-American president, it's hard to argue that this kind of talk isn't pushing these guys over the edge.

Anyone who thought that the election of Barack Obama meant that we are now a postracial society obviously forgot about people like Scott Roeder and James W. von Brunn lurking in the shadows, just waiting for someone who wasn't a white male spouting We Are A Christian Nation rhetoric to take office again before ratcheting up their mayhem.

Where is Eric Holder on this? Where the hell is the Justice Department? These people spent the Bush years prosecuting political opponents while these lunatics amassed their arsenals. I know that Barack Obama wants to play nice with fetophiles and other wingnuts, deluding himself that there is common ground between sanity and insanity, but these two terrorist acts are a shot across the bow that there are people on the fringe, egged on by right-wing talk show personalities and even Washington Republicans, who have declared war on this country.

For eight years we saw Quakers put under surveillance for meeting in living rooms, eating cookies and talking about how we can put an end to the war in Iraq. We saw college kids receiving visits from the Secret Service for having a poster on the wall that someone didn't like -- a poster that simply depicted the number of people executed in Texas while George W. Bush was governor. The poster did NOT advocate violence against him, it simply depicted a documented fact. We saw 1800 people arrested during the Republican National Convention in New York in 2004 for peacefully protesting, most of whom were released or acquitted of all charges. We saw the President's press secretary say "People have to watch what they say, watch what they do." We saw mass surveillance of American citizens. And the right-wing groups were utterly silent, because the man in the White House was white, professed himself to be a Christian, and shared their drive to preserve a nation of white male patriarchal privilege at any cost. The minute he was out of office and someone whose pigmentation they deemed to be unseemly took up residence in the White House, they started up again. All George Bush had to do was give lip service to TEH BAYBEEEEEZZZZZZZZZZ and he could trash the Constitution as much as he wanted.

Nice fucking patriots, these guys.

More:

Talk2Action

Joan Walsh, who has the money quote of the day: "And who will apologize to the family of Stephen Tyrone Johns, the brave security man at the Holocaust Museum shot by von Brunn. How von Brunn, a felon who'd used a gun in his earlier crime, still had the right to carry a gun, I'll never understand. He killed a black man who'd spent six years protecting a monument to the triumph of love and brotherhood over hate and division."

Some people don't know about the Wayback Machine.

Perhaps it's time for all of us to read David Neiwert's book.

Bob Johnson.

Sara Robinson tells it like it is.

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6 Comments:
Blogger Unknown said...
It's common journalistic practice to use the terms "alleged" and allegedly until the suspect has been found guilty in a court of law.

Meanwhile, it seems that this crazy old coot is as anti-Christian and anti-Bush as he was anti-Jew, Also, he used a garden variety shotgun rather than an assault rifle. Doesn't really fit the narrative in a lot of ways, but I'm sure the left will figure out how to exploit it anyway.
6/11/09, 7:37 AM  
Anonymous thisniss said...
ditto Barry - "alleged" is common, and I personally find it preferable to maintain the presumption of innocence even in a case like this. Civil liberties must hold for Friends and foes alike; even (neo-)Nazis deserve a fair trial.
6/11/09, 8:43 AM  
Blogger jurassicpork said...
Allegedly, as in "innocent until proven guilty", which goes back to the Magna Carta, Jill. It would be irresponsible for them to try him in a public forum. We're free to say whatever we want but that wouldn't make us any less irresponsible.
6/11/09, 11:37 AM  
Blogger jurassicpork said...
Sarah also said that von Brunn was killed. He's still alive.
6/11/09, 12:11 PM  
Anonymous bandit said...
I'd like to know with what groups the person who prepares that crawl is affiliated, and whether this person uses the word "allegedly" when a black man is arrested for a crime..

Nice racist projection
6/11/09, 2:12 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...
>How von Brunn, a felon who'd used a gun in his earlier crime, still had the right to carry a gun, I'll never understand.

He didn't have the right, any more than he had the right to kill that security guard. He did it anyway. People don't always obey gun laws.
6/11/09, 2:40 PM  
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