Category Archives: guns

Fear and Rage on Fox

guns, Right-wing Extremism

 

In the film The Brainwashing of My Dad, there was a lot to be said about Fox News, because it played a big role in his brainwashing, according to Jen Senko.

 

Fox News is built on fear and rage. Much of it generated by Fox to amplify engagement and make more money. As Dr. Cynthia Boaz pointed out in the film, “the idea is to terrify and terrorize the audience during every waking moment…when people are afraid, they don’t think rationally. And when they can’t think rationally, they’ll believe anything.”

 

I don’t claim to be a reliable watcher of Fox News. I try my best to watch it to get the ‘other side of the story.’  I must admit that in the case of Fox I just can’t watch much of it. I have asked friends for suggestions about more sane conservative view point but have not got many suggestions.

 

Eric Boehlert said, “Fox News is built on this formula of just getting people to get really angry. It’s phony outrage…They really are acting about how outraged they are.”  For example when Sean Hannity shouts at his readers, “Obama attacks America.”  Or another example, when Judge Jeanine Pirro Judy says to her listeners, “I told you that you need to be afraid, because they are coming for you,” and points her finger at you watching on the screen. Or when David Michael Lynch says, “ISIS is coming in to America. I would bet my life on the fact. They are already here. I’ve caught these people before and I’ve seen Qur’ans, prayer rugs, you name it.”  And we should always remember this basic principle: Phony outrage=Lies.

 

As a result of all of this one young man from Cedar Rapids Iowa spoke in the film about how his father, a Fox News regular viewer was convinced that Obama would deliberately trigger a civil war. As a result, he went to the local store to fill up on ammo before the government took it all.

 

That is a common reaction in the United States to many problems.  I remember when I lived in Arizona for 3 months for about 10 years and they had problems on the news. Almost any kind of problems.  The first thing people id was to head to store to buy ammunition.

More Mass Shootings in America

guns

 

We have all heard about the tragic recent death of 2 young students at a Minneapolis school. This was the 31st mass shooting in America in the month of August. It was also the 280th mass shooting event in America this year. That is more than 1 mass shooting every day so far this year.

 

Other countries have had mass shootings and quickly acted to control guns and take other measures to control the shootings. Those actions were successful. Australia was one of those countries.

 

But the United States does nothing significant. They offer thoughts and prayers to the families of the victims and those have not helped.

 

Can the richest country in the world not do better? Mass shootings there generate a lot of weeping, but no real action.

 

Do Americans like it that way?

It is just hard to fathom how many mass shootings happen in the United States and yet they do nothing to stop them.

 

 

The Historical picture of Domestic Terrorism in the United States

2024 Trip to South West United States, Domestic Terrorism, guns, Political Violence

 

Hoffman and Ware argue in their book, Gods, Guns, and about how  and spoke to us at ASU about how violent extremism in the United States has been a story of a historical trajectory that they believe is well described by the title of the book. According to the two of them this variant of extremism which has existed in the US since at least the period of reconstruction by groups like the Ku Klux Klan, was suppressed in part by the creation of the Department of Justice at another time of insecurity in the country for the purpose of suppressing that violent extremism. The Klan was revived again in the 19 teens as well as 1920s and one more time in the 1960s.

The 1970s violence was mimicked in the current era. Particularly xenophobia, and  distrust and dislike of immigrants, the gradual unsuccessful ending of a quarter of a century war in South East Asia contributed to a malaise that upset many Americans, especially those who felt America was losing its greatness. At the same time in the 1980s members of various religious groups helped give some justification for the white sheet part of the Klan and the Brownshirts of the neo-Nazis from Biblical scripture. The religious right became an enthusiastic supporter of the political right. This mixture of right-wing politics and conservative religion became acutely toxic.

White Supremacist churches became active in support of the American right, particularly the church of Jesus Christ Christian attempted to unite a group that was actually very diverse. It included anti-government extremists, tax resisters, gun advocates, racists, anti-Semites, xenophobes, and militant anti-abortionists needed uniting, they thought. Many of the leaders of the political movement were also Pastors or Reverends who also led churches or organizations of churches.

The guns part of the movement became prominent in the 1990s. Terrorist groups according to Hoffman, always are looking for ways to broaden their appeal. They started to advance the cause for gun rights coupled with salient religious rights as well. During the Clinton administration gun enthusiasts became convinced that the federal government would try to expropriate their guns while the religious right accepted that, but was also deeply concerned about the perceived immorality on the left. This was exemplified by the what they thought was the absolute corruption and immorality of the Clintons.

It was this fear of losing guns and freedoms to an aggrieved federal government that inspired Timothy McVeigh to launch an attack on the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. 169 persons, many of them children, died in that attack and it is still the most lethal internal terrorist attack in the history United States. I remember when that attack occurred and how most people, including at first me,  assumed it had been caused by Jihadist terrorists.  That was where the fear of terror was born. No one thought at the time that home grown terrorists were a serious problem. That bombing changed that point of view.

Hoffman said when he first started his career as an analyst of terrorism 43 year ago, he was concerned about right-wing terror but that dissipated after 9/11 when American learned to fear Islamic extremism first with Al Qaeda and later ISIS.

Timothy McVeigh: Disciple of William Cooper

2024 Trip to South West United States, Extremism, guns, Right-wing Extremism

 

Timothy McVeigh, it turns out, was listening to William Cooper on his radio talk show  talking about Waco Texas and was struck by what he heard. He caught the sickness. He was inflamed like so many in the right-wing movement. He was lapped by the flames. He believed what he heard. It radicalized him.

Like to many other conservative Americans, Timothy McVeigh  always loved guns,. After High School though he became obsessed with guns. He read Soldier of Fortune magazine as if it was holy writ. He became a vocal proponent of gun rights. McVeigh was no dummy. He joined the army and graduated at the top of his class.

 

He was disciplined for buying a White Power shirt at a KKK rally. He was bathed in White Supremacist ideology. McVeigh was transformed by his role in Operation Desert Storm in Iraq. Even though he won medals for his job as sniper, he was traumatized by the war.  His attitude underwent a sea change while he was there. He began to wonder what right he had to go to Iraq and tell Iraqis what to do in their own country but he was actually told to hurt them for not doing it his way!

 

He was considered for Special Forces work but failed because of his physical condition.  This humiliated McVeigh. He began to blame the US military rather than the people of Iraq. He saw the army as part of the socialist takeover of America. And in 1993 he was at the Waco siege hawking bumper stickers. He was the young man radically affected by what he saw at Waco. After that he roamed the country attending gun shows wherever he could. He was also awash with theories by William Cooper. He bought a video on Waco made by Cooper.  As Justin Ling said on his CBC podcast series, “Flamethrowers”, he was listening to “the Big Lie.” That is an interesting expression in the history of extremism. It became even more interesting years later.

 Cooper in his tapes asked his listeners if they would stand up like a real man and a real woman? McVeigh heard Cooper say the time was near when everyone, including himself was going to have to make a decision. It was time to be counted and McVeigh was ready. Cooper asked, on the tape, “how  many more people are you going to allow to be jailed, persecuted, burned to death, murdered, because you are a coward.”

Later evidence  makes it clear that McVeigh took this message to heart. He was brave enough for the task at hand that brought him to Oklahoma City.

Wacky Waco

2024 Trip to South West United States, Domestic Terrorism, Extremism, guns, Right-wing Extremism

 

One of the most important incidents in the history of the whacky right-wing movement in the US, occurred, appropriately near a city called Waco Texas. That incident ignited the right-wing  talk-radio hosts around the country.

On April 19, 1993 there was a tense standoff near the Mount Carmel in Waco Texas between a small Christian sect known as the Branch Davidians and nearly 900 federal agents including the FBI, Customs, the National Guard and the Texas Rangers. To many it appeared like an epic struggle between Christians and government. Of course, the   government agents brought massive amounts of fire power with them.  Nothing but overwhelming force would do against this small Christian sect. This included a dozen tanks. Inside the fortified building there are about 100 Branch Davidians that included 20 children. About half the adults were women. It didn’t look like a fair fight. But should it be a fair fight? If Antifa is rioting in the streets of Seattle or Portland should they be met with equal force?  What if the rioters are a motor cycle gang. Do the authorities have to fight them fairly? Or should we allow them to bring overwhelming force?

The Christian sect had a leader David Koresh, after whom the group was named. They were not lambs led to the slaughter.  As Justin Ling explained on his CBC podcast, “They’ve got a 50-caliber cannon, machine guns, and more than a million rounds of ammunition. They are prepared for a holy war.”        This was a very well-armed sect of Christians.

Modern Christians like to be well-armed. No lily-livered pacifism for them. They don’t turn the other cheek; they turn the other AR-15.

 One of the officers on the site said the agents had walked into “a hail-storm in reverse.” I don’t know what that means but it doesn’t sound good to me.

The initial fire fight led to the deaths of 4 officers and 5 Branch Davidians. Since then, there was a very tense stand-off. The line from the Clinton administration was about saving the children inside the compound.  But why did they need saving? There was a very different version of the events on short-wave radio.

One broadcaster from Arizona said “this was the beginning of the end for Christian America.”  The Christians believed that no one in the church was compelled to go there. Everyone was there as a result of exercising their own free will or their parents exercising their own free will. As a result, according to this view, the attack on the site was an extreme example of government over reach and tyranny—i.e. government interfering with the freedom of the people. One of those people upset with the government and who espoused this view was radio talk-show host William Cooper. Cooper said,

“The U.S government is training this massive military force on Americans who are just exercising their religious freedom. For Cooper this siege vindicated the dire predictions he had been making for years—that the socialist, liberal government is about to take away your freedom. And you might be next!”

The fears were being stoked. And once again, paranoia was bringing bad decision making in its wake.

As one right-wing pundit said,

“The siege continues in Waco Texas. A small group of men and women trapped under siege by government forces. They are fighting the second battle of the Second American Revolution. Make no mistake about it folks—we are at war.”

 

Many Americans believed exactly that.  America was at war with its own government. As a result of Waco, the American survivalist and militia movement was born. This was the group that later included domestic terrorists such as Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and many others. The events of January 6th 2021 were a direct descendant of Waco.

 There was a young boy who came to see the action in Waco Texas. He was selling bumper sticker such as this: “Fear the government that fears your gun.” “Banning guns make the streets safe for a government takeover.” That young kid later made a lot of noise in the right-wing movement when he got a little older. His name was Timothy McVeigh.

School Shootings in the US are pretty Ho hum

2024 Trip to South West United States, guns

 

 

Another school shooting was in the news in the US soon after we arrived in Arizona. Ho hum. I learned an interesting thing about the US when we arrived. According to the World Population review the total number of school shootings per country from 2009 to 2018 are telling. They tell us a lot about the United States.  The US leads globally in school shootings by a very wide margin.  It had 288 during that time. Its nearest competitor in this dubious category is Mexico at 8 per year. The US has 36 times as many as Mexico, commonly perceived as a very violent country.  South Africa comes in third at 6 per year, Nigeria and Pakistan both at 4 and Brazil, Canada and France each at 2.  Canada has more than most but is far behind the US. Azerbaijan, China, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Kenya, Russia and Turkey each average 1. No other country averages more than 1.

I have heard people say this means Americans  love their guns more than their children.

Yet, things seem to be getting worse. I learned that 2021, 2022, and 2023 were the three years with the highest number of school shootings in the US.

What does this tell us about the United States? I think it tells us a lot and none of it is very pleasant.

Joe Bob Outfitters: Equipped for Armageddon

2024 Trip to South West United States, guns

 

As we were driving down interstate 70 in Kansas heading west, where Sara, our GPS was leading us, we saw a huge roadside sign advertising “Joe-Bob’s outfitters,” beside a huge graphic of an AR-15 assault rifle.  Do Americans need automatic rifles to hunt deer? Or ducks? Are they such poor shots? Or are they scared that the deer will attack them? Or did they want to be ready for Armageddon?

When I arrived in Arizona and had more time, I asked Professor Google what Joe Bob’s was all about. It was not a traditional outfitter where a business would supply us for hunting or fishing. I would outfit us for guns. And it was easy.

I could order an American Tactical AR-15 MilSport RIA 5.56, 16″ Barrel, 60rd – 10″ M-LOK Handguard. And amazingly I could order it online and it would be shipped in 24 hours!  So If someone  gets ticked off he or she  can get revenge in about a day. And all it costs is $498.

American money of course.

The Dangerous World of photographing Cactuses

2023 Grand Finale Tour, exotic flowers, guns

Argentine Giant Cactus

This was a crazy year in Arizona.  Our 3&1/2 months in Arizona were the coldest and wettest we  have experienced there.  We hung around the pool a lot less than we usually do and worst of all the cacti bloomed later than usual.  More than 2 weeks later in my opinion. Fortunately, we were staying 2 weeks longer than we often did or we might have seen almost none. That would have been catastrophic of course.

 

Thankfully there was the Boyce Thompson Arboretum where the cacti are so well tended they can’t wait to emerge.  Secondly, there was the Phoenix Botanical garden as well as the Tucson Botanical Garden again where tender loving care convinces the cacti it is save to come out of hiding.  Finally, there were private homes where some magnificent cacti bloomed early. But here there were dangers!

 

In the early morning I visited the pre-scouted cactus sites  on yards I have seen in the Johnson Ranch area where we had been living. I had picked out places I wanted to photograph.  Of course, I will not venture onto properties without permission. That is dangerous thing to do here.  Of course, walking up to doors as a stranger and asking to talk to the owners is also dangerous. A  number of people in the US this year have been shot dead for doing exactly that.

Although it was risk waking up to a strangers house unannounced I had some protection. I was not packing heat, but I had one good protective help—i.e. white skin. Most of the people shot were black skinned. That is almost suicidal. This is what happens in such a fearful country where so many of the people have guns. They shoot first and ask questions later. Who would want to take a chance on a stranger at the door?