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Terrorism what?

Jill

Do these guys count as domestic terrorists? Because I read the article and I didn’t see the T-word used anywhere, despite this:

Two white supremacists allegedly plotted to go on a national killing spree, shooting and decapitating black people and ultimately targeting Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, federal authorities said Monday.

In all, the two men whom officials describe as neo-Nazi skinheads planned to kill 88 people — 14 by beheading, according to documents unsealed in U.S. District Court in Jackson, Tenn. The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist community.

The spree, which initially targeted an unidentified predominantly African-American school, was to end with the two men driving toward Obama, “shooting at him from the windows,” the court documents show.

National killing spree, beheading people, and generally staging a campaign to keep people (people of color in particular) in perpetual fear.

Maybe we should ask Sarah Palin if these guys count as terrorists, or if we should just reserve that word for Osama bin Laden and Bill Ayers.

22 thoughts on Terrorism what?

  2. Do these guys even count as terrorists? I mean, at least Ayers and the Weather Underground had the wherewithal to actually, you know, do something. When I first read this story I couldn’t help but laugh. It sounded like something a couple of kids in high school would plan over bong hits and rounds of GTA. I mean, lets consider their plan for a second. First they were going to arm themselves by robbing a gun dealer. Roll that around in your head for a second, they were going to try to rob a gun dealer in the south. After that, while somehow eluding police, they were going to dress up in white tuxedos and top hats while beheading and killing dozens. Finally, they were going to cap off the whole thing with a drive by on a presidential candidate.

  3. That’s because in Sarah Palin’s world, only Muslims and Commies are terrorists.

    These men are “freedom fighters”. I don’t know whose freedom they would be fighting for.

    But then, they were planning on carrying out their attacks wearing white tuxedos. I guess terrorist attacks are a formal occasion like a wedding? Were they being bridegroom jihadis?

    Just weird.

  4. Ha, that is a good point William. Sadly, though, I don’t think intelligence is a prerequisite to being a terrorist anymore than it’s a prerequisite to being any other kind of criminal.

  5. Don’t be silly conservatives CANNOT BE TERRORISTS. Conservatives like the Klu Klux Klan murdering Civil Rights workers were only protecting conservative Amerikan values from the commies.

    Misogynistic conservatives who bomb abortion clinics and murder abortion providers cannot be terrorists as they are merely demonstrating the conservative valuing of life.

    The Christofascists waging terrorist campaigns aimed at denying LGBT people their rights put forth by the 14th amendment are not terrorists because their book of mythology tells them they are supporting conservative values.

    Anyone not understanding these simple basic Orwellian concepts is hereby sentenced to spend some serious reading and studying time with a dozen or so of Noam Chomsky’s books. Maybe Naomi Klein too. And Ward Churchill’s “On the Justice of Roosting Chickens”

  6. “We’re not going to play ‘gotcha’ with the mainstream media. What we will say is, what we know and that is there are bad guys in Iraq, islamofascists plotting to kill and behead Americans and we have to fight them.” ~ Sarah Palin

  7. i just asked the question on palinparrot.com :

    John McCain, also, with his agenda. That is needed to be able to use the power brokers’ will.

    That’s what I’ve done as governor, and you said that freedom is always just one of your money … give you a couple details on that. You combine all that we should second guess Israel’s security efforts because we cannot just concede that, oh, gee, maybe they’re going to stop. That’s what it leads to.

    I want you to lead. I said, to a Cold War. We must not blink, Charlie, in making those tough decisions of where we didn’t have enough support in order to, Charlie, get to a larger power is something to be any better off if our opponent is against producing it.

  12. Good point but it works both ways doesn’t it? Is anyone protesting that they’ve been identified as “white”, as if that’s as irrelevant as “Muslim”? Something tells me if these individuals were to be called “Fascist” everyone would understand the point and see the similarities. But use the term Islamofascism and suddenly the same people become nuanced students of history, focusing on the differences and declaring the use of term to describe such extremists as simplistic and incendiary (for everyone except GW Bush, it seems).

    Now if we were to ask Americans to look to their own society in order to see the underlying bigotry creating the fertile ground for such extremism, that would be fair game wouldn’t it? But to asks Muslims to do the same is to blame innocents for the acts of a few extremists. We should, however, look at US foreign policy.

    And what of their underlying grievances? If they tell us they did this because they’re opposed to affirmative action, does that mean we should revisit our policies? Could we say our unjust policies created these terrorists? Somehow, I think most would see this as simplistic, as not recognizing the deeper bigotry just under the surface, and that their so-called grievances are just a ruse meant to cover their underlying bigotry.

    These guys are not the only supremacists in the world. And Sarah Palin isn’t the only enabler of terror.

  13. Manju, the article doesn’t actually say whether the men were white or not – all it says is that they were white supremacists. I’ll grant you that pretty much all white supremacists are, themselves, white, but they are never identified by race in the post – only by their belief that white people are better than others.

  15. Sadly, though, I don’t think intelligence is a prerequisite to being a terrorist anymore

    No, but being scary is necessarily a prerequisite to being a terrorist. The point of the exercise isn’t to kill but to spread fear. If all you wanted to do was to physically hurt the other there a plenty of ways to hurt, maim, or kill people who are different from you that would be better at insulating you from the consequences of your actions (thus increasing your chances of hurting more of “them”), but those things would all deprive you of the political attention which underlies the violence you’re engaging in.

    The Klan is scary because real people have been hurt and entire systems of government have been corrupted. The same was true for the Brown Shirts, the fascists of Italy and Spain, Maoists, and death squads in developing countries. These organizations create terror because they have committed atrocities and are likely to do so again. Their power stems not from having been violent in the past but from the threat of future violence if their agenda is not advanced. The white supremacists in this story don’t create terror because they are patently ridiculous and lack the planning capacity to engage in anything more threatening than some minor and anonymous property damage.

  16. terrorism is violence that is intended to create an atmosphere of terror. although these pathetic vicious lumps may not be very impressive, had they succeeded it clearly would have aded to an atmosphere of specifically race-based terror. They are terrorists.

    btw, so are the abortion clinic bombers who McCain apparently has no problem with.

  17. The white supremacists in this story don’t create terror because they are patently ridiculous and lack the planning capacity to engage in anything more threatening than some minor and anonymous property damage.

    They sure as hell terrified me when I first read this story. And I’m a white woman, but I’d be surprised if it didn’t scare the shit out of a lot of black people as well — which was precisely the point.

    And you don’t necessarily need to have a great plan to murder someone. Twenty-eight years ago, some asshole had the brilliant idea to buy a gun and stand outside of an apartment building all day — really, that was it — and now John Lennon is dead. Of course Lennon didn’t use security and Barack Obama has tons of it to spare, but the point is that you don’t necessarily need an elaborate plan to kill someone, let along terrify them, and history proves it.

  18. The white supremacists in this story don’t create terror because they are patently ridiculous and lack the planning capacity to engage in anything more threatening than some minor and anonymous property damage.

    If there were some magical way of telling ineffectual white supremecists apart from the capable (therefore scary) ones, *before* people wind up murdered, I would agree with you. But.

  19. Manju:

    If they tell us they did this because they’re opposed to affirmative action, does that mean we should revisit our policies? Could we say our unjust policies created these terrorists?

    No, we say that murdering people is not an appropriate way to express opposition to a policy. Just as we do for non-white, non-American terrorists.

    (It’s possible that you’re confusing the factors that motivate terrorists with factors that create terrorists. Poverty can create terrorists, but it’s not usually cited as a motivating factor.)

  20. Something tells me if these individuals were to be called “Fascist” everyone would understand the point and see the similarities. But use the term Islamofascism and suddenly the same people become nuanced students of history, focusing on the differences and declaring the use of term to describe such extremists as simplistic and incendiary (for everyone except GW Bush, it seems).

    Yes, using the word ‘fascist’ to describe a person who subscribes to a fascist ideology is usually less controversial than using it to describe non-fascists. Similarly, using the term “person of Eastern European descent” to describe a person so descended is usually less controversial than using it to describe, say, a desk.

  21. Cara, you don’t need an elaborate plan, but you need a credible plan.

    I think the most appropriate word to describe them is “conspirators”, because they most certainly did conspire. They haven’t caused any terror, though.

    (That’s not to contradict your main point, which is that the word “terrorist” is heavily racialized/politicized. It most certainly is.)

  22. Just a small comment, but I feel it’s relevant nevertheless.

    I know this is a troublesome case and, in a sense, scary. It’s important though not to confuse intent with actual actions – the way I see it, these guys aren’t even criminals proper as they haven’t done anything (yet). Osama is a terrorist, as are those attacking abortion clinics, of course – but these guys?

    I think it’s pretty scary that the lines between plans and actions are blurred.

    I think it’s Twain who argued that a country that is willing to sacrifice freedom for security doesn’t deserve either of them.

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