My post, Add Boston Marathon Bombing to pile of Failed Eliminationist Narratives, seems to have gotten the attention of Dave Neiwert of Crooks and Liars, the developer of the Eliminationist Narrative.
Neiwert responds with Right-Wingers Use Boston Bombing to Paper Over Their Own Extremist Terror.
I’ll deal with the breadth of Neiwert’s post later, but I do quickly want to note that Neiwert continues to push the claim that Jared Lougher, who shot Gabby Giffords and killed several others, was right-wing.
Almost everyone else, even in the left-blogosphere, has given up on that claim. Loughner was a lunatic living in a netherworld who had no obvious political motivation for the shooting. Indeed, Loughner was so out of it that he initially was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial, a really tough standard.
Anecdotally, Loughner in his earlier years seemed to have liberal leanings according to people who knew him. He had no right-wing activism or connection, regardless of how broadly one defines “right wing.”
Here is the heart of Neiwert’s explanation as to Loughner:
We realize, for instance, that the post-shooting narrative favored pretending that Jared Lee Loughner was somehow not a terrorist because he was mentally ill (a claim they for some reason do not make when it comes to Nidal Hasan, the mentally ill gunman in the Fort Hood shooting rampage). They also found other mitigating factors, such as Loughner’s youthful liberalism, to claim that he was not a right-wing extremist, despite the obvious liberal-ness of his targets. However, none of that can overcome the reality that at the time he acted, Loughner was carrying out what he saw as a mission on behalf of his now-adopted right-wing beliefs involving a global monetary conspiracy. [1] He was indeed a right-wing extremist, and other experts on the subject who have examined the record [2] have reached the same conclusion [3].
Neiwert’s primary source, via Neiwert’s own prior post I marked at “[1]”, is Mark Potok of Southern Poverty Law Center, hardly a neutral pundit.
Even Potok, however, did not go as far as Neiwert. Potok makes the strained argument that even though Loughner had no demonstrable political connections, some of his writings suggested he adhered to anti-government ideologies Potok deemed right-wing. But note Loughner’s reading list in Potok’s post:
Is Jared Lee Loughner, the alleged mass murderer who shot U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, a right-wing extremist?
It’s hard to say. When you look at the Internet material he purportedly produced, the first impression you get is that the 22-year-old now in custody for the shooting of 20 people in Tucson was completely out of his mind, or at least mildly deranged. His writings will be virtually impossible for most people to understand, what with his runs of unexplained numbers, his fondness for weird syllogisms, his mysterious references and his apparent semi-literacy.
…. I think Loughner’s reading list, although it included children’s books and a few classics, had an underlying theme — the individual versus the totalitarian state. Certainly, that’s the explicit central theme of Ayn Rand’s We the Living and Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm, among others. I would argue that that’s the way Loughner seems to be reading The Communist Manifesto and Hitler’s Mein Kampf — as variants of a kind of generalized “smash the state” attitude.
Neiwert’s “experts” references “[2]” and” [3]” are one person, Chip Berlet, who devotes himself to arguing about the dangers of the right wing. Berlet presents no new facts, just more of the theories that because Loughner espoused some strange currency and other views, and because some fringe players assert those views, Loughner must have been influenced by the right wing.
Similarly, Neiwert cites left-wing author Michelle Goldberg who similarly speculates about Loughner. But there’s no proof of Loughner having actual right-wing connections, much less any connections to the political right-wing. Neiwert has theories and opinions to back him up, he just doesn’t have facts.
Lougher’s “right-wing” leanings were speculation and conjecture, while his liberal leanings were based on people who knew him.
I don’t blame Loughner on the left, and Neiwert shouldn’t strain to put Loughner in the right column. He was just a murderous lunatic.
It’s too bad Neiwert can’t admit that.
[Note — A few changes were made to this post after posting]
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Comments
I blame Sarah Palin (IBSP)
BTW – my bookshelf includes authors from both right and left.
Is this just another way of saying Loughner is anti Semite? Giffords is Reformed Judaism – seemingly she chose that line & not forced by family tradition. Her grandfather was called Akiba Hornstein .
Global monetary conspiracists are not new. The issue of usury has / is as central to today as anytime since Rome.
It existed before The Left or The Right.
“a claim they for some reason do not make when it comes to Nidal Hasan…”
Is Islam now an officially recognized mental disorder?
If only!
Might start the long process of fixing a mess we call “the Middle East.” (And Luton, as well.)
Since Loughner plead out we didn’t get a chance to see how the local Sheriff had dealt with him. Loughner’s mom had a county job. Seems the the Sheriff was familiar with the family, and had discouraged others from pressing charges against Loughner. The Sheriff protected Loughner, not us from Loughner. The press will never explore this perspective.
Anyone who disagrees with the Left’s narrative is, by definition, “Right Wing Extremist.” But that would, of course, depend on what the definition of “is” is.
They consider anyone who disagrees with their narrative to be mentally ill! You must be crazy if you don’t agree with them! Long standing left-wing tactic!
Loughner posted the tenets of Satanism on his web page, along with videos of himself (apparently himself) burning Old Glory.
So, yeah, he’s very much like all those other flag-burning, Satanist right-wingers.
Ladies and Gentlemen… may I politely suggest that anybody who sees writings by Communists and Socialists as “Right Wing” (even if it’s a NATIONALIST Socialist…)
… that person is way, WAY left of center. Nobody can be LEFT of the defined edge of Left and be called right. Or Right Wing.
I suspect political dyslexia.
Mike: And that’s the big blind spot we have with the left. On the right, there’s a few flavors of conservatism and libertarianism, and that’s about it. We might disagree on issues, but that typically reflects our personal judgement, different ideas about how the world works, but our basic principles are roughly the same.
The left, on the other hand, has the notion of radicalism, and the practical upshot of it is that no matter how far left someone might be, there’s always another guy further to the left. And the super far lefties regard everyone to their right as being “right-wingers”!
It is quite typical of the left to quote each other as “experts” on an issue, or just to demonstrate their radical takes on various events have acceptance by other radicals.
In fact, if you found any of these fellows telling the truth and linking to actual experts, it would more newsworthy because of its rarity.
Wow. I read David Neiwert’s article. He’s a racist! He’s spouting hate under cover of progressive Newspeak disguising foaming tinfoil delusions no different from the neo-Nazi white supremacists he irrationally calls “right wingers”.
Neiwert writes:
He goes on to define as “domestic terrorism” individual criminal acts and racist hate crimes.
He apparently believes that having a country controlled by a fascist antisemitic dictator such as Hitler (“neo-Nazi”) is what Tea Party libertarians believe in, instead of less government.
He apparently does not know that white supremacists historically were southern Democrats, that Martin Luther King was a Republican, and that racism itself in the United States traditionally has had nothing to do with party affiliation.
He apparently thinks that if someone refers to “Muslim” they are referring to a race other than “white”. (Never mind that “white” is now code in racist progressive circles for “WASP”, or “Christian”, or “Republican”, which in turn is code in progressive-speak for “neo-Nazi”. If a progressive hears someone say “Muslim” they think the person is saying something racist, i.e. “not white”.)
He apparently doesn’t understand that Chechen Muslims — and most Muslims around the world — are antisemitic. The Chechens were Nazi supporters too, in WWII.
By Neiwert’s logic, then, that makes Muslim terrorists (the majority of whom are, after all, “white”) basically “white supremacists”. So Muslim terrorists are right wingers.
And there you have it.
The southern poverty law center is a hate group!
With self-referencing you can prove anything. We don’t do it much because for us there is still a certain shame in lying, but academics have trained themselves to overcome this by years of dedicated practice.
I was completely unaware anyone was claiming Nidal Hasan was insane. He appeared to follow the same pattern as all Muslim terrorists.
I don’t know about you, but I am breathing a huge sigh of relief.
Finally, proof positive that Bill Ayers is a right wing nutjob, from 60 minutes no less.
Okay, sarcasm aside, is that a syllogism or a sillyogism gone awry or what!
Based on this 60 Minutes piece, it is what I could legitimately conclude, right … opps … I mean … correct?
Well, I made the mistake of going to Neiwert’s website on the chance that he wasn’t quite as obtuse as the above extract makes him seem. Need to go wash my eyes now.
From my ill-advised scan of Neiwert’s site I gather that Barack Obama is probably also a right wing extremist — drone attacks against brown foreigners and all that.
loughner working in giffords campaigns was what….just a cover for his conservative side ??
Crooks and liars written by an ignorant fool who needs to spend more time looking at the humanoid in the mirror.