God and Goddess know I agree that the right needs to cut down on the violent rhetoric. I hope and pray that they will too, and I’ve lit candles for those affected. But we need to do more. For me, thinking about it in terms of the Witches’ Pyramid helps me understand how to move beyond just lighting candles and sending energy. Having these conversations is a critical part of making an active response, and I applaud you for your statements, Gus. For the rest of us, let’s work on actively engaging in these conversations and then acting on our convictions in appropriate, legal, healing, helpful ways.

Some time back you ran a piece or two linking to an excellent analysis of fascism by some other writer. Do you still have those links or remember where it was? They really bear re-examination these days.

Sometimes I answer my own question and aging memory recovers its lost data streams…I was thinking about the Sara Robinson essay on the danger of America’s slide toward fascism. I think it’s more relevant than ever. The real danger is not the fact that the rhetoric happens to be right wing but that it is a movement to de-legitimize the very idea of civic debate and democracy. These people want to make our country ungovernable and to have rule by the gun rather than the ballot.
Here’s a link to that:
http://www.alternet.org/story/141819/?page=1

Right Kenneth-
There were a series of essays by her and I linked to them at the following posts
http://blog.beliefnet.com/apagansblog/2009/08/america-and-facsism-a-important-post-by-sara-robinson.html
http://blog.beliefnet.com/apagansblog/2009/08/america-and-fascism-part-2-of-an-important-post-by-sara-robinson.html
http://blog.beliefnet.com/apagansblog/2009/09/america-and-fascism-part-3-of-an-important-series-by-sara-robinson.html
I also posted two essays on Pagans and fascism
http://blog.beliefnet.com/apagansblog/2009/08/paganism-fascism-and-america-part-2-of-2.html
http://blog.beliefnet.com/apagansblog/2009/08/paganism-fascism-and-america-part-i-of-2.html
I have been impressed/distressed with the almost feral malevolence of many right wing posts on discussion lists I have read. Truly people whose minds and hearts may have been poisoned almost beyond belief. It is as if this crime unleashed the true depravity that has lurked in their hearts.

Gus, the right-wing is never going to see their contribution to violent acts such as these against non-tea party politicians, abortion doctors, or anyone else who doesn’t bow to their rhetoric.
They’re already spinning this as the work of an unhinged individual, without admitting to their part in inciting his actions. Any attempt to connect them will be poo-pooed as “liberal attempts to derail their progress”. It’s interesting that Palin has taken down the “target” part of her website and the famous “Don’t retreat, reload” statement. Which tells me that they DO understand there’s a connection. But they won’t admit to it.

You are a hypocrite and completely full of crap. For a start, the shooter is described as liberal or leftist by every one of the people who went to school with him and listed the Communist Manifesto as one of his favourite books. Therefore, logically, right wing commentators inspired him to commit mass murder?
If you had a trace of sincerity in your condemnations of violent rhetoric you’d have mentioned the routine calls for Bush’s death at protests throughout his tenure, the actual violence that follows leftists rioting outside every G20 meeting ever held. You’d have mentioned Ted Rall’s open call for revolution on a sympathetic MSNBC interview not 2 months ago, or the anarchist riots at Santa Cruz a few months before that.
Or take the anti austerity riots in Europe, which have, in addition to the obligatory street violence, arson and vandalism that leftist protests routinely sport, have descended into murders, shootings, deaths by fire and bombings of embassies. This violence by European leftists has not only been celebrated by their American counterparts but the likes of Chris Hedges have called for similar action over in America.
Yet somehow actual leftist violence and open and repeated calls for its spread in mainstream leftist media outlets get not a single mention anywhere in your article.
And again: you are a hypocrite with no sincerity whatever. If you weren’t a leftist you’d be ashamed of yourself for spreading such barefaced dishonest nonsense.

Hovey-If you read rather than simply regurgitate talking points someone gave you, read the following about Loughner
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/09/jared-loughner-details-on_n_806406.html
Your listing of the Communist Manifesto is incompetent at best because he also listed We the Living by Ayn Rand and Mein Kampf, by Adolf Hitler. In face his book selection looks like a list of books high schoolers would be required to read and has no discernable political bias. So I assume you either read the list and simply lied or did not read the list and simply pass on what you read from someone else’s lies. Which is it? You choose.
Ted Rall is a cartoonist (I had to look up to see who he was) and yes, I recognized the cartoons once I saw them. He appears in some alternative papers. Assuming he wrote that (and you give no way to find out) that you can compare him in influence with Fox News, Mike Savage, Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and many many others including major Republican Party figures, some of whom have endorsed using guns if elections turn out wrong, is simply pathetic .
Chris Hedges has not called for violence to “take over America” to the best of my knowledge. Here is what he has said
“Violence is a disease, a disease that corrupts all who use it regardless of the cause. ”
Either way, how often is Chris Hedges on television? How often is he on national radio? When was he last a Democratic Party candidate for office? And for the record I accuse you again of either lying or of passing on lies by someone else. Prove me wrong.
As to left wing violence, you have to go to a small number of anarchists CONDEMNED by the overwhelming majority of the left and liberals. As I remember, they broke windows. Where are the condemnations by major right wing figures of calls for Second Amendment solutions to elections where you lose?
Then you go to all the way Europe to find rioters. Please spare me. If I used European examples against the right (and it’s easy given your standards) you’d tell me they are not Americans.
If you are honest here is a time line for right wing violence in America the past few decades. Try and duplicate it on “the left.”If you can I’ll apologize. If you can’t you owe me an apology. If we do not hear from you again, or simply receive more vitriol, you will have condemned yourself and shown yourself to be a coward or worse.
http://www.csgv.org/issues-and-campaigns/guns-democracy-and-freedom/insurrection-timeline
Here’s your chance to prove you are more than a mindless mouthpiece for right wing garbage. Go for it.
Oh, by the way, here’s what the Secret Service had to say about Palin’s language of violence and its connection to death threats.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/sarah-palin/3405336/Sarah-Palin-blamed-by-the-US-Secret-Service-for-death-threats-against-Barack-Obama.html
But again, if you are man enough, take me up on my challenge.

It’s not hypocrisy. It’s an acknowledgment that the predominant strain of political extremism threatening to unhinge our democracy is, at the present time, right wing. It has not always been the case of course. Radical movements in the late 60s and early 70s used much the same language and tactics, and for a time, they too put the country in real danger of abandoning reasoned peaceful democracy. Even to the present day, there are small but stalwart groups of left(ish) anarchists involved in a variety of causes and some of them are violent.
The crucial difference is in scope and power. The forces representing much of the Tea Party and various right wing extremists are not 22-year-old kids throwing rocks at a banker’s conference. They run nationwide radio and television networks. They are seeking state and national elected office and have the means to do so. They understand the power of mass communication and the power of the legitimate fears and insecurities in this country at the moment. They have chose to manipulate to their advantage in ways that are toxic to the very survival of a republic form of government. They are not at all arguing the merits of policies or laws. They are saying that our nation’s laws and those who make them are threats to the American way of life that need to be torn down by any means necessary.
They are portraying our president not as someone they disagree with on policy, but as the antichrist himself. They continue to portray him as a foreign-born agent of evil. The Secret Service always has its hands full with nuts, but with this president they must be working around the clock. Obama is probably safer during visits to Afghanistan than here in his own country. The simple fact of this man’s election prompted a panic among the right to arm themselves. We have not seen that sort of reaction to an election since the Civil War. For months after his inauguration, you could not buy certain types of ammunition at any price in this country. Almost none of those panic buyers were leftists.
Outside of extremists hate groups like neo-Nazis, we have never before had posters circulated with elected official in crosshairs. We have not had movements to bring firearms to political rallies until recently. We have not had mainstream politicians endorsing “second amendment solutions” to political issues. If anyone can explain to me how the G20 hippies are even on the same order of threat level, I’d be interested in reading it.
The fact that Gus can be labeled a “leftist” is a symptom of the lunacy which has taken hold in our politics. A decade or two ago, he would have been considered solid centrists. By the warped yardstick of Glen Beck and his brownshirts, anyone who favors a lucid civil debate is a “communist” these days. Richard Nixon and William F. Buckley would be branded liberals by this measure.

Gus, did you read this?:
Church of hate thanks God for Ariz. deaths, will picket funerals
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/religion/post/2011/01/westboro-fred-phelps-hate-9-year-old-girl-arizona/1

Looks like Hovey has shown himself to be either a liar or an a cowardly incompetent too ashamed to admit he made a mistake.
Maybe both.
S/he could still surprise me and try to address my challenge – though I doubt it.
Why am I rubbing it in? Because I am sick unto death of right wing nihilistic jerks as high on self-righteousness as a hillbilly tweaking on meth.