Originally published at Demagogues and Dictators
With the passing of health care reform in the US House, the rhetoric emerging from the American political right has reached new heights. From the yelling of Minority Leader "Hell No You Can't" Boehner in the House to the homophobic and racial slurs hurled by protesters outside the capital building, one thing has become even more clear: as the more mainstream conservative movement becomes more frustratedly vocal, the likelihood of domestic terrorism has unintentionally risen, and has done so exponentially.
While the attack will not come from the Tea Party proper, more radical members and affiliated groups that have allied themselves with the movement are beginning to mobilize.
The fringes are restless.
Worse yet, the fringes have been empowered by a frustrated conservative mainstream desperate for popular support. Now, conservatives may have whipped up the kind of anger that cannot be put back in the bottle. What began as the corporate funded, Dick Armey led, FreedomWorks organized, anti-health care rallying Tea Party movement has grown into something beyond what its founders intended.
The Tea Party (if we can call it such) has entered into a series of loose alliances (of convenience or common purpose) with fringe groups like The Oath Keepers, the Committees of Safety, and the Three Percenter Movement (to name a few) While the rhetoric from Tea Party groups is vitriolic, its protests (to date) have been predominantly non-violent -- but while many Tea Party protesters may be peaceful, their rhetoric, and the rhetoric of fellow traveler politicians like Rep. Bachmann and former Gov. Sarah Palin, is echoing through the Tea Party to its fringe elements -- and the threat of domestic terror from these groups, or individuals who belong to them, has risen exponentially.
Tea Party connections with the Oath Keepers, Committees of Safety, and the Three Percenter Movement, place these politicians very few degrees from radical white supremacists. The Oath Keepers have attempted to recruit on both the Keystone State Skinheads forum and the odious Stormfront.org; and Three Percenter Movement lists its values as follows:
For those of you questioning the connections between these movements, I invite you to follow the incredible work that Mother Jones has done investigating the linkages that tie the Tea Party to groups like the American Resistance Movement, and the Gun Owners of America.
The fact is this: in the past week, as the Tea Party Movement has sought to disavow violence while embracing non-violent intimidation -- its rhetoric has been echoed in the most dangerous corners of America. When Minority leader Boehner speaks about a fellow politician like this:
"Take Steve Driehaus, for example. He may be a dead man. He can't go home to the west side of Cincinnati."his political assessment is trumpeted by Tea Party Blogs, which are linked on, and interpreted by readers in the radical violent fringes of the nation.
When the home phone numbers and addresses of pro-health care reform Democrats are disseminated with the purpose of intimidation by Tea Partiers, they are collected for violent purposes in the far echoes of the movement.
The next attempted terrorist attack in this country could likely come from one of its citizens.
Take a look at the past few days:
Friday, March 18:
Mike Vanderboegh, the former commander of the Alabama Constitutional Militia, Three Percenter, and member of the Oath Keepers, called for his modern "Sons of Liberty" to begin an organized campaign of violence against democratic offices across the country on his blog:
Mike Vanderboegh, the former commander of the Alabama Constitutional Militia, Three Percenter, and member of the Oath Keepers, called for his modern "Sons of Liberty" to begin an organized campaign of violence against democratic offices across the country on his blog:
So, if you wish to send a message that Pelosi and her party cannot fail to hear, break their windows.
Break them NOW.Break them and run to break again. Break them under cover of night. Break them in broad daylight. Break them and await arrest in willful, principled civil disobedience. Break them with rocks. Break them with slingshots. Break them with baseball bats.But BREAK THEM.The time has come to take your life, your liberty and that of your children and grandchildren into your own two hands and ACT.It is, after all, more humane than shooting them in self defense.And if we do a proper job, if we break the windows of hundreds, thousands, of Democrat party headquarters across this country, we might just wake up enough of them to make defending ourselves at the muzzle of a rifle unnecessary.Sons of Liberty, this is your time.
As of today (March 25) Democratic offices in Wichita, KS, Tucson, AZ, Rochester, NY, Niagara Falls, NY have been attacked. Vanderboegh's blog has received over 60,000 hits this week.
