Once again the face of terrorism arises in our country – Right Wing terrorism. A 40 year old Texan man has been arrested for allegedly lighting multiple “Molotov Cocktails” at the office of Democratic State Senator Wendy Davis, which led to a fire that her staffers were lucky to put out.
Fort Worth, Texas police announced this morning that they have made an arrest in the firebomb attack on the office of Democratic state senator Wendy Davis, says a report at NBC Dallas-Fort Worth.com. Cedric Steele, 40, has been arrested on charges of arson of a building and is being held on a $50,000 bond.
The attack came Tuesday night. Steele is accused of trying to light multiple “Molotov cocktails” (glass bottles filled with accelerant) outside Davis’s office door. The devices created a small fire that was extinguished by staff members who where present at the time. […]
… Davis called on fellow politicians to bring an end to vitriolic political rhetoric used in campaigning as it exposes politicians and campaign workers to potential violence as they try to serve the citizens of their community.
“It’s a reminder for all of us that people who are working on behalf of constituents … are particularly vulnerable and are being placed at risk. It’s especially incumbent upon us to remember … that when we demonize people who are in political roles and we invite responses that are unreasonable, these are the types of things that can occur,” Davis said. “We could be standing here today telling a very different story had they [law enforcement] not reacted as well as they did.”
I know the country is supposedly polarized between the right and the left, and that the Republican party has adopted the most extreme radical positions in my lifetime.
However, the numerous incidents of shooting and beating Democratic politicians and liberal activists, killing “liberal” church members, and police officers are all too frequent. We also know that right wing bomb and gun attacks planned against so-called liberal organizations such as the ACLU and the Martin Luther King parade in Tacoma were narrowly averted. Unfortunately, it comes as no surprise to see stories like this popping up everyday. Violence and hate speech is now apparently accepted as a legitimate political tactic by the right wing and the politicians who cater to them.
The people who have the means to put a stop to these incidents by condemning them and toning down their inflammatory, murderous rhetoric are the conservative media hatemongers on talk radio and Fox News, as well as radical Tea Party Republicans. Unfortunately they have shown no desire to call off the dogs, as it were. Oh they may make the obligatory non-apology apology (the aptly named “nopology”), when absolutely required, but more often than not they find a way to blame the victims of these outbreaks of violence, and then continue on their merry way, filling the airwaves with lies about Democrats being fascists and socialists and Muslim terrorists, and calling those who disagree with their political views “feminazis” “environmental whackos” and Communists.
Supposedly anyone who votes for Obama is either a dupe or a member of various grand conspiracies to (1) take away everyone’s guns, (2) destroy America’s economy, (3) create death panels and death camps to kill off old people, or (4) raise gas prices deliberately to make people suffer and Al Gore rich, (5) take away your right to practice your religion if you are a Christian or (6) [add your own outrageous Big Lie here – God knows there are enough of them and I’m tired of running them all down].
The constant drumbeat of these outrageous slanders and libels, the incessant demonizatrion of anyone who doesn’t bow down and kiss Rush Limbaugh’s ass, the messages of hate and fear spread by right wing bloggers, news anchors and “entertainers” that I hear everywhere I go, sickens me, but it is also a disease that is poisoning our country. A disease with only one cure: the Right Wing scum who preach these lies and distortions and incite these acts of political terrorism have to be repudiated and marginalized to such an extent that their foul stench will disappear from our political landscape for at least another generation.
Ah, but therein lies the rub. With their alliance to Big Business and the availability of endless mounds of money to fund the propaganda campaigns of conservative media and the political campaigns of the most radical of radical Republican politicians, the ability to fight the lies and the hate becomes more difficult by the day. Which is why I cannot see an end to the wave of right-wing terror, which is incited by the right-wing hate mongers, violence that continues to erupt across our country. Because just when you think you have these bastards down for the count the money flows in to prop them back up. Money cannot buy you love, but it can buy the destruction of our democracy by the very people who claim to love it the most, a claim that, like most of what they say, is an out and out lie.
Does it bother them that their disinformation has led to these not so random acts of violence against their political opponents? Not in the least my friends, not in the least. There are preachers who tell their congregations that it is no sin to kill your enemies in the Lord’s name, and there are business moguls such as the Koch Brothers who have spent hundreds of millions ensuring that their vision of an America crushed under a right wing jackboot in support of the ultra-rich and ultra-religious.
I wish I knew a way to end this unfolding nightmare, but I do not. I can only hope that the American people will begin to see through the lies, much as those who have participated in the Occupy Movement have done, But that is all I have: hope.
There is no hope, Steven. What we need is faith.
Yup.,,We definitely live in different universes…I have top lieutenants who are Evil in their own right (i.e.One-Percenters, earning 250,000 or so), that think I am evil, because, “We do all the work”…
99 Percenters who are actually One-Percenters…Cheer Up Progressives…Your Entitlement mentality goes higher-up the socio-economic scale than you can imagine…
Disgusting.
If I didn’t start my company, they would be making less money…but they (deep down, will not say it to my face) resent me…I Cannot Stand This F—ing S—.
Anger Management! I feel better already…if it makes you Progressives feel better, I’ve never felt more exploited than after I became “Rich”…
Do you Progressives put any economic value on the quality of…LEADERSHIP? Do you know what it means? In the Marxist world, where only “labor” has value, leadership has no value. But in the “Real World”, leadership is everything…leadership has many faces, but, in my opinion, the most important ability of leaders is the ability to eliminate fear in Her/His followers.
Liberty, am I wrong in thinking you believe only conservatives are rich?
Yes…you are wrong…there are obviously many wealthy liberals…my question is, how many wealthy liberals started in life poor? I’m willing to bet that most wealthy liberals either inherited their wealth, or we’re born with great natural talent…anyone who started out poor, and had to work their ass off to become rich would never support your Progressive values…
Perhaps you’re just being paranoid and it’s in your head that others resent you? I mean, if you go off on tangents like you’ve been doing in some comment threads in real life, they probably think a lot of things, but resentment of you is likely the least of it.
Seabe..I really like you—you’re genuine (even though we are world’s apart politically)… but people talk about people behind their backs…
I’m sorry that it disturbs you that people dont like you sneering at their distaste at belief in trickle on economics vis a vis them. Maybe you should urinate somewhere else?
First of all, a $250K salary does not put you in the 1%. If you look around and analyze your situation carefully, you’ll discover that you are being ripped off by a small group of people who make substantially more than $1 million a year (the 1% mark by the way, median income is $50K).
Second, unless you have been donating money like the Koch brothers have been doing to whip up racism and advocate for privileging specific religious institutions and values over the Constitution, this diary was not about you.
Third, unless you have contemplated tossing molotov cocktails at the offices of Democratic legislators, murdering abortion doctors, killing teenagers who are just “walking while black”, or booby-trapping the US-Mexico border with IEDs that might kill US Border Patrol instead of illegal immigrants, this is not about you either.
What you mistake for an entitlement mentality is a fundamental philosophical difference about American government that has been going on since Hamilton tangled with Madison and Jefferson. Get used to it and start respecting it instead of calling names.
The 1% on Wall Street are evil for what they have done. They have orchestrated systems of fraud that has affected the entire economy for over four years now. They have encourage loan originations that were fraudulent, practices that shoved prime borrowers into subprime ARMs, the widespread bypassing of mortgage recording at registers of deeds, the assignment of fraudulent assessments of risk to mortgage derivatives, the creation of fraudulent foreclosure documents, the encouragement of rubber-stamp mortgage courts, and the eviction of homeowners whose mortgages they did not hold. There is widespread documentation of this, sufficient enough that the banks negotiated a settlement with DOJ to limit their liability and prevent the first case from going to court.
But instead of seeing this, you come here and insult us and plead for the divine right of managers and owners.
The Congress of the United States has been bought and paid for by big money (you couldn’t hope to play in that league if you make only $250K). Democrats have been bought and Republicans have been bought. The Congress regardless of party and certainly regardless of “conservative” ideology works for their interests and not ours. And by “ours” I mean yours as well. You are being flim-flammed by your ideology and you haven’t seen it yet.
So when Steven D does an article about real right-wing terrorism (molotov cocktails thrown at a Democratic legislator’s office) and points out that the shock jock rightwing radio barrage in Texas is a likely culprit, you should admit that the way that Republican politicians have been demeaning Democrats and seeking to delegitimize the as “real Americans” can cause people who get too fired up to haul off and do crazy things, illegal things, even violent things.
Otherwise we think you’re just a plant whose purpose is to threadjack the discussions on this blog.
And if Steven D has his facts wrong, post a link to a legitimate news source that provides the corrected facts.
And if Steven D gets a bit hyperbolic in his descriptions, call him on it politely.
Please don’t spam off-topic comments.
The one persenters actually start at 350k a year. Your workers actually are not one 1%ers. Ergo your analogy is flawed. As usual.
Yeah, the silly sums of money earned by the 0.01%ers pulls the average way up.
I thought Steele was a semi-homeless black dude originally from Michigan with drinking or mental problems?
http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/Family-says-firebomb-suspect-has-a-history-of-mental-illness-14375848
6.html
Now certainly because the right hates blacks, homeless, and social programs this guy didn’t get the help he needed, but I don’t get how you are claiming right-wing terrorism.
Me neither. Steele has a long history of scrapes with the law, and neither Davis nor the authorities have cited any political motive so far.
There are plenty of instances of right-wing thuggery, but so far I haven’t seen any evidence that this is one of them. Let’s not jump to conclusions, and let’s save our powder for instances whose political motive is more well-proven.
And, oh yeah, what Steele allegedly did was to light some stuff on fire in the hall using lighter fluid. Scary, sure, but that’s not a “Molotov cocktail.”
If it’s any consolation, even though I’m an evil One-Percenters now, when I met my wife 19 years ago, she was the “Rich” one because she had a car and made 9 bucks an hour to my 6 bucks an hour…I had to ride my bike…but, about ten years prior to us meeting, she was living homeless on the streets of Phoenix, AZ…when we were both dirt poor, We rejected your Progressive values…leave us alone, and get out of our way!
Left Wing Thuggerry…deny human beings their human dignaty by depriving them their ability to provide themselves their own sustenance…how?…Robin Hood-Style, steal from the Productive, I meant to say Rich, and give to the Unproductive, I meant Poor
Goddess Help Us!
WTF! Why are you replying to yourself?
sock puppet confusion perhaps
Kind of what I was thinking. Something is just not computing…seems the dude’s simply cuckoo for cocoa puffs.
I tend to agree, unfortunately.
Then again, what seems to be true — especially on the Right — is that net anonymity will allow perfectly sane people to air their innate lunacy. It’s like Halloween each & every day.
Gotta raise an objection here: dangerous things are taking place, but this suspect, who was homeless, just seems crazy:
And he was African-American. Could be an Allen West, I suppose, but I think he was just schizophrenic and delusional.
And note that he went to a state senator in Texas to complain about a Taser incident in Michigan. Not a sophisticated understanding of politics.
I’d say if there’s a political issue in this specific case, it’s that we let the mental ill drift to the margins and then do nothing effective for them (except maybe Tase them when they get out of hand, or take them into custody when they really do harm out of a sense of utter derangement, as in the present situation.)