A Terrorist is a Terrorist

by Deacon Blues

As I noted last week, this country downplays domestic terrorism committed by white fanatics while hyping the threat from Islamic extremists. Want some context for that assertion?

In the 14 years since Al Qaeda carried out attacks on New York and the Pentagon, extremists have regularly executed smaller lethal assaults in the United States, explaining their motives in online manifestoes or social media rants.

But the breakdown of extremist ideologies behind those attacks may come as a surprise. Since Sept. 11, 2001, nearly twice as many people have been killed by white supremacists, antigovernment fanatics and other non-Muslim extremists than by radical Muslims: 48 have been killed by extremists who are not Muslim, compared with 26 by self-proclaimed jihadists, according to a count by New America, a Washington research center.

Keep in mind these figures don't include mass murders by white gun nuts.

No one should be surprised at this. Our right-wing media culture is bankrolled by Corporate America, which is populated with representatives of the defense/intelligence/cybersecurity complex and led by elitists invested in keeping the sheeple afraid and compliant. The conservative media machine led by Fox News and funded by the Koch Brothers and other extremist oligarchs, has become expert at overt racism and discrimination against brown people, packaged as white victimhood and resentment against "those people." And these same people, thanks to the four white conservative political hacks on the Supreme Court, have taken control of the campaign fundraising landscape and judicial system through their treasonous and legally-unfounded Citizens United and Bush v. Gore rulings.

But at a time when polls show the public is finally upset with the control wealthy elites have over our political system, a little truth about the true nature and source of domestic terrorism, coupled with shining some light upon the right wing media's role in such terrorism can go a long way.