Commentary in Light of Holocaust Shooting: Chip Berlet on Our Responsibility to Address Roots of Violence, Gabriel Voiles on Hal Turner Case

In the wake of today's shooting at the Holocaust Museum, Talk2Action has just put up some articles that provide significant information regarding themes on which I've touched in recent postings.

Chip Berlet notes, as I've done in my last two postings, that when something like the shooting today occurs, it's not enough to focus exclusively on the right-wing hate groups fostering this violence.

We have to look at ourselves, too, and our moral obligation to make this kind of violence less and less possible by challenging the ideological roots from which it grows:

We need to stand up as moral people and speak out against the spread of bigoted conspiracy theories. That's not a police problem, that's our problem as people responsible for defending a free society.

Berlet notes (as I've done in my postings on these themes) the intent of this violence to subvert democratic process, its tendency to target scapegoat Others (so that racism, anti-semitism, homophobia, misogyny, etc., coalesce in these groups fomenting violence), and its frequent success at stopping progressive change in its tracks:

Demagogues and conspiracy theorists use the same four "tools of fear." These are as 1) dualism; 2) scapegoating; 3) demonization; and 4) apocalyptic aggression. The tools of fear are a connected constellation of frames, narratives, and processes used by demagogues to mobilize resentment and undermine the democratic process.

The basic dynamics remain the same no matter the ideological leanings of the demonizers or the identity of their targets. Meanwhile, our ability to resolve disputes through civic debate and compromise is hobbled. It is the combination of demagogic demonization and widespread scapegoating that is so dangerous. In such circumstances, angry allegations can quickly turn into apocalyptic aggression and violence targeting scapegoated groups like Jews or immigrants.

And in the same edition of Talk2Action, note Frederick Clarkson's follow-up on Scott Roeder's assassination of Dr. George Tiller, which links to an article by Gabriel Voiles at the FAIR blog discussing the recent arrest of white supremacist Hal Turner in Connecticut.

As I noted this weekend, Turner was arrested after issuing threats against the same two openly gay Connecticut legislators targeted by Connecticut Bishop William J. Lori and Colorado Archbishop Charles J. Chaput earlier this year. Voiles reports that Turner has been closely associated with FOX news pundit Sean Hannity, though Hannity is trying to deny that connection.

And he points out that, on the same blog on which he issued threats of violence against Connecticut legislators Michael Lawlor and Andrew McDonald, Turner also states that Scott Roeder's murder of Dr. George Tiller was a "righteous act."

And so the circle of violence connecting one act of violence to another and one fomentor of violence to another circles back around to some of the bishops of the Catholic church in the U.S., and for that reason, I reissue the appeal with which I concluded my posting this weekend discussing Hal Turner's case:

Strange bedfellows, Bishop Lori and Archbishop Chaput—shameful bedfellows for Catholic bishops to climb into bed with. I continue to call on the U.S. Catholic bishops to challenge the noxious use of homophobia by some bishops to achieve political ends, and to exercise fraternal correction by calling to accountability their brother bishops who continue stooping to such low and dangerous tactics.

Otherwise, somebody’s going to get hurt—really hurt—and those who fomented the violence will have blood on their hands, as will those who stood by in silence and said or did nothing as the ugly words poured forth.