I'm saying we can argue about varying amounts of damage, but it would be pointless and subjective. Regardless, by any measure, Timothy McVeigh and his friends did far more financial damage in 1995 than probably the whole history of left-wing violence in the U.S. And if we're going to count hard-to-measure indirect expenses, we need to count the impact on Oklahoma's multi-billion dollar per-year tourism industry in the aftermath of the bombing. (again, leaving aside those pesky bodies)
And why focus on 15 year old violence vs. right now? Well, it took 3 years from the moment Clinton was elected for the right-wing militia movement to really pick up steam, culminating in the Oklahoma City bomb, but preceded by steady rapid escalation and growth of right-wing violence. Look at the stats for anti-abortion murders. Nothing for years, then from 1993 to 1998, there were nine murders, and then nothing again until 2009. It's no coincidence that the murders took place during a time of heated and violent rhetoric from relatively mainstream conservatives opposing democratic presidents.
I'm sure it takes a while to organize a right-wing terrorist group to the point of being able to kill 168 people and cause hundreds of millions of dollars of destruction. Obama's only been in office a year. Even in light of current right-wing violence, Republican politicians are refusing to back away from inflammatory and violent speech. Give it a couple more years and we'll see.
As for the freedom rides, it was a test. A test to see if black people could exercise their right to register to vote. I'm not sure why you're more concerned about "routine" violence. That would seem to be apolitical, random violence as opposed to violence intended to keep blacks from being equal citizens. And, really, the political violence was "routine", though it tended to greatly increase when blacks were closer to achieving their goal (which generally was just to be able to vote, remember).
Sure, some lefist academics condone violence by people with little power. And most right-wing academics condone violence by people with a lot of power. Though both tended to support the violent riots in Iran recently.
"Arguing that this implies that right-wingers are in general bigots and left-wingers are generally nice is left as an exercise for the propagandist."
Whether they're bigots or not, right-wingers want a system where the powerful stay powerful and the powerless stay powerless. That doesn't sound very "nice" to me.
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Re: Christian militia lulz!
Date: 2010-04-02 08:44 pm (UTC)And why focus on 15 year old violence vs. right now? Well, it took 3 years from the moment Clinton was elected for the right-wing militia movement to really pick up steam, culminating in the Oklahoma City bomb, but preceded by steady rapid escalation and growth of right-wing violence. Look at the stats for anti-abortion murders. Nothing for years, then from 1993 to 1998, there were nine murders, and then nothing again until 2009. It's no coincidence that the murders took place during a time of heated and violent rhetoric from relatively mainstream conservatives opposing democratic presidents.
I'm sure it takes a while to organize a right-wing terrorist group to the point of being able to kill 168 people and cause hundreds of millions of dollars of destruction. Obama's only been in office a year. Even in light of current right-wing violence, Republican politicians are refusing to back away from inflammatory and violent speech. Give it a couple more years and we'll see.
As for the freedom rides, it was a test. A test to see if black people could exercise their right to register to vote. I'm not sure why you're more concerned about "routine" violence. That would seem to be apolitical, random violence as opposed to violence intended to keep blacks from being equal citizens. And, really, the political violence was "routine", though it tended to greatly increase when blacks were closer to achieving their goal (which generally was just to be able to vote, remember).
Sure, some lefist academics condone violence by people with little power. And most right-wing academics condone violence by people with a lot of power. Though both tended to support the violent riots in Iran recently.
"Arguing that this implies that right-wingers are in general bigots and left-wingers are generally nice is left as an exercise for the propagandist."
Whether they're bigots or not, right-wingers want a system where the powerful stay powerful and the powerless stay powerless. That doesn't sound very "nice" to me.