Occupy Wall Street: Mobs, Media, and Message

What is our one demand? by Adbusters

(Originally published at the Daily Censored for Project Censored).

When the Tea Party formed, in 2009, they rolled up in billionaire chartered buses, handed out pamphlets, and were often hosted by national figures, like former Republican Speaker of the House Dick Armey. It turns out, a few of the many Koch brother’s front groups, like Freedom Works and Americans for Prosperity, have been heavily funding the movement. All the while, Fox News spent an ungodly amount of hours on the “news” and commentary all goo-goo eyes over the rise of the Tea Party movement.

At first hundreds and then thousands of “Tea Baggers”, as they called themselves, formed Tea Party organizations and rallied in small groups around the country. The Tea Baggers showed up at the early rallies protesting the national debt (which was mostly created by Republicans), health care reform, auto bail outs, gun laws, immigration, Obama’s birth place, socialism, and fascism. They showed up with tea bags dangling around their tri-cornered hats, and held up signs that portrayed the newly elected president as a monkey, Hitler, Mussolini, a Muslim terrorist, and an African witch-doctor.

The Tea Baggers brought guns to their protests, recruited people into militias, organized ways to disrupt Town Hall meetings over health care reform, shouted vulgarities at Democrat members of congress, screamed down and mocked sick and disabled people, organized a brick throwing campaign to smash the windows and even spit on a congressman that supported the Affordable Health Care Act, which provided health coverage for millions of Americans all the while lowering the deficit.

Now it’s the progressives chance to take to the streets and protest. Over the last four weeks,  the Occupy Wall Street  (OWS) movement (otherwise known as the 99 Percent Movement) has grown from a few hundred protesters to a national movement for progressive reform.

It should come as no surprise to observers of the mainstream media and beltway politics that Occupy Wall Street movement would be vilified and infiltrated by agent provocateurs. The first signs of the vilification came from right-wing media blowhards like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and, of course, Fox News personalities. At first, the blowhards portrayed the OWS protesters as aimless “lefties” with no clear message other than their hatred for capitalism. As the movement grew, over the last few weeks, the right-wingers began portraying the protesters as an angry “mob” of “anarchists”.

Then Republican presidential candidates jumped into the name calling. According to reports, Newt Gingrich called the protesters “dumb” and Godfather’s Pizza man turned presidential hopeful Herman Cain claimed the protesters were just “jealous” and “playing the victim card.”

In congress, Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor claimed the OWS were a “mob” that pits “American against American” and Senator Rand Paul compared the OWS protesters to a “French mob”. This, of course, invokes the image of an angry hoard about the behead billionaire bankers.

The biggest blowhard of all, Glenn Beck, in fact more than suggested the OWS protesters were violent thugs, he openly claimed they are. According to Mediaite, on Beck’s October 10, 2011 radio program Beck stated:

“Capitalists, if you think that you can play footsie with these people, you are wrong. They will come for you and drag you into the streets and kill you. They will do it. They’re not messing around. Those in the media – and I am included in this – they will drag us out into the streets and kill us. If you’re wealthy, they will kill you for what you have.”

Contrary to Beck’s pronouncements, one of the clear characteristics of the OWS movement has been their insistence on peaceful, non-violent protest. Yet, they will have to remain ever vigilant in maintaining non-violence. Without doubt, there are government and corporate agents that have infiltrated the movement. Some of these agents are there simply to spy on the movement and report back to the local police, FBI, or their corporate sponsors. While other agents are there to provoke violence in order to smear and damage the image of the movement.

On October 11, ThinkProgress, reported hedge fund manager and “vulture capitalist” Paul Singer has been financing a campaign to damage the reputation of the OWS movement. The following two paragraphs are an excerpt from the ThinkProgress article:

“ Journalist Who Admitted To Infiltrating Protests To ‘Mock And Undermine’ The Movement Works For A Singer-Supported Right-Wing Magazine. In a column posted last night, reporter Patrick Howley admitted that he had surreptitiously joined an anti-war spin-off group from the OccupyDC protests that planned to demonstrate at a military drone exhibit at the Smithsonian’s Air and Space museum. Howley wrote that he “infiltrated” the action and sprinted into the police along with a few protesters in order to “mock and undermine” the movement. Singer is a major donor to the Spectator, a right-wing magazine known for its role in the “Arkansas Project,” a well-funded effort to invent stories with the goal of eventually impeaching President Clinton.

Journalist Pushing To Discredit Occupy Wall Street Is Funded By Singer’s Think Tank. Josh Barro, a journalist who has attacked the 99 Percent Movement in the National Review and the New York Daily News, draws a salary from the Wriston Fellowship at the Manhattan Institute, a big business advocacy think tank in New York. Barro makes the same tired arguments, that anti-Wall Street protesters are too inarticulate and “extreme” to be taken seriously. Singer is the chairman of the Manhattan Institute, and even oversees the Wriston annual fundraiser.”

In addition to the scoffing smears about the OWS protesters being a disorganized mob of useful idiots, the other big attack tactic has been to paint the movements as “anti-capitalist.” Yet, the anti-capitalist tag is just as false as the portrayal of the movement as a mob. The fact is, the U.S. has the greatest divide between rich and poor in the industrial world. The top 1 percent hold 34 percent of the nation’s wealth. This 1 percent has gotten greedy and taken control of our political process. We no longer have a government, as Abraham Lincoln famous said at the Gettysburg Address, “of the people, for the people, by the people”.  Nor do we have a nation that can honestly pledge “liberty and justice for all.”

Instead, we live in a nation, as American sociologist William T. Robinson defined as a polyarchy: “A system in which a small group actually rules and mass participation in decision-making is confined to leadership choice in elections carefully managed by competing elites.” In this case, the elites are the 1 percent the OWS movement are standing up to. The OWS movement aims to halt the elites reaching their ultimate goal, which is to end our American style of democracy and instill a corporatocracy.

The OWS movement aren’t anti-capitalist. They simply want social and economic justice. The OWS movement is not calling for an end to capitalism and demanding “economic equality” as Bill O’Reilly claimed today on his radio program. Rather, they are calling for protections and relief from predatory lenders. They are calling for a more just society, where the top 1 percent pays their fair share of taxes. In case you missed it, the OWS’s list of demands are spelled out in this official statement. In spite of what the pathological liars on the right have been saying, if you look at the list, there is nothing in there that calls for the end of capitalism, nor are there calls for violence, nor the call for a Soviet style communist state, or anything of the sort.

Here is my best advice to the OWS protesters. First, stay mindful of the fact that there are government and corporate provocateurs amongst you. The best way to expose them is watch for folks stirring-up trouble or instigating violence. Second, don’t give-up. Stay true to your mission, strengthen your message, and remain strong. Stay strong and united in your cause and you can overcome the lies, smears, and provocateurs coming for the right-wing elites.

Wisconsin: Here Comes the Brownshirts!

Tea Party Express III brown bus by fibonacciBlue/flikr

With less than two weeks before Wisconsinites go to the polls and possibly vote six Republicans out of the State Senate, the billionaire Koch brothers and their well funded roster of right-wing front groups have poured millions in out of state money into attack ads and voter suppression campaigns.  All the while, left-wing labor groups like We Are Wisconsin have countered the right-wing attacks by pooling millions of dollars from out of state nurses, police, firefighters, teachers and other union workers.

This week, Koch funded tea bagger organizations rode into Wisconsin on the Tea Party Express III bus. Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips, writing on his website and speaking at tea bagger rallies, compared the grassroots citizens of Wisconsin that protested Governor Scott Walker’s union busting and educations slashing bills to Nazi “brownshirts”  and “storm troopers”.

In an article published this weekend, Mother Jones points out that another group on the Tea Bagger Express III tour, Patriot Action Network, called Wisconsin’s Service Employees International Union “Obama’s brownshirts”.

This bizzarre comparison between nurses and teachers that are peacefully protesting and fascist blackshirts and brownshirts has always been confusing to an English/History major like myself. The fact is, Nazism and Fascism are right-wing ideologies that have openly attacked socialists, unionists, and liberals. Much like the tea baggers that rode into Wisconsin this week on their brown bus.

Just in case people are not clear on what I’m talking about, allow me to quote one of my college history textbooks for a moment. Below is a quote from textbook, The Twentieth Century and Beyond: A Global History by Goff, Moss, Terry, Upshur, and Schroeder, seventh edition:

“The most import and successful right-wing movement of the immediate postwar years was that of the Italian Fascist Benito Mussolini…Mussolini and his black-shirted Fascists … aided by the alarm created by strikes and land seizures in 1919 and 1920, Mussolini played on the fears of communism and socialism shared by those afraid of losing their property and by those opposed to Marxist Atheism. The Fascists attacked and at times killed their leftist opponents…Many of the rich and powerful were willing to countenance Fascist brutality in the hope that it would destroy leftist forces” [p. 163].

Of course, Adolf Hitler’s brownshirts were modeled after Mussolini’s blackshirts, right down to their menacing looking uniforms. Like in Italy, Hitler’s brownshirts first went after the unions and socialists, before even attacking gays and Jews.

Now let’s consider a few things that have happened across the country during the rise of the tea bagger movement. Remember, the tea baggers, as they use to like to call themselves, formed as a “grassroots” movement in response to president Obama bailing out the auto industry and signing a stimulus bill that helped created no less than 2 million jobs. A bill, I will add, that helped end the free-fall in unemployment numbers that was created by the right-wing economic policies during the W. Bush era.

However, the tea bagger movement really didn’t gain traction until Fox News and the Koch brothers started promoting them and secretly funding the movement. It turns out much of the tea bagger movement is not actually a “grassroots” movement, but actually made up of well funded right-wing “astroturf” groups. Meaning, much of the tea party is made up of essentially, as Source Watch and the Center for Media and Democracy calls, “front groups”. A front group is an organization that claims to have one interest, but actually has secret corporate backers with hidden agendas.

According to Source Watch this is true of Judson Phillips’ Tea Party Nation organization. Tea Party Nation is a for-profit organization that doesn’t have to report where it’s money is coming from. Phillips day job has been that of a civil litigator, defending DUI’s and personal injury cases in Tennessee. Remarkably, that didn’t work out too well for him. In the past ten years, Phillips has filed Chapter 7 bankrupts and has had no less than three liens against him. Phillips claims the liens are now paid off. Which is no surprise, since according a former associate of Phillips, Kevin Smith, the Tea Party Nations PayPal account for merchandise was linked directly to Phillips’ wife’s bank account.

Phillips new found fortune has come during the rise of the tea bagger movement. During the health care debate, in which Obama signed the Affordable Health Care Act, which provided nearly 30 million more Americans with affordable health care while simultaneously helping to reduce the deficit, the tea baggers escalated their attacks on liberals, socialists, and unionists.

At town hall meetings, tea baggers mocked sick people  with pre-existing health care conditions, screamed at disabled people that tried to speak-up, and spit on legislators that supported extending health care to more Americans. When members of local union offices announced that they would start attended the town hall meeting, their offices began receiving death threats.  For example, according to one official at local AFL-CIO office, one email read:

“I will be going to a local town hall this weekend, all you union members BEWARE!” an emailer wrote at 9:40 Saturday morning. “We will be waiting for you. better make sure you have arrangements with your local ER. today is the day when the goon meets the gun. see you there.”

By the end of the whole sad event leading up to President Obama signing into law the Affordable Health Care Act, we saw tea bagger/Patriot thugs advocate breaking the windows of Democrat congress members in order to “make defending ourselves at the muzzle of a rifle unnecessary.” Of course, a few members of congress soon found bullets and bricks coming through their windows.

Tea bagger supporter Glenn Beck jokingly called for the poisoning of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and spent months promoting tea bagger events on Fox News. All the while, on one his many chalk board of conspiracies, Beck tied George Soros, the Tides Foundation and the ACLU into an evil plot to create a New World Order.

Then, just weeks later, crazy Glenn Beck follower, Bryon Williams, loaded up his pick-up truck with weapons and beer and drove down from mountains of Northern California to San Francisco with the intent open fire  and kill the workers at the Tides Foundation and the ACLU. However, the beer got the best of Williams and he ended-up in a shoot-up with police after being pulled over for swerving on the highway, just miles from the Tides Foundation.

Now, with just weeks from the Wisconsin recall election of six Republican state Senators, the union supported We Are Wisconsin office mysterious burns down and out of state billionaire financed tea baggers have rolled into Wisconsin calling school teachers and nurses “brownshirts.” Last week, another Koch funded group, Americans for Prosperity, was caught placing phony election ballots with the wrong date and mailing locations on the doors of Democrats in Wisconsin. The organization has now purchased $150,000 in TV air time in Wisconsin. Putting AFP’s overall out of state funding at more than a $500,000.

This week, the big brown Tea Bagger Express III bus rolled into Wisconsin. Apparently, the tea baggers are on a mission to call Wisconsin’s firefighters, school teachers, and nurses “brownshirts”.  Ironically, the tea baggers big brown bus arrived the same week a union supported organization’s office was mysterious burned down to the ground. More than one week later, the fire is still under investigation. Tea bagger Judson Phillips likes to say the union workers (school teachers, nurses and firefighters) are “not the brightest” in the state. Of course, that comment is coming from an ambulance chasing Tennessee attorney that had to file for bankruptcy. However, now Phillips is riding around in a brown bus, funding by the Koch brothers, and calling the ordinary citizens of Wisconsin “brownshirts.” Oh the irony!

Something Stinks in Wisconsin

Bad Cheese by BrainlessTales.com

Something stinks in Wisconsin, and it’s not the cheese.  Once again a ultra right-wing Koch brothers astroturf group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), and the Republican Party are engaging in voter suppression, if not outright voter fraud.  AFP is one of the organizations that helped fund the phony Tea Party organizations.

Some might recall, during the primary elections earlier this month in Wisconsin the Republican Party placed six fake Democrats on the ballots in order to confuse voters.  Fortunately for the voters, the news of the phony candidates got out, made it to mainstream media outlets, and the Republicans plan was foiled. All six of the actual Democrats won their primary challenges and are now in a recall race against the Republican state Senators that voted for the bill stripping public employees of their free speech rights to collective bargaining.

Today,  POLITICO posted on their website a copy of an absentee ballots flier found over the weekend on the door handles in two heavily Democrat leaning districts. The fliers clearly state the ballots must be in the hands of the city clerk “before Aug. 11.” However, the actually election date is August 9. Anyone that sends in their ballot after the 9^th will not have their vote counted.

Of course, Republicans have been on a nationwide campaign to restrict lawful Americans from voting. In Wisconsin, the stink is especially repugnant.  State Representative Robin Vos, Republican co-chair of the powerful Legislative Joint Finance Committee, pushed through a bill that “enacting one of the most restrictive voter ID laws in the nation”, according to John Nichols in a recent article in the Nation titled “Rigging Elections”.

Nichols goes on to point out Vos connection to another Koch brothers funded organization the American Legislation Exchange Council (ALEC). “As ALEC’s chair for Wisconsin, Vos was doing what was expected of him. Enacting burdensome photo ID or proof of citizenship requirements has long been an ALEC priority. ALEC and its sponsors have an enduring mission to pass laws that would make it harder for millions of Americans to vote, impose barriers to direct democracy and let big money flow more freely into campaigns.”

In a final, disturbing piece of Wisconsin news this weekend, a fire broke out in the Wisconsin office of a Democratic advocacy group, We Are Wisconsin, supported by local labor groups. The fire started around 9:30 a.m. Saturday and completely destroyed the office, along with a warehouse and small apartment building. No one was injured.

While the fire is still under investigation and may only be a coincidence, one need only look back at the heath care debate to see the rights-wings willingness to use a concerted campaign of threats and violence to intimidate their political opponents.

One might remember Tea bagger and Patriot militia leader  Mike Vanderboegh  advocated breaking the windows  of members of congress the day before the Affordable Health Care Act was passed  and signed into law. Vanderboegh stated that if the rightwing breaks enough Democrat Party members windows, the Dems just might get the message, “and make defending ourselves at the muzzle of a rifle unnecessary… BREAK their windows. Break them Now.”

Again, while the investigation into the fire may lead to a simple electrical problem or accident, there is no reason why liberals and progressives should not feel under attack, both figuratively and potentially physically. Moderate Democrats need to come to the same realization.

The Republican party has been taken over by a group of libertarian billionaires that secretly fund dozens of right-wing extremists groups/thugs that are willing to use dirty tricks, fraud, and intimidation to gain and hold onto power.  The radical libertarian agenda aims to strip away the middle-class in order to attain their lasses-faire corporatocracy.  This is class warfare on a grand scale, and it is up to every American citizen, whether you’re from Wisconsin or liberal California, to stand-up to this radical right-wing assault on the middle-class, freedom, and democracy.

 

We are Wisconsin's burned out building

The Other Face of Terrorism

Anders Behring Breivik by AP

“When was it that multi-culturalism ceased to be an ideology designed to deconstruct a European culture, traditions, identity and nation-state?” Those are the words of Norwegian right-wing extremist turned terrorist Anders Behring Breivik. Now here are the words of a young, but becoming increasingly popular, blogger, “Multi-culturalism, once beyond question, is now increasingly under attack for the damage that it has done to a sense of a common national identity, allowing people to embrace alien ideologies at total variance with a [ ] way of life.”  I deleted the name of the nation in order to protect the young blogger’s identity.

After reading excerpts from Breivik’s manifesto and dozens of pages from his online comments I was struck by the common themes I have read from Islamophobic bigots like Pamela Geller, Tea Party Terrorists, and even a young blogger that has gained some degree of popularity.

For several years now, I have been deconstructing right-wing extremist arguments in order to expose the dangerous, racist, bigoted, fear and hate mongering that underlines their rhetoric. In the aftermath of the Norwegian massacre, it is important to look at the extreme right-wing’s central premise that multiculturalism or “cultural-Marxism” is such a great threat to civilized society that it must be rooted out at all cost. Thus, providing crazies like Breivik the justification to blow up government buildings and go on a shooting rampage in a park full of liberal-minded teenagers.

The New York Magazine noted that large parts of Breivik’s manifesto was actually plagiarized from none other than Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. However, Kaczynski’s screech was specifically directed toward “leftism”. Breivik tweaked Kaczynski’s words to declare multiculturalism to be the root of all evil. The New York Magazine provides the following example:

“For instance, Kaczynski wrote: ‘One of the most widespread manifestations of the craziness of our world is leftism, so a discussion of the psychology of leftism can serve as an introduction to the discussion of the problems of modern society in general.’

Breivik’s manifesto reads: ‘One of the most widespread manifestations of the craziness of our world is multiculturalism, so a discussion of the psychology of multiculturalists can serve as an introduction to the discussion of the problems of Western Europe in general.”

Breivik uses the words “multicultural” and “cultural Marxism” interchangeably. If you really want to understand Breivik’s right-wing ideology and don’t want to spend the next week reading his 1500 page rambling Kaczynski lifted manifesto, Breivik sent out a 12 minute video in which he presents a four part synopsis of his beliefs. It is important to remember that much of what Breivik is saying is now openly embraced by many, extremely vocal right-wingers both in Europe and in the United States.

For the sake of brevity, I will mostly address part one of the four part synopsis. Part two has already been somewhat addressed in previous articles. The four parts are titled:

1)      The Rise of Cultural Marxism

2)      Islamic Colonization

3)      Hope

4)      New Beginning

According to Breivik, after WWII, the Soviets began spreading their Marxist ideology into the West. He explains, “The Marxist were allowed to infiltrate school institutions and media companies.” By 1968, a full blown, non-violent Marxist revolution had taken place in both Europe and the U.S. and they began a full-fledged communist plot to indoctrinate our children.

As a result, according to Breivik, left-wing, Marxist liberals began persecuting cultural conservative, Christ loving nationalists. He claims conservatives and nationalists have been subjected to a form of  “political correctness” in which folks that speak-out for “monoculturalism” are called harsh names like “fascist”, “racists”, and “Nazi” in order to silence their voices. Of course, as my grandmother would say, “If the shoe fits, wear it”.

Breivik goes on to say that the Marxists, who he believes should be severely punished and deported to Russia, have been involved in an unholy alliance with hippies, gays, environmentalists, peace activists, and a host of other left-leaning groups which he describes as “suicidal humanists” and other right-wingers have labeled “useful idiots.”

You see, according to Breivik, and many on the extreme right-wing, this liberal group of “useful idiots” opened the door to allow Marxists and Islamic Jihadists to invade and ultimately colonize and enslave the entire Western world.

What the right-wing and the Breivik’s of the world are pushing for are nation states that represent a utopian view of a culturally pure nation. The extremist right-wing view believes the “suicidal humanists” are allowing for the “demographical genocide of your own culture and people.”

Breivik’s ultimate message is simmered down into four points. What the right-wing extremists are envisioning for the world? Here is Breivik’s list:

1)      Unity not diversity

2)      Monoculturalism not multiculturalism

3)      Patriarchy not matriarchy

4)      Isolationism not imperialism

My young liberal bashing blogger friend highlights the anger and hatred the right-wing has for the left. Here is another passage from the young blogger:

“This is a small, vulnerable democracy fighting for its very survival against some of the most reactionary, obscurantist and misogynist forces on earth, the very antithesis of the western tradition of liberalism and freedom. Yet these obscurantist forces command the support of socialists and ‘progressives’ in the west, a group for whom my sense of contempt is absolute; people who advance such things as gay rights and the rights of women in [ ] who suddenly become blind to these causes in Baghdad.”

Of course the “obscurantist and misogynist forces” are the Islamic Jihadists. The fact that the “progressive” movement actually does speak-out against the treatment of women in Baghdad, in the Middle East, and throughout the world is completely dismissed in this bloggers statement. Women’s rights in Islamic countries are not new nor ignored in liberal, progressive human rights organizations.

But this statement goes to show the vitriol and hate that has been fomenting amongst the extremist elements of the right-wing. The fact that young, popular bloggers are now openly expressing similar hatred as the far right-wing mass murders, should be a warning bell to all. I warned this young blogger she should not be stoking the fires of such hatred, but she just blew me off.

Yesterday, The Nation magazine republished a 2009 article by Gary Younge, a Alfred Knobler Journalism Fellow at The Nation Institute and a New York correspondent for the Guardian.  I find Younge’s article and point to be spot on and therefore I’m provided an extended excerpt:

“There are a handful of nihilistic young Muslims keen to bomb and destroy and a far larger number sufficiently disaffected that they are prepared to riot. There are also many Europeans keen to see equality and meaningful integration, defending civil liberties and opposing wars against predominantly Muslim lands.

But the primary threat to democracy in Europe is not “Islamofascism”–that clunking, thuggish phrase that keeps lashing out in the hope that it will one day strike a meaning–but plain old fascism. The kind whereby mostly white Europeans take to the streets to terrorize minorities in the name of racial, cultural or religious superiority.

For fascism–and the xenophobic, racist and nationalistic elements that are its most vile manifestations–has returned as a mainstream ideology in Europe. Its advocates not only run in elections but win them. They control local councils and sit in parliaments. In Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France and Italy, hard-right nationalist and anti-immigrant parties regularly receive more than 10 percent of the vote. In Norway it is 22 percent; in Switzerland, 29 percent. In Italy and Austria they have been in government; in Switzerland, where the anti-immigrant Swiss People’s Party is the largest party, they still are.”

Gary Younge is right to point out that there are currently two faces of political terrorism plaguing the West. There are the right-wing Islamic Jihadists and then there are the right-wing fascists/hard-right nationalists and anti-immigrant groups (like the Knight’s Templar Europe group Breivik believes he is involved in). Both groups are arming themselves and willing to do grave harm to all those caught up in the middle. Both groups are using hateful rhetoric and ideology to feed into each other’s delusions and creating a self-fulfilling downward cycle of evil.

Hope and new beginnings do not occur through violence and terrorism. It does not happen as a result of divisiveness and deranged beliefs in monothinking and monoculture. There is no, nor have there ever been, such a thing as a monoculture. Culture, whether you are from a culturally diverse nation like the U.S. or an isolated indigenous tribe, changes with time and over generations. We can’t go back in time.

The right-wing extremist attacks on the West and liberals are rooted in a belief system based on so called “traditional” values. Both the Islamic fundamentalists and the cultural/national fundamentalist feel their world is being attacked by a liberal agenda which conflicts with the more traditional values they treasure. In order to combat the influence of liberal ideology, both the Islamic Jihadists and the white right-wing nationalists have been engaging in campaigns to mass murder and mayhem.

What can we do? Well, I have only one suggestion. Liberals and progressives need to educate the mainstream and their right-leaning friends about the dangers of far right-wing fear and hate mongering. We should encourage other writers not to promote Islamophobic bigotry, or any type of bigotry for that matter, including anti-Semitic language or gay bashing. Bigoted rhetoric only helps stoke the flames of hatred and leads a group or some lone wolf crazy to justify unthinkable acts of violence.

Call it political correctness if you like, but hate speech, no matter where it comes from should be shunned in a civil society. It is one thing to want to share and pass on certain traditions one believes are important. Often, these traditions hold valuable life lessons and add to the richness and texture of one’s own identity. However, to force onto others a selected understanding of the proper traditional values and demand others assimilate to such values is in essence denying the individually of others. This is what the totalitarians do, whether they come from the political left or right.

Breivik’s hard-line nationalist/Islamophobic rhetoric is every bit as extreme and totalitarian as the Islamic Jihadists waging their war on the West. We need to reject both as they wish to deny diversity of opinions, beliefs, and ultimately the individuality of others. We need to reject those that say there is only one way a culture must be defined. We need to reject those that insist on the patriarchal way or the highway to Hell.  We must to reject those that believe violent attacks on innocent civilians are a necessary way of achieving political goals.

We need to realize the world is now the melting pot. As each and every one of us becomes more and more connected, there is no way of stopping the influences of multiculturalism. Instead of scorning our differences, we need to learn to understand, accept, and even embrace our differences. The right-wing whines about “political correctness” when liberals scorn bigotry, fear, and hate mongering, so be it. If the shoe fits, wear it.