Some would have you believe that the 28 year old killer of 2 Brooklyn police officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos before Christmas 2014, was solely inspired by the protestors marching message about the recent preventable deaths of Black men at the hands of the police. Those who would want to hold on to this belief system for dear life, would never consider that this sick individual who first shot his ex girlfriend who is  not a police official, would simply latch onto just about anything to justify his horrible, inexcusable and senseless actions. In this blog, I provide a quick history course as to why it would behoove far right wing folks not to continue to disseminate this logic fallacy.

While I would have preferred that the Protestors heed Mayor deBlasio’s request for a moratorium on any protest marches until after the burial services of our fallen Brooklyn police officers, I am convinced that the continuation of these protests are crucial to engender change for the better. I have been praying for such groups to develop as a countervailing force to the tea party activists’ tactics which according to my son, are turning me into a “flaming liberal.” My response is that by the republican tea party standards of today, President Ronald Reagan, President George H. W. Bush, Senator Bob Dole and General Colin Powell would be defined as “socialists.”

I do have some concern that those protestors involved in looting, vandalizing property and taunting police officers without merit will do real harm to the protestors’ message and just cause. I wish there  was a way to insure that those resorting to violence and the taunting of police aren’t part of groups which are simply using these protests for other agendas.

Now, here comes the trek down history lane.

Do any republican, tea party, conservative members who would fight tooth and nail to protect their second amendment rights, recall the name of Timothy McVeigh who perpetrated the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P Murrah US government building in which over 160 adults were killed including law enforcement officials and children?

For a history refresher on this subject, I referenced the updated 4/2013 discussion on this subject,  Encyclopedia Britannica. The following are some excerpts:

“He first read The Turner Diaries (1978), an antigovernment, neo-Nazi tract written by William Pierce. The book, which details the truck-bombing of the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), fueled McVeigh’s paranoia about a government plot to repeal the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the right “to keep and bear arms.” He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1988 and proved to be a model soldier, earning a Bronze Star for bravery in the Persian Gulf War (1990–91). He was a candidate for the Special Forces but dropped out of the program after only two days. The experience soured him on the military, and he took an early discharge and left the army in late 1991.”

“McVeigh returned to New York but was unable to find steady work. He reunited with Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier, friends from his days in the army, and sold guns at fairs throughout the United States. In March 1993 he drove to Waco, Texas, to observe the ongoing FBI siege of the Branch Davidian compound. He viewed the U.S. government’s actions there as illegal, and it was during this time that McVeigh, Nichols, and Fortier made contact with members of militia groups in the Midwest. In September 1994 McVeigh began actively plotting to destroy the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.”

At the time, most peoples would not have given any serious credence to the argument that the right wing, online discourse regarding their fear of their second amendments’ rights being under attach by the U.S. government, was the catalyst for Mr. McVeigh’s criminal acts.

Let’s refer to more recent events. Peter Bergen who is CNN’s national security analyst, a director at the New America Foundation and David Sterman, a research assistant at the New America Foundation wrote the following CNN Opinion article on 4/15/2014 and here are some excerpts:

“On Sunday, (4/13/14)  a man shot and killed a 14-year-old boy and his grandfather at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and then drove to a nearby Jewish retirement community where he shot and killed a third person. Police arrested a suspect, Frazier Glenn Cross, who shouted “Heil Hitler” after he was taken into custody.”

“Cross, who also goes by Frazier Glenn Miller, is a well-known right wing extremist who founded the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and the White Patriot Party, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.”

“In fact, since 9/11 extremists affiliated with a variety of far-right wing ideologies, including white supremacists, anti-abortion extremists and anti-government militants, have killed more people in the United States than have extremists motivated by al Qaeda’s ideology. According to a count by the New America Foundation, right wing extremists have killed 34 people in the United States for political reasons since 9/11. (The total includes the latest shootings in Kansas, which are being classified as a hate crime).”

The following is a sample of some of the right wing rhetoric that I found online at http://www.rightwingwatch.org by Mychal  Massie of WorldNet Daily, titled, “Massie: Obama Racist Against Whites, And Wants Black Genocide!” Brian Tashman submitted this on Tuesday, 9/2/2014 9:55 am:

"...today that President Obama is a racist, “race-mongering infidel”  
...and who hates white people,sentiments which are par for the 
course at the far-right outlet. However, Massie also believes Obama is 
advocating the “systematic extermination” of black people through legal 
abortion. So apparently, Obama just hates everybody: And the utilities 
he has used to do so are right out of Saul “the Red” Alinsky’s Communist 
handbook. Those of us who were paying close attention understood that 
America didn’t need changing and that Obama’s idea of change was to 
create a socialist state. We understood and warned people pursuant to 
exactly what Obama stood for, and we warned he was a neo-Leninist with a 
proclivity for radical Islam who would use skin color and class warfare 
to divide America. Now, except for those who are in a terminal state of 
denial based on an Erebusic ideology and color of skin, there is no 
longer any doubt that Obama is a neo-Leninist Muslim sympathizer who is 
committed to transmogrifying America into something that will be 
unidentifiable to the America our Founding Fathers provided for 
vis-a-vis our Constitution."

One could legitimately argue that the hate rhetoric that these groups espouse on line, help to instigate the above criminal type activity. While I do not approve what they say, I believe that the type of demented individuals who act out of impulse to kill innocent peoples would use any excuse to commit their atrocities.

Most Americans have the naïve belief that our police would never torture our own citizenry in a manner similar to the forms of torture described in the recent CIA disclosures. For those who wonder why our Black brothers fear the police, the following is a history lesson as to why why their fear is reality based. On 10/2/14, the Guardian posted a report by Mark Guarino, “Disgraced Chicago police commander accused of torture freed from prison,” and here are some excerpts: