Talk Nation Radio for June 11, 2009
Chip Berlet and Max Blumenthal on America's Militant Right Wing

TRT: 29:33 music fades long
Music by Fritz Heede www.fritzheede.com
Also see part one of our interview with Chip Berlet at Archive.org

Comments at end about the shooting at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., which took place even as we were taping our interview with Max Blumenthal. In fact, our guest was predicting that the violence we saw in Kansas in the shooting of Physician George Tiller, will likely continue. The reasons he mentions are that the Republicans are out of office, the GOP has fractured, and the more extreme elements are now more prominent, plus right wing hatreds were flourishing in a more permissive environment under George W. Bush and his Attorney's General.

We produce Talk Nation in Connecticut where over the past few weeks there have been several arrests made over threats to members of the State Legislature. At issue have been hot button issues like abortion, immigration, gay rights, church finances, and the MidEast.

While the internet has revolutionized political organizing, some of the tactics and messages are part of an old history of right wing organizing. This includes bullying, fear mongering, and using fear tactics to try to intimidate more moderate voices. Message often seem to be about political issues, but in the background the special interests, corporations and ambitious politicians are providing support.

It is not unusual for angry and often troubled individuals to internalize these messages and begin to actually carry out the kinds of tactics mentioned rhetorically. They will then lash out in violence, as seems to have been the case recently in Kansas with the murder of Doctor George Tiller.

Scott Roeder, has been charged with Tiller's death. He is associated with the extreme anti abortion group Operation Rescue. Roeder has maintained a long standing dialogue about his hatreds online.

Over the next half hour we will continue our discussion with Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates in the Boston area. As we heard last time, right wing radio show host Michael Savage referenced German society under the Third Reich and Weimar Republic, as he revisited old rationalizations about the scapegoating of gays, immigrants, and other vulnerable groups that date back to early John Birch Society organizing tactics.

Chip Berlet also goes over what President Obama advised students recently, to work toward understanding between supporters and opponents of abortion, and team up to prevent unwanted pregnancy. That, says Berlet, is what we should be doing, not working to reduce the number of abortions which tends to serve to inflame more anger and have a negative impact on women overall.

And Max Blumenthal joins us to discuss a developing story out of Connecticut, the arrest of Harold âHalâ Turner, for inciting injury to persons or property. Turner was charged in the State of Connecticut for threats he made as he urged readers of his blog to take up arms against Representative Mike Lawlor and Senator Andrew McDonald.

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