SPLC Hatewatch Blog: Who is Jared Lee Loughner?

[tpsbmam]

Is Jared Lee Loughner, the alleged mass murderer who shot U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, a right-wing extremist?

It’s hard to say....

That said, there are some clues.

At one point, Loughner refers disparagingly to “currency that’s not backed by gold or silver.” The idea that silver and gold are the only “constitutional” money is widespread in the antigovernment “Patriot” movement that produced so much violence in the 1990s. It’s linked to the core Patriot theory that the Federal Reserve is actually a private corporation run for the benefit of unnamed international bankers. So-called Patriots say paper money — what they refer to with a sneer as “Federal Reserve notes” — is not lawful.

At another, Loughner makes extraordinarily obscure comments about language and grammar, suggesting that the government engages in “mind control on the people by controlling grammar.” That’s not the kind of idea that’s very common out there, even on the Internet. In fact, I think it’s pretty clear that Loughner is taking ideas from Patriot conspiracy theorist David Wynn Miller of Milwaukee. Miller claims that the government uses grammar to “enslave” Americans and offers up his truly weird “Truth-language” as an antidote. For example, he says that if you add colons and hyphens to your name in a certain way, you are no longer taxable. Miller may be mad as a hatter, but he has a real following on the right.

Loughner talks about how you “can’t trust the government” and someone burns a U.S. flag in one of his videos. Although certain right-wing websites are already using that (and his listing of The Communist Manifesto as one of his favorite books) to claim that Loughner was a “left-winger,” that does not strike me as true. The main enemy of the Patriot movement is certainly the federal government. And so-called Patriots have certainly engaged in acts like burning the flag.

More at Southern Poverty Law Center Hatewatch Blog post by Mark Potok.

http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2011/01/09/who-is-jared-lee-loughner/

[nashville_brook]

1. big kick and rec!

[FogerRox]

2. Easy answer, he's a Libertarian.

I'm mildly surprised he didn't list Atlas Shrugged as a favorite book, considering the possibility of his having a very tortured soul.

[EC]

3. He listed one of her other books

"We the Living"

[FogerRox]

5. Oh, Ok. thanks......

[malletgirl02]

8. I agree

Also i think that girl who went to high school with who called him a liberal most likely got libertarian confused with liberal.

[blondeatlast]

4. SPLC is an authority on hate rhetoric; they helped the FBI infiltrate the KKK.

They know hate groups and I trust their analysis.

[tpsbmam]

11. That was my feeling too. He was on KO's Saturday show and Dateline focused

on the shooting tonight. I missed most of it but caught it just at the time that he was being interviewed -- they also considered him an authority.

[starroute]

6. The Patriot movement is not the Tea Party -- but there's a significant overlap

A little googling on both names comes up with a bunch of links -- and I'm going to quote several at them, since I think this is important.

http://blog.reidreport.com/2010/02/a-tea-party-patriot-movement-convergence/

February 16, 2010

Hm … The New York Times has a fascinating, extensive piece on the convergence, at least in the American northwest, of the “tea party movement” and something that has popped up (armed) at various locations where the president was speaking last year (and during the 1990s when Tim McVeigh became its most infamous face) … the militia or “patriot” movement. Read the article, and if you’re in South Florida and used to listen to the talk radio show I used to do, tell me if this doesn’t sound a lot like my second co-host, Andre, right down to the food and gun stockpiling, Ron Paul devotion, and federal reserve conspiracy theories …

Alternet connects more dots, including to the paranoid, highly compensated fantasies of Glenn Beck. Now simmer down, folks — I’m not saying everyone who calls themselves a member of the tea party movement falls into the “patriot movement”/Resistnet/Alex Jones/Andre Eggelletion category, and these are still very disparate groups (here in Florida, I have yet to come across two that are connected to each other.) But it does seem like the groups are starting to converge ideologically, just as the Republican Party is sucking up whatever parts of it they can, and various interest groups, not least of which being Sarah Palin’s political plotters, are grabbing for a piece of the action. At the end of the day, I think some of these people are simply Libertarians, and I continue to wonder how much longer they stay in the fold …


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/us/politics/16teaparty.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=patriot%20movement&st=cse

These people are part of a significant undercurrent within the Tea Party movement that has less in common with the Republican Party than with the Patriot movement, a brand of politics historically associated with libertarians, militia groups, anti-immigration advocates and those who argue for the abolition of the Federal Reserve.

Urged on by conservative commentators, waves of newly minted activists are turning to once-obscure books and Web sites and discovering a set of ideas long dismissed as the preserve of conspiracy theorists, interviews conducted across the country over several months show. In this view, Mr. Obama and many of his predecessors (including George W. Bush) have deliberately undermined the Constitution and free enterprise for the benefit of a shadowy international network of wealthy elites.

Loose alliances like Friends for Liberty are popping up in many cities, forming hybrid entities of Tea Parties and groups rooted in the Patriot ethos.


http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/willl-ex-military-patriots-form-more

March 05, 2009

One of the more disturbing trends we've been observing is the return of far-right "Patriot" rhetoric about government oppression with the election of President Obama. Fueled in no small part by mainstream right-wing talkers proclaiming we're headed into "socialism" -- not to mention a "radical communist" who must be "stopped" or else America will "cease to exist" -- the overheated rhetoric has been gradually getting higher in volume, intensity, and frequency with each passing week.

The initial concern that this raises is the possibility of a new wave of citizen militias, particularly when you have mainstream pundits like Glenn Beck out there helping to promote the concept. As Glenn Greenwald observed, the "Patriots" are back with a vengeance. . . .

The context in which this is bubbling up is perhaps the most troubling. We're seeing an increase in hate-group activity nationally. Much of the animus is directed at President Obama (see, for instance the "Birthers" -- led by Alan Keyes and his compatriots), and much of it is more generically directed at liberals and immigrants.

In any event, it isn't long after right-wingers name their "enemies" that we start seeing violence directed their way.

[Kurovski]

7. K&R. (nt)

[Arrowhead2k1]

9. Spot on! K&R nt

[tpsbmam]

10. MP also agreed with Chip Berlot, who posits "Possible Racist and Anti-Immigrant Tie(s)"

From the http://www.talk2action.org/printpage/2011/1/9/16240/71598">Talk To Action blog, author Chip Berlot.

<snip>

Alleged assassin Jared Lee Loughner on December 15, 2010 posted a message about "the second United States constitution" and his distrust of the current government. In another message apparently authored by Loughner on a conspiracy theory website, were these words: "Is it possible that politicians are taking advantage of the money system? It's possible to overthrow a government and change the currency."

The reference to a "second United States constitution" or a "second American constitution" on the Political Right refers to objections to the Reconstruction Amendments (the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments) especially the freeing of slaves and the citizenship right for "All persons born or naturalized in the United States."

This raises the question of a possible racist and anti-immigrant tie to the act of terrorism in a state where the issue of race and immigration has turned nasty.

<snip>

The concept of a "second American constitution" actually comes from serious writings by Constitutional scholars and has been twisted by White Supremacists and conspiracy theorists. The claim is a core element of White Nationalism, as documented in Leonard Zeskind's. Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream.


(Much more at link.)