Four Years of Hatred and Lies Bear Fruit

Given the news, you have to wonder what terrorists, if any, are at this year's Republican National Convention. Gawker is reporting that a certain Isaac Aguigui attended the 2008 Republican Convention as a page. So who's Isaac Aguigui?

He's one of the leaders of this:


[The Atlantic:]

In a disturbing report out of Georgia, prosecutors say four U.S. soldiers plotted to overthrow the government and assassinate President Obama. Details remain slim about the case, but the AP's Russ Bynum says the soldiers allegedly bought $87,000 worth of "guns and bomb-making materials and plotted to take over Fort Stewart, bomb targets in nearby Savannah and Washington state, as well as assassinate the president." The plot was apparently uncovered in relation to a murder case surrounding the killing of former soldier Michael Roark and his girlfriend Tiffany York in December. On Monday, Pfc. Michael Burnett, one of the accused soldiers, plead guilty to manslaughter and gang charges in the murder case. "Burnett told a Long County judge that Roark, who had just left the Army, knew of the militia group's plans and was killed because he was 'a loose end,'" reports Bynum.

...In Washington state... the group plotted to bomb a dam and poison the state’s apple crop. Ultimately, prosecutors said, the militia’s goal was to overthrow the government and assassinate the president.


We remember what the 2008 campaign was like, right? A respectful but vigorous debate of the virtues of two competing plans for America, put forward in rational terms that treated Americans like adults capable of... Oh, who am I kidding? It was like this:


[Frank Rich, 2008:]

If you think way back to the start of this marathon campaign, back when it seemed preposterous that any black man could be a serious presidential contender, then you remember the biggest fear about Barack Obama: a crazy person might take a shot at him.

[...]

“I’ve got the best protection in the world, so stop worrying,” Obama reassured his supporters. Eventually the country got conditioned to his appearing in large arenas without incident (though I confess that the first loud burst of fireworks at the end of his convention stadium speech gave me a start). In America, nothing does succeed like success. The fear receded.

Until now. At McCain-Palin rallies, the raucous and insistent cries of “Treason!” and “Terrorist!” and “Kill him!” and “Off with his head!” as well as the uninhibited slinging of racial epithets, are actually something new in a campaign that has seen almost every conceivable twist. They are alarms. Doing nothing is not an option.


For the right, doing anything different was not an option. The right hasn't moderated their messaging since then. If you listen to rightwing talk radio and read wingnut blogs, you know that Barack Obama is an illegal alien, a Marxist, a terrorist, a Black Panther-type who's destroying America with Socialism. He's a big gay-, feminist-, Marxist-atheist-, and abortion-loving Muslim fundamentalist, because in rightwing circles such contradictions in propaganda are ignored.

And now, after four years of this insane, paranoid BS, two people are dead and four are arrested in a plot to kill the president, poison thousands, flood thousands more, and stage a coup. Weird huh? It's almost like all that hateful BS comes with consequences.

Prosecutors are calling those consequences "domestic terrorism."

-Wisco

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