10/26/09
THE BEGINNING OF ME ACTUALLY PUTTING MY OWN WORDS INTO THIS BLOG
Elated and relieved, yet sad and deflated
1-30-10
6/24/09
In Cold Blog: A Culture Of Hate
In Cold Blog: A Culture Of Hate
Posted using ShareThis
Posted using ShareThis
By Stephen Singular
On this mid-June morning, I’m driving across Kansas and into the heart of America’s second civil war. Up ahead is Wichita, where two weeks ago Dr. George Tiller, the nation’s most prominent abortion doctor, was gunned down in the lobby of his Lutheran Church. It was well known in the anti-abortion movement that Dr. Tiller always wore a bulletproof vest, so his alleged killer, Scott Roeder, shot him once in the forehead from only inches away. This landscape of flat farm country and political assassination is deeply familiar to me, because I grew up in rural Kansas and have spent more than two decades on my own journey into domestic terrorism.
Twenty-five years ago a group of neo-Nazis called The Order killed Denver talk show host Alan Berg -- his death became part of the largest-ever federal investigation into homegrown terrorism. My book on the case, Talked to Death, came out in 1987 and since then America has changed dramatically. Our political/religious divisions and our bitter emotions, still on the fringes in the mid-1980s, have entered the mainstream through cable TV and the Internet. All day long on blogs and every evening on the airwaves the new civil war is played out for mass consumption (FOX’s Bill O’Reilly and MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann reach just under five million viewers per weeknight). In the past few years, hate groups are up more than 50%. Common ground has become increasingly uncommon -- my side has to be right so that yours can be wrong. “Bleeding Kansas” was at the center of the first American Civil War, fought over race. It’s a key battleground state again in the new war being fought around God and human sexuality.
The FBI has launched a federal investigation to see if Scott Roeder acted alone in allegedly killing Dr. Tiller. From his jail cell in Wichita, Roeder quickly began issuing statements that America could expect more violence from people like him. Within 24 hours of Dr. Tiller’s death, a father and his nine-year-old daughter were gunned down in southern Arizona. The police arrested Shawna Forde, leader of the anti-illegal immigration group Minutemen American Defense, as the key suspect in the murder of Brisenia and Raul Flores. Ten days after Dr. Tiller was assassinated, white supremacist James von Brunn opened fire in Washington D.C.’s Holocaust Museum, killing a black guard. On June 13, longtime Republican activist Rusty DePass said on Facebook that a gorilla that had escaped from a zoo in Columbia was “just one of Michelle’s [Obama] ancestors -- probably harmless."
With the ongoing battles over abortion and immigration, a faltering economy, and the election of an African-American President, racial fears are rising again. Those who monitor hate groups, like the Southern Poverty Law Center, warn of more troubles ahead. What could be more symbolic of our current civil war than a doctor getting murdered for helping (under the laws of Kansas and the U.S.) women confronting serious health issues -- by someone who fervently believes that God is sanctioning his actions? I’ll be looking for some answers in Wichita.
Stephen Singular is the author of nineteen books which range in topics from high-profile crimes and social criticisms, to business and sports biographies. He currently resides in Denver, Colorado. You can find out more about this author by visiting his website at stephensingular.com
On this mid-June morning, I’m driving across Kansas and into the heart of America’s second civil war. Up ahead is Wichita, where two weeks ago Dr. George Tiller, the nation’s most prominent abortion doctor, was gunned down in the lobby of his Lutheran Church. It was well known in the anti-abortion movement that Dr. Tiller always wore a bulletproof vest, so his alleged killer, Scott Roeder, shot him once in the forehead from only inches away. This landscape of flat farm country and political assassination is deeply familiar to me, because I grew up in rural Kansas and have spent more than two decades on my own journey into domestic terrorism.
Twenty-five years ago a group of neo-Nazis called The Order killed Denver talk show host Alan Berg -- his death became part of the largest-ever federal investigation into homegrown terrorism. My book on the case, Talked to Death, came out in 1987 and since then America has changed dramatically. Our political/religious divisions and our bitter emotions, still on the fringes in the mid-1980s, have entered the mainstream through cable TV and the Internet. All day long on blogs and every evening on the airwaves the new civil war is played out for mass consumption (FOX’s Bill O’Reilly and MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann reach just under five million viewers per weeknight). In the past few years, hate groups are up more than 50%. Common ground has become increasingly uncommon -- my side has to be right so that yours can be wrong. “Bleeding Kansas” was at the center of the first American Civil War, fought over race. It’s a key battleground state again in the new war being fought around God and human sexuality.
The FBI has launched a federal investigation to see if Scott Roeder acted alone in allegedly killing Dr. Tiller. From his jail cell in Wichita, Roeder quickly began issuing statements that America could expect more violence from people like him. Within 24 hours of Dr. Tiller’s death, a father and his nine-year-old daughter were gunned down in southern Arizona. The police arrested Shawna Forde, leader of the anti-illegal immigration group Minutemen American Defense, as the key suspect in the murder of Brisenia and Raul Flores. Ten days after Dr. Tiller was assassinated, white supremacist James von Brunn opened fire in Washington D.C.’s Holocaust Museum, killing a black guard. On June 13, longtime Republican activist Rusty DePass said on Facebook that a gorilla that had escaped from a zoo in Columbia was “just one of Michelle’s [Obama] ancestors -- probably harmless."
With the ongoing battles over abortion and immigration, a faltering economy, and the election of an African-American President, racial fears are rising again. Those who monitor hate groups, like the Southern Poverty Law Center, warn of more troubles ahead. What could be more symbolic of our current civil war than a doctor getting murdered for helping (under the laws of Kansas and the U.S.) women confronting serious health issues -- by someone who fervently believes that God is sanctioning his actions? I’ll be looking for some answers in Wichita.
Stephen Singular is the author of nineteen books which range in topics from high-profile crimes and social criticisms, to business and sports biographies. He currently resides in Denver, Colorado. You can find out more about this author by visiting his website at stephensingular.com
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