Jared Lee Loughner, the alleged shooter of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others in Arizona shares an obsession with government currency and money manipulation plots with anti-abortion killer John C. Salvi 3d. Loughner wrote about a conspiracy of currency manipulation in text posted on YouTube. Salvi was found guilty in the Brookline, Massachusetts clinic shootings in late 1994 that left two women dead and several persons injured.
Although he was found competent to stand trial, there was substantial evidence that Salvi was mentally unbalanced and obsessed with conspiracy theories. [...]
It is still difficult for many people to see the political side of the Salvi case. There is still a widespread lack of knowledge about the beliefs of the right wing conspiracist subculture-and there is still an attitude of denial that groups promoting conspiratorial worldviews have growing influence in our political system.
[...] It is clear, though, that aggressive right-wing rhetoric targeting Democrats as treasonous encourages some unstable people to act out in aggression or violence. This was the warning of my report Toxic to Democracy: Conspiracy Theories, Demonization, and Scapegoating, published in June 2009.
As I wrote in Toxic to Democracy:Right-wing pundits demonize scapegoated groups and individuals in our society, implying that it is urgent to stop them from wrecking the nation. Some angry people in the audience already believe conspiracy theories in which the same scapegoats are portrayed as subversive, destructive, or evil. Add in aggressive apocalyptic ideas that suggest time is running out and quick action mandatory and you have a perfect storm of mobilized resentment threatening to rain bigotry and violence across the United States.".
The right-wing demagogues are not legally culpable for the violence and assassinations, but they must share some moral culpability.
That last sentence is the crux of the biscuit. Go read the rest. This is scary shit.
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