Reality Check -- A Few Numbers

By John Ballard

Terrorism seems to be working. All you have to do is turn on the TV or pick up a newspaper and get terrified. The emotional impact of fear, wrapped in blankets of conspiracy and malice, served up with heavy doses of paranoid nightmares is enough to make you want to join the Tea Party.

Hold Onto Your Underwear: This Is Not a National Emergency Tom Englehardt ticks off a few numbers to give readers a more balanced perspective.

• In 2008, 14,180 Americans were murdered


• there were 34,017 fatal vehicle crashes in the U.S.


• 3,320 deaths by fire


• 11, 000 Americans died of the swine flu between April and mid-December 2009,


• 443,600 Americans die yearly of illnesses related to tobacco use


• 5,000 Americans die annually from food-borne diseases


• 1,760 children died from abuse or neglect in 2007


• and the next year, 560 Americans died of weather-related conditions


• no American died in a crash of a U.S. carrier in either 2007 or 2008, despite 1.5 billion passengers transported.


• In 2009, planes certainly went down and people died...a French flight on its way from Rio de Janeiro to Paris disappeared in bad weather...killing 226. Continental Connection Flight 3407...crashed into a house near Buffalo.. killing 50, the first fatal crash of a U.S. commercial flight since August 2006. And in January 2009, US Airways Flight 1549, assaulted by a flock of birds, managed a brilliant landing in New York's Hudson River when disaster might have ensued. In none of these years did an airplane go down anywhere due to terrorism


• The now-infamous Northwest Airlines Flight 253, carrying Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and his bomb-laden underwear toward Detroit on Christmas Day 2009, had 290 passengers and crew, all of whom survived. Had the inept Abdulmutallab actually succeeded, the death toll would not have equaled the 324 traffic fatalities in Nevada in 2008...
  
  Had the 23-year-old Nigerian set off his bomb, it would have been a nightmare for the people on board, and a tragedy for those who knew them. It would certainly have represented a safety and security issue that needed to be dealt with. But it would not have been a national emergency, nor a national-security crisis. It would have been nothing more than a single plane knocked out of the sky, something that happens from time to time without the intervention of terrorists.
  
  
  And yet here's the strange thing: thanks to what didn't happen on Flight 253, the media essentially went mad, 24/7. ...the Republican criticism machine (and the media universe that goes with it) ramped up on the subject of the Obama administration's terror wimpiness; the global air transport system plunked down millions of dollars on new technology which will not find underwear bombs; the homeland security-industrial-complex had a field day; and fear, that adrenaline rush from hell, was further embedded in the American way of life.
  
  
  Under the circumstances, you would never know that Americans living in the United States were in vanishingly little danger from terrorism, but in significant danger driving to the mall; or that alcohol, tobacco, E. coli bacteria, fire, domestic abuse, murder, and the weather present the sort of potentially fatal problems that might be worth worrying about, or even changing your behavior over, or perhaps investing some money in. Terrorism, not so much.
  
  
  ... Since September 11th, terror in the U.S. has rated above fatalities from shark attacks and not much else. Since the economic meltdown of 2008, it has, in fact, been left in the shade by violent deaths that stem from reactions to job loss, foreclosure, inability to pay the rent, and so on.
  
  
  This is seldom highlighted in a country perversely convulsed by, and that can't seem to get enough of, fantasies about being besieged by terrorists.
  
  

He gets rolling as the piece unwinds, driving home one simple point, that [t]he fear of terrorism has, by now, been institutionalized in our society 

This week's tragedy in Austin, Texas, picked up by Ron within hours (I was jealous), was the irrational behavior of a man as crazed as the young man from Nigeria known now to be a terrorist wannabe.
Joseph Andrew Stack deliberately and crafted and produced his own personal 9/1l, with the target a building chosen for its symbolic significance and himself playing the role of a terrorist perpetrator, piloting the plane as a suicide bomber.

Nothing changes unless there is a body count...In a government full of hypocrites from top to bottom, life is as cheap as their lies and their self-serving laws....It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn�t limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants. I know there have been countless before me and there are sure to be as many after. But I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I insure nothing will change....I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored...violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer.

This is not the language of a nut case or deranged individual.This is the language of redemptive violence, plain and simple. He's not the first, nor will he be the last American born and reared folk hero. He's just the latest in a line of violence-prone Robin Hood types in American history -- with names like John Brown, Clyde Barrow, and John Mosby -- extremists of all persuasions who have elected high-profile violence as their method of choice to bring about social, economic or political change.

Facebook is scrambling to take down sites supporting this guy.

Tea Party spokespersons are rushing to disavow any connections.

And the definition of "terrorism" is all mucked up. Whaddya call a guy who deliberately kills himself, citing many complaints close to your heart? Sullivan points to the contradiction, linking a couple other luminaries.

I have no doubt this act was meant to terrorize and when someone uses an airplane to crash into a federal building and kills people is is obviously terrorism. If he had yelled "Allah o Akbar!" instead of "Fuck the IRS!" would anyone be discussing this?

Three days before Stack's mini-9/11 a lengthy look at the Tea Party appeared in the NY Times by David Barstow which turns out to have been prescient.

...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. These coalitions are not content with simply making the Republican Party more conservative. They have a larger goal � a political reordering that would drastically shrink the federal government and sweep away not just Mr. Obama, but much of the Republican establishment, starting with Senator John McCain.

...their vision of the federal government is frequently at odds with the one that both parties have constructed. Tea Party gatherings are full of people who say they would do away with the Federal Reserve, the federal income tax and countless agencies, not to mention bailouts and stimulus packages. Nor is it unusual to hear calls to eliminate Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. A remarkable number say this despite having recently lost jobs or health coverage. Some of the prescriptions they are debating � secession, tax boycotts, states �nullifying� federal laws, forming citizen militias � are outside the mainstream, too.

...Tea Party events have become a magnet for other groups and causes � including gun rights activists, anti-tax crusaders, libertarians, militia organizers, the �birthers� who doubt President Obama�s citizenship, Lyndon LaRouche supporters and proponents of the sovereign states movement.

...A popular T-shirt at Tea Party rallies reads, �Proud Right-Wing Extremist.�

It is a defiant and mocking rejoinder to last April�s intelligence assessment from the Department of Homeland Security warning that recession and the election of the nation�s first black president �present unique drivers for right wing radicalization.�

�Historically,� the assessment said, �domestic right wing extremists have feared, predicted and anticipated a cataclysmic economic collapse in the United States.� Those predictions, it noted, are typically rooted in �anti-government conspiracy theories� featuring impending martial law. The assessment said extremist groups were already preparing for this scenario by stockpiling weapons and food and by resuming paramilitary exercises.

The report does not mention the Tea Party movement, but among Tea Party activists it is viewed with open scorn, evidence of a larger campaign by liberals to marginalize them as �racist wingnuts.�

Yes, yes I know these dots are not connected all that precisely. Neither were the connections between the John Birch Society and the Sons of Confederate Veterans that routinely used my dining room for a meeting place when I managed a cafeteria, but it is no coincidence that the same individuals just happened to be involved with both outfits. Come to think of it, though I'm not paying much attention, II would expect to see the same folks at local activities sporting the Tea Party brand. 

The Southern Poverty Law Center has been tracking hate groups for years and has documented seventy five terrorist plots in America (thus far), starting with the 1995 Kansas City bombing. Their post the following morning connected a few dots. And Friday's more editorial post is what I am copying here.It's Sunday. Ya'll have time to read it without linking.

Austin Killer Becoming a Hero to the Radical Right

In the hours since a man enraged at the government slammed his small plane into an Austin, Tex., IRS building, white supremacists and their fellow travelers have elevated Joseph Andrew Stack into an icon of resistance to tyranny.

�The Guy is a true HERO!!!� wrote �northroad� on Stormfront.org, the largest white supremacist Web forum in the world. �God bless him,� chimed in �Rudyard,� following a comment by �suepeace�: �This was quite heroic. There is a gradual awakening underway. I wonder how racially conscious he was.�

Shortly after Stack slammed his Piper PA-28 into the IRS building Thursday morning, killing himself and one IRS worker and injuring another 13 people, a manifesto the man apparently wrote just before the attack came to light. In it, Stack bitterly railed against a wide variety of targets � big business, corporate executives, unions, the Catholic Church, the recent bailouts of various industries, and more � but he kept coming back to the alleged evils of American government in general and, more specifically, the Internal Revenue Service and tax law. That made him a hero in the eyes of many on the radical right � so-called tax protesters � who have long believed that federal taxes were illegal or simply voluntary. Although many tax protesters who call themselves �sovereign citizens� subscribe to a racist ideology, there was no indication that Stack entertained racist ideas.

Nevertheless, white supremacists were thoroughly excited by his attack. �I can feel the crunch coming,� wrote �Lady Spirit Warrior,� another poster on Stormfront. �This is just the beginning. Prepare for battle!� �Things are heating up in America,� added �Astragoth.� �This man won�t be the last to do something like this.�

�Leshrac,� writing at another radical Web forum, the neo-Nazi Vanguard News Network, said: �Only bad I see about this is that he didn�t kill enough.�

A few other white supremacists suggested that lionizing Stack could be a bad thing for the radical right, but they appeared to be in a minority. At the White Revolution website, �stephen3� said that �although Mr. Stack�s reasonings are true and correct, I am not hinting by any means that this is the way to protest against our corrupt government. � Although the time for direct action is here, do not go out and kill yourself to make a point.�

A more common point was made on Stormfront by �berdoofool,� who asked simply: �Are there ANY innocent IRS employees???�

Apologies to the reader. The post started off about numbers and got out of hand. It wasn't a deliberate bait-and-switch; I've had a lot on my mind this week and this was my way of sorting them out.

Even before Joe Stack did his thing -- and let's face it, the damage and fatalities are not all that impressive -- I was puzzled trying to make sense of a similar self-destructive impulse, the apparent self-immolation of Conservatism that Ron mentioned. There was a time in my life when I enjoyed the repartee involved with arguing with Conservative friends and acquaintances. No one who remembers William F. Buckley has anything but the deepest respect for the man, even those who were miles apart ideologically, simply because he was both civil and smart. In the worst of all worlds, I never imagined that civility and intelligence would decay to the point they have today. My expectation was that even if all else failed, Conservatives would retain at least some semblance of propriety. But now even that is falling apart.