Plot To Kill 88 + Obama Foiled

UPDATE: GO HERE for more info and an interesting analysis. Including a discussion of "why 88?" and "why 14?"

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MySpace photo of Daniel Cowart of Bells, Tennessee, charged with plot to kill obama. Obviously, this sick fuck is a poster child for gun control.

As reported by MSNBC:

Law enforcement agents have broken up a plot by two neo-Nazi skinheads to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 88 black people, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said Monday.

In court records unsealed Monday in U.S. District Court in Jackson, Tenn., federal agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target a predominantly African-American high school in a murder spree that was to begin in Tennessee. Agents said the skinheads did not identify the school by name.

Jim Cavanaugh, special agent in charge of ATF's Nashville field office, said the two men planned to kill 88 African Americans, including 14 by beheading. The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist community.

PZ Myers has pointed out on Pharyngula that no where in this discussion is the word Terrorist being used. This is obviously because these are white boys, and the intended victims are all African Americans. We don't call that terrorism in America. We call it business as usual. Terrorism is when brown or brownish people attack white people, or in some cases, just look at them funny.

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There have been a whole bunch of stories written about the idiot skinheads who were busted for a ludicrous plot to kill a whole bunch of black people, including Barack Obama: the AP version, the Washington Post, the New York Times. They're all pretty similar, and they're all notable for one thing:…

Children. Small children in big bodies. Dangerous. And so fucking dumb. Caught. No surprise.

If you would do evil to your neighbor don't do it like these boys.

By Crudely Wrott (not verified) on 27 Oct 2008 #permalink

@ Crudely Wrott

If you would do evil to your neighbor, don't.

There, I fixed that for you. You're welcome.

Any chance we'll see some teary eyed woman crying for her 'baby' in jail. I can already hear the quotes: "He's just misunderstood." "He don't mean no harm."

If you raise people with hate, it makes no difference if you go to church, pray, tithe or whatever, they still hate. I don't believe they were born to hate, just molded to that by their loving parents and family.

A big grateful sigh they were also stupid.

I would go a step further and state that it is not just because they are white and targeted blacks, but it is because they are right wing ideologues that they are not called terrorists.

The U.S. has a long history of funding and arming right wing terrorists, but we always call them "Freedom Fighters". And as Carlin noted: a firefighter fights fires, so what does a freedom fighter fight?

Oh, man, he looks eerily like a really good friend of mine. Freaky.

Yup, all better. I'll bet he's sorry for that cute tat on his shoulder too. That'll be a hit in prison.

R: Even the racial patterning of who says what is terrorism would have to pale in comparison to T.M.

Yeah--wouldn't you know it, the guys name is Cowart...f@cking coward.

RevMatt: The Southern Poverty Law Center, KlanWatch, and the FBI all routinely investigate these guys, and call them "domestic terorists.'The main difference here seems to be that, unlike the many, many incidents where random violence is directed from blacks to whites, these young, impressionable bozo's weren't necessarily members of a group of avowed racists. It would be like equating the random Palestinian who stabs a random person in a subway in Israel with Hezbollah--conflating organized racism and terrorism with localized hillbilly sentiment.

Greg:"these are white boys, and the intended victims are all African Americans. We don't call that terrorism in America"
You should go to a downtown club on any Fr-Sat night and watch the racial politics that have developed since the 1960's enshrinement of blacks as the only picked on minority. Every Asian group in America is warred upon by the 'new white', which is black. Notice how rapidly we jump on the idea of 'intended victims'? Thought crime is just around the corner...

Reminds me of the time when 4 young black males shot me with a .357, calling me a 'whiteboy,' and a "stoopid white motherfucker"...after defending my best friend from a race attack(he is black)

Is anyone keeping stats out there on how many times incidents of black to white violence include racial epithets directed at whites or others( the forbidden statistic and data collection area of all academia)? Sometimes, turning the tables reveals all the gum stuck underneath--in this case, black liberation comes with a price tag of tomorrows unchecked, institutionalized racism, via the academic blind eye.

By the real Hussein (not verified) on 29 Oct 2008 #permalink

Real: I don't think the racial nature of the attack or planned attack is what makes something terrorism or not. Hate crime would be different from terrorism.

Greg: What is your standard for declaring s/th as terrorism?

The McCain Rally video you posted today definitely has the elements of terroristic threats in it, as McCain supporters shout "bomb Obama", and they are doing it in a context of organized group activity, it is directed at others (Obama supporters) and it contains the element of violent intimidation, hence it could be terrorism.

I agree with you that these boys actions constitute the elements of a potential hate crime, and should be treated as such. But what is the leap that we take when we 1) adopt the labeling paradigms of the other side ( fascists and Republicans likening speech, thought and words to terrorism) 2) define words as actions?

These skinhead bozos are just one or two generations away from the black klan preaching the black jesus( which you can see every week down on Nicollet mall)--and they exist in a generation where 'white slavery'--the targeted, intergenerational, predatory act of coercing and 'schooling' white women to be strippers and prostitutes-- is still going on, but is never spoken of for what it is.

All in all, it looks to me like a lopsided slippery slope( the C word morphing into the T word) to define these little teenaged Nazi embellished homphobes as terrorists ala Hezbollah ( who I might add is actually a democratically elected majority party in Palestine) David Duke et al, or the Israeli Mossad for that matter.

Most gangs and racist org's would call them what they are: wannabe's, patches, or fish.

By the real Hussein (not verified) on 30 Oct 2008 #permalink

Or, put another way, what these guys did--planned to do, maybe--was, as my favorite blog buddy "Four Year Old Me" might say was to:

"tak[e] what I [they] sensed around me [them], but did not understand, to the next step. But the next step was too far. I took an issue that was probably small, or at least, already settled, misunderstood it, dressed it up in my mind, extended it's life and expanded its import, and then went and [talked about] made a brick bomb and [angrily, in teenage projection laden angst, speculated that they could]threw it at someone."

By the real Husse… (not verified) on 30 Oct 2008 #permalink

I really do not know how to define terrorism except to admit that the concept is political. Terrorism is political violence of a sort, and the labeling of something as terroristic is a political act. How to operationalize that, I don't know.

The modern meaning of terrorism has shifted as well to mean unconscionable crime for which one must be killed even if you are not guilty. I have a bit of a problem with that.

Gotcha. Me too, which is why I hesitate to label youthful crime and violence as "terrorism", even if it is thought up by random non-gang associated skinhead scum.

I hesitate to adopt the right wing construct of terrorism because the co-option of language that goes on right to left an back again has a debilitating effect on social discourse, which is fully capable of utilizing other words and constructs.

I have a problem with that whole branding and labeling of terrorists if for no other reason than that I knew a guy who has languished in prison for four years without a trial because he taught English to 'terrorists' and 'jihadists' in Afghanistan. One day the Taliban was America's friend( when fighting Russians) the next it is the enemy ( when fighting against American imperialism.)

Most of these guys called terrorists are in actuality mentally ill, or in some state of PTSD induced by s/th--if only poverty, or predatory capitalist incursions into their lives and homes.

By the real Himmler (not verified) on 30 Oct 2008 #permalink

Better luck next time