if you'd like to know who this is . . .

[realthog]

. . . it's nine-year-old Brisenia Flores, who the other night was shot dead in her bed in Arivaca, Arizona, by anti-immigration vigilantes anxious to eliminate witnesses to their murder of her father and (as they thought) of her mother.

You'll recall the histrionic outrage purveyed by our rightist bloviators a few weeks ago when a Department of Homeland Security report (commissioned under the Bush Administration) indicated there was a serious threat of domestic terrorism from extremist groups on the far right. While clearly the reference was to neo-Nazis, racial supremacists and all their loathsome ilk, the rightist punditocracy and political establishment chose to emasculate the report's impact by claiming it represented a leftist attack on conservatives.

Net result: not much was done.

It would be (almost certainly) ridiculous to suggest that Brisenia Flores paid the price for that spin campaign, but unless our conservative commentators, in or out of Congress, begin to take their human responsibilities a bit more seriously there are going to be lots of other Brisenia Floreses.

Comments

[avengangle.livejournal.com]

?!?!?

!!!!!

There are no words.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

I know. Just tears, really.

[sarcobatus.livejournal.com]

Tragic. I hope the law found these bastards.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"I hope the law found these bastards."

It has "suspects" in the form of vigilante fascist Shawna Forde and two others. But it's doing nothing about the hatemongers in the media whose outpourings serve to validate (in the thugs' minds) these grotesque crimes. No one's feeling the collar yet of, say, anti-immigrant cheerleader Lou Dobbs.

I've gotta confess: when I read about the other two high-profile rightwing-terrorist murders since May 31 my heart felt sick that there could be human beings of such a depraved status that they thought this was a reasonable way to behave, and I felt for the families of the murdered men, and all the usual so-forths; but when I saw the photo of young Brisenia this evening I just about burst into tears.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Remember, it is not the fault of right-wing bloviators when people take them seriously and act to "defend" their country or "race" from the bogeymen under the bed. When little girls are shot dead so they won't be witnesses to these "patriotic crimes", it certainly isn't Jim Wootten's fault, or Neal Boortz's, or Michelle Malkin's, or Bill O'Reilly's, or any of the other semi-anthropoid dancers on the grave of civility who've been proclaiming that society is in danger, and something must be done about it.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Your parody of the hatemongering bloviators' claim is all too accurate -- besides, they're merely exercising their rights of free speech, aren't they?

In 1930s Germany, Josef Goebbels exercised his right of free speech.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Nobody else could speak when Herr Doktor Goebbels spoke. But you've got the analogy wrong. Not Goebbels, but Streicher.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Vicheffer.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

You should look up Streicher at some point. A lot of the stuff you can find on neo-Nazi web sites today is drawn from what he published in Der Stürmer; on the scale of evil and nasty it really does go up to eleven.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"You should look up Streicher at some point."

I have. I read a fair amount about him while working on Corrupted Science.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

I should have recalled that, having read said book.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

That is beyond appalling. I hope her murderers are caught and spend the rest of their lives in prison.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

They have the "suspects" in custody. Me, I'd like it if those who quite consciously foment the hatred that drives these atavists were likewise rapped.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

It's incitement to racial hatred, surely? (Which is a crime in the UK, at least.) I'm so with you on this.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"It's incitement to racial hatred, surely? (Which is a crime in the UK, at least.)"

But it's a lot less constrained by law here, alas, because people wield the right-to-freedom-of-speech argument -- failing to recognize that rights inevitably bring responsibilities with them, and that what they're actually doing is abrogating those responsibilities and thereby the right by abusing the freedom.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Bah. Sometimes I do not get the US at all.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"Sometimes I do not get the US at all."

Me likewise. And I live here. But a lot of it makes more sense if you regard the noisy -- and, alas, disproportionately influential -- minority as being not adults but spoilt toddlers.

"If you don' le' me keep my roomful of assault rifles I'll hold my breath an' scream."

[realthog.livejournal.com]

I was planning to add the link -- you beat me to it!