Dave Neiwert wants to know why national news media aren’t jumping all over the story of an Ohio man named Mark Campano who turned his apartment into a bomb factory.
Police found 30 completed pipe bombs in his apartment along with components to make more, plus 17 guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
Campano is in an Akron hospital with injuries received when one of the bombs exploded.
Neighbors called Campano an anti-government whackjob, so it’s not much of a leap to suspect Campano might have been planning domestic terrorism. But you know the drill — terrorists don’t make the news unless they’re named Mohammed.
The predictably stupid R.S. McCain writes about this incident, titling his blog post “Incompetent dopehead pipe-bomber as dangerous as al-Qaeda, lefty implies.” That wasn’t Dave’s point, but let’s run with it.
Who is more dangerous — Mark Campano, a whackjob with an apartment full of real pipe bombs and guns, or —
- Iyman Faris, the loser who planned to take apart the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch;
- The conspirators planning to bomb the Sears Tower, who never managed to get their hands on bombs or create a workable plan.
- Jose Padilla, the so-called “dirty bomber,” who didn’t actually have any bombs, dirty or otherwise, and was not thought to be bright enough to make one.
- The five genius pizza delivery guys who planned to attack Fort Dix
- The other geniuses who planned to blow up JFK airport through a plot that was never operational and which most experts said would never have worked.
Each of those cases were taken very seriously, and the plotters pretty much were all convicted of something. But a guy with 30 pipebombs doesn’t need to be taken seriously, according to R.S. McCain. To R.S., a right-wing whackjob with thirty real pipebombs is less dangerous than jihadist whackjobs with lots of non-operational plots but no bombs.
Note to R.S.M., if he drops by here: I was in lower Manhattan on 9/11, so don’t you dare tell me I don’t understand terrorism or appreciate how awful it is. I suspect I appreciate how awful it is better than you do. That’s why I take someone with pipe bombs very seriously.
FTFY.
If this guy was a Democrat planning to attack Republican targets, he’d be all over the news. He’s getting a free pass not just because he’s white but also because he’s on the Republican half of the political spectrum.
Consider it an extreme case of IOKIYAR.
…the equation is simple: if your name is John S. McCain, there’s a 2 in 3 chance that you would at some point have been called “Admiral” and a 1 in 3 chance that your otherwise undistinguished military career would result in an undeserved reputation as an “expert” in the application of military force. If you’re not a “John S.” McCain, you’re just some winger with a blog and a fundamentally flawed (and surprisingly anti-American) understanding of what the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Murrah Federal Buliding in Oklahoma City actually meant to those of us who really appreciate what the phrase “home-grown terrorist” truly means…
whereas this dopehead loser guy would be connected to . . . ?
Michelle Malkin! Sean Hannity! Fox News!
How did knuckle head McCain arrive at that conclusion? Either he’s got some serious reading comprehension deficiencies or he’s programmed with a hive mentality geared for the attack mode at the mention of Malkin, Hannity, or Fox when his perception is not one of adulation. Sic em, boy!
It’s a problem with the universe, e.g., we live in a different one than RSM. Where you and I would say “right-wing whackjob domestic terrorist,” RSM and other wingers would say “patriot fighting the good fight against liberal government.” He’s certainly not a terrorist – in Bush terms, terrorist=bad, and patriot=good. So he’s a good guy. And black is white, and up is down. There are totally different rules at play in their universe.
I pointed out to a group of wingnuts a comment made recently by Pat Robertson on the subject of Islam:
“So you are dealing with not a religion. You’re dealing with a political system. And I think we should treat it as such and treat its adherences as such as we would members of the Communist Party or members of some fascist group.”
My point was that it’s dangerous and wrong to indict the Moslem religion for the crimes of a radical few. And I pointed out that almost a quarter of global population IS Moslem. If they were all radical or radicalized the annual death toll would be in the millions. This is a sample of the responses.
“Islam is Hell and gone from a religion of Peace, in fact, it is much more than a religeous philiosphy, it is a construct for an entire substructure for a society, and how they feel we should all conduct ourselves, not just how we pray and to whom we pray. If you want to join the groupe, or subjugate yourself to them as an un-clean lower class, they are cool with that, if not, they can legally kill you.”
“…..and they are out-breeding Christians, thanks progressive Europeans and dumbasses like you. READ THE FUCKING QUORAN shit for brains, there is NO PLACE FOR YOU IF YOU AIN’T a believer or a subject. READ THE FUCKING BOOK.
JEEZ. ”
The hardcore Christian wingnuts are back in Crusader mode, ready to drag the US into a Holy War which was has been neglected for 1600 years. This thinking is NOT rare and remote, though the public explicit expression of it is. A previous post by a rightie claimed that the military ran on a just and Christian honor system. If that means the military is infected with the Pat Robertson outlook, we should all be afraid of what is being done in the name of the USA in Iraq & Afghanistan.
Only if you take my previous statements into account can you understand in context why a domestic terrorist is of no concern to teabaggers and the media. And it needs to become again an underlying tenet of incarcaration & prosecution that it’s what you did (or were able and in the process of doing) that you will be held accountable for in court. If you can’t be tried,, you won’t be held. And if you can be charged, it will be for what you did (or intended) NOT whether you were motivated by a religion that some are in abject terror of. The qualities of Justice and Fear are in philisopical opposition and our legal system becomes the most tragic victim of terrorism when paranoia colors the prosecution of a crime. The lack of coverage of a domestic terrorist illustrates the media obsession with any hint of a story of Islamic terrorism. This speaks volumes about where this society is.
Hey – leave Rupert Murdoch’s suicide bombers alone!!! Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and all the rest of the reich wing shoutfest has been whipping them into a frenzy since last November and they’ve almost reached wingnut critical mass. P.S. – in THIS context I’m not sure they don’t consider them freedom fighters. They want their country back! As curmudgeon said “IOKIYAR”
I love this comment: “The Obama administration is an enemy of the Jews and the worst regime there ever was for the State of Israel,†Wasn’t there a regime sometime in the 30’s that was REALLY the biggest enemy of the Jews ever? Let me think-began with an N there was a Z in there somewhere-ended with an I. I’m sure it’ll come back to me – it was on all the Tea Party signs this summer. I guess we don’t have to wonder what party AIPAC donates to lately.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/30/likud-obama-enemy-jews/