What possessed Jared Lee Loughner to kill? Pt1

WHAT HAPPENED

On Saturday, 8th January 2011, Jared Lee Loughner, 22, brandished a semiautomatic weapon and fired at Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords in the head at a busy supermarket in Tucson, Arizona. Arizona’s chief federal judge and five others were fatally shot, including nine year old Christiana Greene, who had recently been elected to the student council and developed an interest in government, 30-year old Giffords’ assistant, Gabe Zimmerman, and US District Judge John Roll, who stopped to see Giffords on the way from Mass, 76-year-old Dorothy Murray, 76-year-old Dorwin Stoddard, and 79-year-old Phyllis Scheck. Two people tackled the gunman and disarmed him. Thirteen people, including Gifford, were wounded.

Giffords is a moderate Democrat who won the re-election in November against a conservative who is aligned with the Tea Party and sought to defeat her because of her support of the health care reform law. Giffords had recently received numerous threats and her Tucson office was vandalised, the glass door and side window being shot or kicked in. The threats pertained to the massive health care bill that Giffords and other Democrats enacted much to the chagrin of the Republicans.

IS THE TEA PARTY TO BLAME?

Almost immediately after the tragedy, accusation abounded that the gun man was a right wing extremist. The New York Times and MSNBC, supported by statistic blogs like the Huffington Post and the Daily Kos, blamed the events on Tea Partiers and the use of “violent right-wing rhetoric”. The Democrats, too, and allies of the corporate media, were eager to link the Tea Party and SarahPalin with the shootings as they work on gun control legislation and a bill that can make criticism of the government a form of hate speech.

Jacob Weisberg posted a blog for Slate magazine on January 10th, stating that the Tea Party movement made it more probable that a deranged person such as Loughner would react in such a violent manner. After all, the Tea Party promotes the right to bear arms to keep despotism in check and the National Rifle Association maintains the position that any attempt to regulate the ownership of firearms is a violation of the constitutional rights of citizens. So it is because of the lax gun laws and the Tea Party that were responsible for the shootings, according to Weisberg.

Josh Rosenau from Thoughts from Kansas wrote:

“Given the violent rhetoric directed at Giffords, though, it isn’t unreasonable to look past Loughner himself to find some external factors that might have given his rage direction. It’s entirely possible that violent rhetoric from Glen Beck or Sarah Palin influenced Loughner without Beck or Palin having intended any such thing. But research described by John Sides at The Monkey Cage suggests that it isn’t enough to say “we didn’t mean it.” Experiments by Nathan Kalmoe, for instance, show that “even mild violent language increases support for political violence among citizens with aggressive predispositions, especially among young adults.”

Arizona Sheriff Clarence Dunnik also used the opportunity to suggest that Jared Loughner was motivated by “irresponsible political rhetoric of conservatives.”

However, despite the media’s attempts to portray Loughner as someone who snapped because of political rhetoric, the majority of the Democrats conceded that “violent political rhetoric” were not to blame for the actions of Loughner. The general public seem to agree, too. CBS conducted a nationwide poll and reported that "57 percent of respondents said the harsh political tone had nothing to do with the shooting, compared to 32 percent who felt it did." 69% of Republican, 49 % of Democrats and 56% Independents believed that rhetoric was not blame while 19% of Republicans believed it played a part while 42% of Democrats and 33% of Independents believed it did.

In fact, it has emerged that Loughner wasn’t particularly affiliated with any political group. He didn’t favour any specific parties or attend rallies or descend into any political rants, said his friend, Bryce Tierney. Loughner didn’t even vote in 2010 but was registered as an independent in 2006. Despite this, a school counsellor said that Loughner had “extreme political views.”

The political rhetoric theory had to be abandoned because it had been revealed that he read Communist Manifesto which associated himself with the left.

It is most curious how the media has portrayed Loughner. It in fact, he remarkably fits the description of “terrorist” according to the Phoenix FBI flyer that was issued in 1997 under the Clinton administration outlying the Joint Terrorism Task Force program. If somebody fits the description of what is outlined below, the Joint Terrorism Task Force should be contacted:

http://www.keepandbeararms.com/images/FBI-MCSOTerroristFlyer-Front.jpg

http://www.keepandbeararms.com/images/FBI-MCSOTerroristFlyer-Back.jpg

According to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, a terrorist can be defined as:

Right wing extremists:

“Defenders” of the US Constitution against federal government and the UN (Super Patriots)

• Groups of individuals engaged in para-military training.

Loughner once stated that he would not pay a debt without it being backed by gold or silver.

The Guardian quoted Mark Potok, who directs research on hate groups for the Southern Poverty Law Center was reported as saying:

“That idea is linked closely to the belief among militia supporters that the Federal Reserve is a completely private entity engaged in ripping off the American people,”

According to the ADL (Anti Defamation League), the militia movement is defined as:

“The militia movement is a relatively new right-wing extremist movement consisting of armed paramilitary groups, both formal and informal, with an anti-government, conspiracy-oriented ideology. Militia groups began to form not long after the deadly standoff at Waco, Texas, in 1993; by the spring of 1995, they had spread to almost every state. Many members of militia groups have been arrested since then, usually on weapons, explosives and conspiracy charges. Although the militia movement has declined in strength from its peak in early 1996, it remains an active movement, especially in the Midwest, and continues to cause a number of problems for law enforcement and the communities in which militia groups are active.”

Loughner has also expressed anti government sentiments. According to the Guardian, Loughner’s rantings are reminiscent of the campaigning of the Tea Party when he accused Washington of mind control and brainwashing. He said on one of his videos: "Don't trust the government, listener!" He is also a staunch defender of the US constitution and suggests the federal government is against it. He said, “You don't have to accept the federalist laws. Read the United States of America constitution to apprehend all of the current treasonous laws."

He referred to people calling him a terrorist and wrote "a terrorist is a person who employs terror or terrorism, especially as a political weapon."

Hate groups:

 

· Skinheads

 

The most recognised picture of Loughner is that of the one where he is bald.

 

· White nationalists:

 

· KKK

According to the New York Times, law officials suspected that Loughner may have been influenced by material such as the American Renaissance, a conservative magazine that brands itself as: “America’s premiere publication of racial-realist thought.”

“We think that white Americans have an entirely legitimate reason to want to remain a majority in the United States because when a neighborhood or a school or an organization changes in demographics and becomes majority black or Hispanic, it is no longer the same institution or neighborhood,” said Jared Taylor, its editor.

So it is obvious that the media is trying to insinuate Loughner is a white nationalist and obviously has white supremist views, like the KKK.

However, the editor, Mr Taylor, claimed he has a subscriber list going back 20 years ago and lists of those who attended conferences since 1994 but no record of Loughner was found.

 

Left wing extremists

 

· Political motivation is usually Marxist/Lenin philosophy.

 

Considering it was discovered that Loughner liked the “Communist Manifesto”, the claim he was a right winger is just plain bogus.

The irony is that David Rockefeller was quoted in the New York Times as saying:

“Whatever the price of the Chinese Revolution, it has obviously succeeded not only in producing more efficient and dedicated administration, but also in fostering high morale and community of purpose. The social experiment in China under Chairman Mao’s leadership is one of the most important and successful in human history,” David Rockefeller told the New York Times.

Hmmm…how much different is Marxism from Maoism?

 

Single Issue terrorists:

 

· Violent anti-abortion extremism

 

The Guardian reported that a student said that Loughner accused another female student of being a terrorist for reading a poem about abortion.

 

· Lone individuals

 

The FBI director, Robert S Mueller III, said that the possible links to be extremist groups would be investigated:

“The ubiquitous nature of the Internet means that not only threats but also hate speech and other inciteful speech is much more readily available to individuals than quite clearly it was 8 or 10 or 15 years ago,” Mr. Mueller said. “That absolutely presents a challenge for us, particularly when it results in what would be lone wolves or lone offenders undertaking attacks.”

 

· Animal rights

 

It had been reported that Loughner worked as a volunteer at the Pima Animal Care Center where he walked the dogs and cleaned the cages.

There is a very cunning tactic used to depict Jared Lee Loughner as a conspiracy theorist. Loughner was deemed to be obsessed with the use of grammar and language and the misuse of it.

“The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar,” Mr. Loughner said in a video. He also defiantly asserted, “You control your English grammar structure.”

It has been pointed at that David Wynn Miller, a welder from Milwaukee, deeming himself as a “Plenipotentiary judge” shared this view and the Southern Poverty Law Center considers Miller to be a conspiracy theorist whose positions have been adopted by militias in general.

“He’s probably been on my Web site, which has been up for about 11 years,” Mr. Miller said. “The government does control the schools, and the schools determine the grammar and language we use. And then it is all reinforced by newspapers, magazines, TV, radio and everything we do in society.”

The connection is clear. The media, obviously instructed by the government, is insinuating that conspiracy theorists are actually terrorists and that people should see them as potential killers like Loughner. The father of a high school friend of Loughner reported that Loughner watched the film Loose Change, a 9-11 documentary exposing it as an inside job, the AP reported. How is this piece of information relevant? It is the most stupid move to insinuate that believing 9-11 was an inside job would tip someone over the edge and that only mentally ill people would believe it. Yet subconsciously, the public will absorb this to be true.

Conspiracy theorists are deemed a threat to the Global Elite. The Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget and regulation czar of Barrack Obama, Cass R Sunstein, wrote an essay about conspiracy theories along with Adrian Vermeule. Here is an excerpt:

Conspiracy Theories

Abstract:

”Many millions of people hold conspiracy theories; they believe that powerful people have worked together in order to withhold the truth about some important practice or some terrible event. A recent example is the belief, widespread in some parts of the world, that the attacks of 9/11 were carried out not by Al Qaeda, but by Israel or the United States. Those who subscribe to conspiracy theories may create serious risks, including risks of violence, and the existence of such theories raises significant challenges for policy and law. The first challenge is to understand the mechanisms by which conspiracy theories prosper; the second challenge is to understand how such theories might be undermined. Such theories typically spread as a result of identifiable cognitive blunders, operating in conjunction with informational and reputational influences. A distinctive feature of conspiracy theories is their self-sealing quality. Conspiracy theorists are not likely to be persuaded by an attempt to dispel their theories; they may even characterize that very attempt as further proof of the conspiracy. Because those who hold conspiracy theories typically suffer from a crippled epistemology, in accordance with which it is rational to hold such theories, the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups. Various policy dilemmas, such as the question whether it is better for government to rebut conspiracy theories or to ignore them, are explored in this light.”

One section posed the question of “What can government do about conspiracy theories?

"We can readily imagine a series of possible responses. (1) Government might ban conspiracy theorizing. (2) Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories. (3) Government might itself engage in counter speech, marshalling arguments to discredit conspiracy theories. (4) Government might formally hire credible private parties to engage encounter speech. (5) Government might engage in informal communication with such parties, encouraging them to help. Each instrument has a distinctive set of potential effects, or costs and benefits, and each will have a place under imaginable conditions.

However, our main policy idea is that government should engage in cognitive infiltration of the groups that produce conspiracy theories, which involves a mix of (3), (4) and (5).

Ban conspiracy theorising? In the light of the Tucson shootings, there have been calls to censor certain forms of speech and outlaw criticism of public officials. Democrat Representative, Jim Clyburn, has called for the Fairness Doctrine to be imposed by the government on talk radio. Media Matters CEO, David Brock, has asked Rupert Murdoch to restrict Glen Beck in his speech and Sarah Palin, according to the Politico.

The Fairness Doctrine was the codified regulation of 1949 Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that required broadcasters to “afford reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views of public importance." It was overturned in 1987 because it was determined that it failed to allow the discussion of more controversial issues and there were concerns that it was a violation of the First Amendment free speech principles. There were also fears that random investigations and warnings would discourage broadcasters because FCC bureaucrats might accuse them of “unbalanced views”.

Continued in Part 2.....Was Loughner mentally ill?