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Alleged Giffords Shooter Shares Currency Plot Obsession with Anti-Abortion Killer
Although he was found competent to stand trial, there was substantial evidence that Salvi was mentally unbalanced and obsessed with conspiracy theories. Salvi later committed suicide while serving a life sentence. Shortly after his arrest Salvi released a handwritten note alleging conspiracies of freemasons, conspiracies to manipulate paper currency, and conspiracies against Catholics. He talked about the Vatican printing its own currency and claimed a vast conspiracy of the Ku Klux Klan, the Freemasons, and the Mob.
Most of the news coverage of Salvi portrayed him as a confused person making nonsensical statements alleging conspiracies. In fact, almost all of Salvi's conspiratorial statements echo scapegoating theories long circulated by a specific sector of right wing anti-abortion organizations active in the Boston area and nationwide. Some of these aggressive anti-abortion groups call abortion providers evil and claim to be fighting an "abortion Holocaust." A few of these anti-abortion militants suggest that abortion providers deserve death.
It is still difficult for many people to see the political side of the Salvi case. There is still a widespread lack of knowledge about the beliefs of the right wing conspiracist subculture-and there is still an attitude of denial that groups promoting conspiratorial worldviews have growing influence in our political system.
More here: John Salvi, Abortion Clinic Violence, and Catholic Right Conspiracism: The Politics of John Salvi's Conspiracy Theories.
Jared Lee Loughner warned about the "current treasonous laws," and stated he would not "pay debt with a currency that's not backed by gold and silver!." He said he could not "trust the current government because of" Constitutional "ratifications; adding that the "government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people controlling grammar (sic)."
In recent years some conspiracy theorists on the political right and left have spread similar money plot theories, although they deny any lineage back to historic antisemitic roots. Instead they point to the Populist Party battle over the coinage of silver and gold in the late 1800s, popularized in the book and movie, the Wizard of Oz. Some proponents of the idea of a currency plot in the late 1800s and early 1900s, however, routinely used antisemitic references to Jewish bankers. The obsession with manipulation of currency by secret Jewish plots traces back to the hoax document The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and antisemitic writings by Father Denis Fahey, an adviser to 1930s radio demagogue Father Coughlin, a fascist and an antisemite.
The writings of Jared Lee Loughner are an odd jumble of right-wing Patriot and anti-Federal Reserve themes mixed with rhetoric similar to that from people who are mentally unbalanced. It is too early to tell where this story will lead. It is clear, though, that aggressive right-wing rhetoric targeting Democrats as treasonous encourages some unstable people to act out in aggression or violence. This was the warning of my report Toxic to Democracy: Conspiracy Theories, Demonization, and Scapegoating, published in June 2009.
As I wrote in Toxic to Democracy:
The right-wing demagogues are not legally culpable for the violence and assassinations, but they must share some moral culpability.
In the six months following the inauguration of Barack Obama there were at least nine murders by men and women who intersected with ideologies of White Supremacy, xenophobia, and antisemitism. More here: http://www.publiceye.org/right_wing_populism/huffposts.html Across America there is a rising crescendo of diverse voices clamoring for a public discussion of the connection between demonizing rhetoric by high profile pundits and politicians and the rash of violent attacks by individuals enmeshed in bigotry and conspiracy theories. = = = = = More about right-wing conspiracy theories circulating in the Tea Party milieu targeting President Obama, liberals, leftists, and Democrats can be founf here:
Reframing Resentments in the Tea Party Movement: How Right-Wing Populists use Demonization, Scapegoating, & Conspiracy Theories to Justify Apocalyptic Aggression, UC Berkeley conference paper.
'The Manchurian President': Chicago's Commie Liberal Puppet: The paranoid style of American politics is alive and well. In These Times. Right-Wing Populism & Conspiracism and the Tea Party movement. = = = = Updated Posts: Possible Racist and Anti-Immigrant Tie to Alleged Arizona Assassin The Becking of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords = = = =Excerpts from the posted writings by Jared Lee Loughner:
Alleged Giffords Shooter Shares Currency Plot Obsession with Anti-Abortion Killer | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 hidden)
Alleged Giffords Shooter Shares Currency Plot Obsession with Anti-Abortion Killer | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 hidden)
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