Since 2008, there was been a wave of right-wing and racist attacks and plots planning violence. For some reasons, the corporate media seems unable to detect a pattern. With the help of David Neiwert and Sara Robinson I have compiled a selected chronology of right-wing and racist violence in the US since 2008.

In April of 2009 then Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano backed off of a report on right-wing “extremism” leaked to the press. According to the Washington Post:

The report drew sharp criticism from Republican lawmakers, conservatives and veterans groups, who said it unfairly targeted returning military veterans and gun rights advocates without citing specific threats. The report said the return of military veterans facing challenges with reintegrating into their communities "could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks."

I was critical of the report at the time, not because it mentioned veterans, but because it conflated right-wing ideas and speech with right-wing illegal acts and the potential for violence and terrorism. As a vice president of the Defending Dissent Foundation, I found that unacceptable.

Over a decade ago, however, I was researching how White supermacists and neonazis were using the military as a recruiting ground and training camp. I personally briefed Senator Carol Mosley Braun (D-IL) on the subject in the 1990s during one of her visits to Boston. So that part of the report about veterans was actually accurate. As Think Progress pointed out, at the time right-wing pundits led a campaign to have the federal government back away from pursuing domestic terrorism from the political right:

...a Department of Homeland Security report about the rising radicalization of “rightwing extremists” was leaked. The right wing was immediately incensed, viewing the report on radical “extremists” as an attack on “conservatives.” MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, for example, tried to suggest it was a report about Republican “loyalists.”

However, this morning, Fox News’s Catherine Herridge revealed that the report, along with an earlier report on radicalized left-wing groups, was actually “requested by the Bush administration” but not completed until recently:

HERRIDGE: Well this is an element of the story which has largely gone unreported. One looks at right-wing groups, as you mentioned. And a second is on left-wing groups. Significantly, both were requested by the Bush administration but not finished until President Bush left office.

Herridge’s reporting undermines her network’s own “reporting” over the past 24 hours. Since news of the DHS assessment broke yesterday, Fox anchors and guests have been seizing upon the report as evidence that the administration is trying to intimidate tea party goers or “stifle speech”

In this context, then, it is important to not let authorities and right-wing demagogues start calling this a "hate crime" if they do that so as to stop calling it an act of "domestic terrorism." This is a politicized word game in which the federal government targets for "domestic terrorism" investigations environmentalists, animal rights activists, and anarchists. Meanwhile the threat of violence and actual violent incidents from right-wing fanatics is glossed over. What happened at the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin is both a "hate crime" and an act of "domestic terrorism."

My explanation of "lone wolf" or "leaderless resistance" and the media rush to call people “crazy” rather than inspect racist motives: "Understanding the Colorado Shootings: Terrorism, Politics, Mental Illness and the Superhero Complex."

Another resource is my chart of "Hate Crimes" incidents (I prefer "ethnoviolence") in the US from 1995-2010: "Ethnoviolence in the United States 1995-2010: a chart for reference."

Meanwhile, noted Islamophobes Geller and Spencer are in the midst of building a “worldwide counter jihad alliance,” and Newt Gingrich continues to spread his histrionic conspiracy theories about the threat of Sharia Law on national television.

I have an article in the current issue of Extra! from Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting on the similar construction of threat between historic antisemitic conspiracy theories and current Islamophobic conspiracy theories: "Islamophobia, Antisemitism and the Demonized ‘Other’," in which I dissect how the parallels among bigotries reflect the conspiratorial mindset. Key is the idea that time is running out and there is a need to act first to block the evil plans of the subversive conspiracy against the common good. An interview given by Wade Michael Page reflects this idea of the need for apocalyptic aggression. I have written about the role of right-wing conspiracy theories inciting violence against scapegoats, most recently in:

Chip Berlet. 2011. “Protocols to the Left, Protocols to the Right: Conspiracism in American Political Discourse at the Turn of the Second Millennium.” In Richard Landes and Steven Katz, The Paranoid Apocalypse: A Hundred-year Retrospective on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. New York: New York Univ. Press.

_______. 2010. “The Roots of Anti-Obama Rhetoric.” In Donald Cunnigen, Marino A. Bruce, eds. Race in the Age of Obama, Vol.16, Research in Race and Ethnic Relations, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.