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The Hutaree Militia and Why Today’s Wingnuts Are Right Wing
Newsweek ^ | Tuesday, March 30, 2010 | Eve Conant

Posted on 03/31/2010 9:52:13 AM PDT by presidio9

This Week in Progressive Media

Who is more of a threat, left-wing crazies or right-wing crazies?

For its coverage of the Hutaree Militia story, Firedoglake.com carries Rachel Maddow’s extensive reporting of the FBI infiltration and capture of the members of the violent Christian militia group. Maddow tries to gauge the seriousness of their threat, describing the oddly named militia as a “strange combination of absurd and scary” with names “out of a Calvin and Hobbes strip” but spends 10 minutes exploring who they are and the charges against them. Are they representative of other right-wing groups? A guest on her show, reporter Ed Brayton of the Michigan Messenger Web site, describes them as very dangerous but also so fringe that they constitute “the wingnut’s wingnuts.”

The question of who is worse, right-wing or left-wing radicals, and how to label radicals cropped up again most recently when pundits raced to describe recent Pentagon shooter John Patrick Bedell as right wing and conservatives lashed back that he was left wing. In a Washington Post op-ed, Eugene Robinson argues that for the past few decades the most serious threat of domestic terrorism has come from those who draw inspiration and rhetoric from the far right.

“It is disingenuous for mainstream purveyors of incendiary far-right rhetoric to dismiss groups such as the Hutaree by saying that there are ‘crazies on both sides.’ This simply is not true. There was a time when the far left was a spawning ground for political violence. The first big story I covered was the San Francisco trial of heiress Patricia Hearst, who had been kidnapped and eventually co-opted by the Symbionese Liberation Army—a far-left group whose philosophy was as apocalyptic and incoherent as that of the Hutaree. There are aging radicals in Cuba

(Excerpt) Read more at blog.newsweek.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2010electionbias; enemedia; fearmongering; hutaree; liberalmedia; libertarianmilitias; msm; obamedia; partisanwitchhunt; smearcampaign; wot
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1 posted on 03/31/2010 9:52:13 AM PDT by presidio9
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To: presidio9
Who is more of a threat, left-wing crazies or right-wing crazies?

By far the left wing crazies. WTO riots, convention riots, Copenhagen riots to name just a few. Name a right wing riot.

2 posted on 03/31/2010 9:53:58 AM PDT by highlander_UW (Happiness doesn't come from owning something; it comes from being a part of something)
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To: presidio9

Why should Eugene’s POV surprise anyone? For Stalin, the enemies were all on the right, too.


3 posted on 03/31/2010 9:55:11 AM PDT by skeeter
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To: highlander_UW
By far the left wing crazies. WTO riots, convention riots, Copenhagen riots to name just a few. Name a right wing riot.

Not to mention the fact that if you go back in history and research evey presidential assassin, all of them were Democrat/Anarchist/left wing nut jobs, except John Hinkley who was just a mental case in the clinical sense.

4 posted on 03/31/2010 9:57:09 AM PDT by Tamar1973 (Freedom of the Press?! I need Freedom FROM THE PRESS!)
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To: presidio9

5 posted on 03/31/2010 9:57:15 AM PDT by FreeAtlanta (Hey, Barack "Hubris" Obama, $10 is all it would take, why spend millions to cover it up?)
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To: highlander_UW

Also, I can't remember the last time someone on the right showed up at a polling center with a weapon, presumably to intimidate other voters.

6 posted on 03/31/2010 9:57:21 AM PDT by presidio9 (Islam is as Islam does)
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To: presidio9
Actually Eugene Robinson, you are correct there is no equivalence between right-wing and left-wing wingnuts.

The Left has far more of them and they are far more violent. Most of the time, they enshrine them in governments.

cf. Che Guevara, Mao, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Fidel, Assad, etc. etc.

Do your homework, you race-baiting ignoramus!


7 posted on 03/31/2010 9:57:55 AM PDT by sauropod (Ill behaved women rarely make dinner.)
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To: presidio9

Only the logic of the propaganda arm of the DNC could come up with this. One group of loonies indicts the entire right wing. Idiots!


8 posted on 03/31/2010 9:57:56 AM PDT by Blogger
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To: presidio9

Once again NewsWeak demonstrates it leftist bias.

Extremists sitting in the White House, Congress and Czarships are far more dangerous to the Republic than a handfull of radicals anywhere.


9 posted on 03/31/2010 9:58:45 AM PDT by ZULU
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To: presidio9

Newsweak


10 posted on 03/31/2010 9:59:04 AM PDT by tellw
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To: highlander_UW

11 posted on 03/31/2010 9:59:09 AM PDT by FreeAtlanta (Hey, Barack "Hubris" Obama, $10 is all it would take, why spend millions to cover it up?)
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To: Tamar1973
Not to mention the fact that if you go back in history and research evey presidential assassin, all of them were Democrat/Anarchist/left wing nut jobs, except John Hinkley who was just a mental case in the clinical sense.

Actually, the truth that no one here on FR wants to admit is that all of these so-called "wing-nuts" are libertarians. As such, they are aligned with the "Progressives" on some issues, and to the right of Conservatives on others.

12 posted on 03/31/2010 9:59:24 AM PDT by presidio9 (Islam is as Islam does)
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To: sauropod

The timing of this bust is so fortuitous, that a part of me is going to be rooting for these nutjobs to walk.


13 posted on 03/31/2010 10:01:22 AM PDT by presidio9 (Islam is as Islam does)
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To: presidio9

Politics isn’t a straight left, right line. It is more of a circle and the nuts meet up at somepoint. Unfortunately, the Democratic party has moved closer and closer to the extreme meetup point.


14 posted on 03/31/2010 10:02:08 AM PDT by FreeAtlanta (Hey, Barack "Hubris" Obama, $10 is all it would take, why spend millions to cover it up?)
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To: presidio9
violent Christian militia group

How are they violent? The FBI CLAIMS that they threatened to kill someone--a Muslim or a cop, they haven't quite got their story straight yet. But how can they be described as "violent"? They haven't killed anyone, or beat up anyone, or broken any windows, or burned any cars, as far as I've heard. If they had, I'm sure the FBI and the media would be telling us all about it. I looked up their website as soon as they mentioned the word "Hutaree." Personally, I'd be a bit inclined to call them kooks. But violent? Nonsense. There's been a fair amount of political violence around the world recently. All of it came from the left, or from Muslims, as far as I've heard.

15 posted on 03/31/2010 10:02:31 AM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: highlander_UW
Who is more of a threat, left-wing crazies or right-wing crazies?

Left wing crazies are flying planes into buildings( Joseph Stack), murdering people on university campuses( Amy Bishop), threatening to murder congress members( Norman Leboon) and the list goes on.

Another example why Newsweek is a crap magazine and the opinions contained therein are worthless.

16 posted on 03/31/2010 10:03:27 AM PDT by A message
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To: presidio9; an amused spectator

Newsweak: “...because we say so”. < /pravda media >


17 posted on 03/31/2010 10:03:55 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (VP Biden on Obamacare's passage: "This is a big f-ing deal". grumpygresh: "Repeal the f-ing deal")
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To: presidio9
So far these fools managed to talk trash and play with guns in the woods AND attract an FBI informant and that is it. The Animal Liberation Front and Eco Terrorists did more actual damage.

The reason this type of miscreant gets more media play is that it suits the political agenda of writers like Maddow.

18 posted on 03/31/2010 10:04:49 AM PDT by Anti-Bubba182
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To: FreeAtlanta
Politics isn’t a straight left, right line. It is more of a circle and the nuts meet up at somepoint. Unfortunately, the Democratic party has moved closer and closer to the extreme meetup point.

I don't disagree. I just think that the sake of journalistic integrity demands that they stop being referred to as "hard-core right wing." They're not.

19 posted on 03/31/2010 10:05:13 AM PDT by presidio9 (Islam is as Islam does)
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To: presidio9
Why NewsWEAK is not news; they're just WEAK:


20 posted on 03/31/2010 10:05:38 AM PDT by Servant of the Cross (the Truth will set you free)
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