Up Against the Wall: My Two Cents on Feeling Threatened

Spare Change | April 16, 2009 | David J Aland

[Natty Bumppo@frontier.net]

When Patty Hearst burst into San Francisco’s Hibernia Bank and hollered “Up against the wall, motherf*****s,” she was not coining a phrase, because that counter-culture expression was already the chosen name of a Weather Underground splinter group in New York whose reputation for “direct action” and violence was already well-known. Later, Ray Wylie Hubbard re-wrote the pungent phrase into the song “Up Against the Wall Red Neck Mothers” that Jerry Jeff Walker recorded. Now, Janet Napolitano has re-written it again: “Up Against the Wall Red-State Mothers.”

According to the “Rightwing Extremism” assessment leaked not-so-coincidentally just before the Tax Day “Tea Party” protests, there is a new threat of direct action to our nation, and it has nothing to do with environmental radicals burning houses, political anarchists smashing windows, murderous Latin American gangs, drug violence, or even naturalized jihadists plotting the overthrow of the U. S. government. Apparently, it’s you and me.

I am a veteran. I believe abortion is wrong. I oppose the bailouts. I think Congress is blowing it on recession recovery. I support the Second Amendment right to bear arms, even if I do not own a gun. I oppose giving illegal immigrants a free-pass. I oppose gay marriage. I sometimes listen to Rush Limbaugh. I even drink tea. According to the Department of Homeland Security, I am therefore a potential security threat because I am all of these things, and proud to be a Red-State sympathizer.

The DHS Assessment cites all of these qualities as “unique drivers for rightwing radicalization.” Where prior similar assessments have been very specific to certain groups and political agendas, this report is remarkable in that it does not specify groups as much as ideologies. The report admits that there is “no specific information” on groups, plots, events, or threats, merely that people who take such points of view are apparently potential radicals. The report justifies this by comparing the present circumstances to the “economic and political climate … [of] the 1990s when rightwing extremism experienced a resurgence.”

The comparison is an odd one. During the mid-90s, the economy was booming. In fact, the only real parallel to the present was a Democratic administration. While the report makes a lot of distracting noise about the economy, the analysis boils down to one basic idea: Liberals are in charge, and conservatives don’t like it. By naming no groups, defining no specific threats, and defining conservative views as broad indicators of radicalism, this report essentially indicts beliefs and believers. How long will it be until words like “recidivist” and “re-education” start getting thrown around?

The report does not consider, for example, the harassment in California of Proposition Eight supporters to be radical, but it does essentially label the supporters of the gay-marriage ban as potential radicals for being part of that single-issue activism. It does not point to ACORN for breaking into foreclosed houses, but does essentially label those that are hitting the streets this week to protest the bailout of toxic mortgage owners as potential threats.

I wonder if any of the people who mailed tea bags to their Congressional delegations today will soon be under surveillance. Perhaps the Catholic bishops will be put on a watch list for opposing abortion? Will Napolitano’s new “Border Czar” consider investigating those that oppose illegal immigrant work centers for subversive activities?

This may all seem, as many have said, like a tempest in a teapot (pun intended), but words have power, especially in the hands of policy-makers. When the EPA declares the carbon dioxide we exhale is a pollutant, someone may actually muse on how to prevent people from breathing heavily. When the DHS declares conservative opinions a security threat, someone may actually wonder how to prosecute the expression of those opinions.

I know – all of this sounds a bit ludicrous, a bit “1984,” a bit overly paranoid. Perhaps – but how paranoid is it when the government acts paranoid about the opinions of citizens? This little kerfluffle may seem ridiculous, but there was once a time when British soldiers firing on British colonists was considered unthinkable, and look at where that led. So, up against the wall, all you Red-State mothers. Hopefully, reading this essay won’t be an exhibit in our group indictment some day.

[jokar]

Bump to comments later. Just about sums her up though.

[listenhillary]

The re-education camps are already in place. They’re called our government schools and public universities. Pretty slick huh? You even get people to pay the state money to re-educate their kids.

[Texas resident]

So true. Put my kinders through 8 years of Catholic school prior to them going to public high school. Both have good foundations, but I let them know that if the school was teaching garbage, I will counter it.