Adkisson targeted the church, Still wrote in the document obtained by WBIR-TV, Channel 10, "because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country's hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of media outlets."
Adkisson told Still that "he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement that he would then target those that had voted them in to office."
Adkisson told officers he left the house unlocked for them because "he expected to be killed during the assault."
Inside the house, officers found "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by radio talk show host Michael Savage, "Let Freedom Ring" by talk show host Sean Hannity, and "The O'Reilly Factor," by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly.
It is their continued language of violence against so-called liberals that put this man over the edge. He could not find a job and he blamed that on liberals - a group of people that has been effectively out of power for the last 8 years. It's not liberals who have shipped off jobs overseas and sought to destroy the middle class. It has not been liberals who cut off this man's food stamps. Liberals came up with this excellent ideas, and the Republicans who are now in charge, cut him off.
This continued ranting about some damn liberal media irks me to no end. Believe me when I say there is NO liberal media. There is CORPORATE media - and by it's nature it's very, very, very conservative. They are in love with John McCain and will do all they can to get him elected because they know their corporate tax lives depend on it. They don't want to pay more taxes under an Obama administration, so they'll fight it tooth and nail. Liberal media my left butt cheek. It does not exist. I worked in that field for 25 years and I know what I'm talking about.
I also know the gospel truth is that Sean Hannity will sleep like a baby tonight, untroubled by this news - simply glad this poor dolt shelled out the dough to buy his book and make him a little bit richer. It's just dead liberals, after all! I worked with Sean at WGST in Atlanta right before he hit the big time. He has no heart. Don't worry about him losing sleep over this. He'll blame the liberals for their own fates. If they were smart, they'd be selfish corporate Republicans too!
::deep breath::
This makes me angry. I know it's not obvious or anything. The violence of the language these right wing bigots spout caused this act. They are directly responsible for the deaths of these two people and the wounding of five others. They should be held responsible.
3 comments:
To use the proper (and in this case, irony-drenched) parlance: Mega-dittoes, Reverend C. I heartily second and enthusiastically endorse your every syllable.
I wanted to take a moment and share with you what I wrote on my blog on Tuesday.
With your permission, I'd like to put up your open letter which is making the internet rounds today...and, I'd like to add you to my blog roll, and invite you to visit me, and do the same.
Thanks,
Shane
29 July 2008
Conservatives & Tennessee Church Murders
A quick digression today. Back to senior “issues” tomorrow.
I now must regard myself as an “enemy combatant” in the culture wars waged by the screech monkeys of the radical right and their foot-soldiers: violently disturbed good old boys. As a liberal, and a nominal Unitarian, I find myself a potential target for the deeply-disturbed, anger and violence based conservatives who regard liberals, populists, and progressives as less than human perpetrators of dark deeds who are to be stalked and slain.
What does it take to make a person, already with rats and maggots warring for control of his brain, take a weapon into a church and gun down innocents in a rampage of hate and murder, simply because the church is liberal and supports such things as gay-marriage? What, indeed?
I have long maintained that conservatives are culpable, accountable and responsible for the things done in the name of conservatism. When one supports a politician one takes on some ownership of the policies and programs of that politician. One does not get to wash one’s hands of those when they go bad. Conservatives are accountable for the nearly 35,000 casualties resulting from the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Conservatives are accountable for the collapse of the Mississippi River Bridge in Minnesota, which sent so many innocents to untimely death because the money for proper inspection and repair had been shut off by...yeah; you got it, conservative politicians pandering to their supporters.
And conservatives everywhere are accountable for those church killings in Tennessee. Oh sure, there are conservatives that were stunned and saddened by the crime. They will join hands and pray, swaying back-and-forth in candle-light vigils for the innocent dead. They will attribute it all to one violently disturbed individual, and then continue to watch and listen to the vile and hateful ranting and tirades against liberals by Dobbs, Hannity, O’Reilly, Limbaugh, and Coulter. They will continue circulating their vicious and ugly e-mail missives promoting hate and fear and blaming liberals as the cause of all that trouble them.
No one can say with any certainty where is the tipping point that causes a man to take a gun into a church and kill people because the church is liberal. But, it takes no imagination at all to find the hate-speech from the right as a major contributing factor. There are consequences to words. And, in this case, those consequences were tragic and all persons calling themselves conservative, who have not repudiated the calls for violence and hate-filled speech of the Coulters, Hannitys, Limbaughs, and O’Reillys of the world, share responsibility for those deaths.
It is time, as the biblical expression goes, for conservatives to look to themselves. Liberals do not invade churches and kill people, liberals do not poison the airwaves calling for conservatives to be beaten with baseball bats or decapitated, liberals do not blow up clinics which refuse to perform abortions, liberals do not lie hidden in darkness waiting to assassinate, by sniping, doctors who refuse to perform abortions, liberals do not blow up federal buildings with day-care centers filled with playing toddlers and sleeping infants, liberals do not call for the round-up and deportation of immigrant workers and the tearing apart of families, or for the deportation of those worker's children legally born in the United States. Liberals do not intimidate, threaten, bully, or wrongfully remove from the voting rolls, others to insure the "victory" of their ideology. Liberals do not engage in gay-bashing, race-baiting, or other hate-crimes. These things are not patriotic or American--they are monstrous opposites!
Liberals do none of those things. People calling themselves conservative do! They do those things and much, much worse. And they do so proudly, with disgusting bravado and sickening self-righteousness.
Enough is enough. It is way past the hour for decent people who regard themselves as conservative to repudiate and stand up against the hate mongers. Too long have good people stood silent as sociopaths, pundits, radical fringe-religion preachers and other criminally insane egoists spout and spew vomitous hate toward their fellow Americans. From such do murderers draw inspiration and affirmation.
This is a moment of accountability for conservatives in America. My bet is they will fail the test, and that I, and other progressives, will remain at-risk enemy combatants in the culture wars.
Shane Fox (7/29/08) asfx@aol.com
Amen. Just amen. This is so horrible!
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