To my utter amazement, some left-leaning blogs and top MSM outlets this morning somehow managed to brand Bedell as a “right-wing extremist” anyway, despite the ever-growing pile of evidence contradicting this tired old narrative. The Christian Science Monitor titled its article “John Patrick Bedell: Did right-wing extremism lead to shooting?“, while top leftist blog Talking Points Memo ran with “Pentagon Shooter Worshipped Private Property Rights, Denounced Government ‘Schemes’ Like Public Education“. ~ Zombie
May I say most of the conspiracy theories lie on the left. Most presedential shooters were involved some way with the Communist or Marxist ideologies. Michael Medved points out the fact that Lane was a self-avowed Marxist. The guys behind the "Loose Change" "documentary" are also very involved in the Communist ideology. What does this, being on the extreme left, have to do with conspiracies you might ask? Propaganda. Plain and simple. The NWO stuff is merely being pushed by person who wish to undermine the governments affairs instead of voting these bad policies out. I want to have the viewer look at the report on Bedell:
Now I want you to watch a video on Alex Jones, do you see what I am seeing?
Jones is crazier than Bedell.
Zombie has gone off over at Pajamas Media (Anti-Bush Truther shoots up Pentagon; Should we play the political blame game?). Much of the below is from his article. After it I will post my old post on it, there may be some repeated info, but stuff that will help the layman counter arguments by the water cooler.
On Thursday, a “9/11 Truth” fanatic named John Patrick Bedell started shooting at the Pentagon and managed to wound two guards before they mercifully put him out of our misery.
We now know that the guy thought the government and the Bush family were behind the 9/11 attacks (or “demolitions” as he called them), and was basically frothing at the mouth with Bush hatred.
Now, I’ve been to innumerable “Truther” rallies over the last 8 years, and can say with some confidence that about 98% of folks who think 9/11 was a hoax are left-wingers, or at the very least fit in very comfortably in the left-wing milieu, since the impetus behind Truthism is to undermine the basis for Bush’s “War on Terror,” an impetus which is also a cornerstone of modern Leftist thought as well.
So far, however, I’ve noticed a deafening quietude on the left-leaning blogs about this guy’s affiliations and belief systems. Those brave enough to troll leftist comments sections have noted mumblings therein that the guy was probably a secret “teabagger,” despite all evidence to the contrary.
[....]
Michelle Malkin uncovered a key inconvenient fact which doesn’t quite fit this predictable “right-wing extremist” narrative — that Bedell was a registered Democrat.
Ooops!Bedell was also a marijuana smoker, grower and activist, as documented at Gateway Pundit.
Ooops!
Patterico has now posted a full transcript of one of Bedell’s internet rants — the same one cited by Talking Points Memo as evidence of his right-wing leanings — which has Bedell uncorking phrases like “economic justice” and paragraphs like (writing in 2006 during the Bush presidency) “This organization, like so many murderous governments throughout history, would see the sacrifice of thousands of its citizens in an event such as the September 11th attacks, as a small cost in order to perpetuate its barbaric control. This collection of gangsters would find it in their interests to foment conflict and initiate wars throughout the world in order to divert attention from their misconduct and criminality. The true nature of such a regime would find its clearest expression in Satanic violence currently ongoing in Iraq.” and anti-war conspiracy theories like “The political and military disasters such as the wars in Vietnam and Iraq that an illegitimate coup regime uses against the people…”.
Ooops!
Add all that to the previous discovery already linked above that Bedell’s Amazon “Wish List” featured the the left-wing conspiracy-theory books The Immaculate Deception: The Bush Crime Family and Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America.
Ooops!
And more evidence is being uncovered by diligent bloggers with every passing hour.I post all this not to backtrack on my original wish to avoid the blame game, but to defuse the blame-the-right game now coming from the other side.
Tell me, Christian Science Monitor and Talking Points Memo (and the innumerable left-leaning sites which by now have surely followed in their wake): How many Tea Partiers or conservatives
- Shoot at the Pentagon and hate the military?
- Are registered Democrats?
- Hate George Bush and the whole Bush family?
- Think 9/11 was perpetrated not by Muslims but by Republicans?
- Grow and smoke marijuana?
- Read left-wing anti-Bush books?
- Are anti-war?
- Talk about “economic justice”?
- Think the Vietnam War and the Iraq War were not merely mistakes but were part of a government conspiracy?
Exactly as I had surmised, Bedell seems to be a nutcase who overwhelmingly tends to lean left but with a sprinkling of libertarian attitudes thrown in just to spice things up — and it is those exact libertarian sprinklings which the leftist mediasphere is focusing on, while completely ignoring the much larger pile of evidence on the other side of the scale.
Bedell may have been a left-wing conspiracy kook, but much more importantly: He was insane, and it was his insanity (not his politics) which led him to start shooting at the Pentagon.
Unfortunately, I can see now that the blame game is already in full swing and I am powerless to stop it, but at least I can say I tried.
UPDATE II:Exactly as I had stated in my original post, we now know that Bedell was clinically insane:The man who opened fire in front of the Pentagon had a history of mental illness and had become so erratic that his parents reached out to local authorities weeks ago and warned them that their son was unstable and might have a gun, authorities said Friday.…San Benito County Sheriff Curtis Hill told The Associated Press that Bedell, 36, had been at in-patient mental health institutions at least four times. Court records showed he was diagnosed as bipolar, or manic depressive.…The family put out a statement Friday saying they were “devastated as a family by the news from yesterday.”“We may never know why he made this terrible decision,” it said. “One thing is clear though — his actions were caused by an illness and not a defective character.”A completely crazy person goes berserk. That’s it. Can we for once not make this into a political boxing match?
UPDATE III:
Blogger “Ringo the Gringo” has this interesting and possibly on-target analysis of Bedell’s political outlook:Seems to me that Bedell falls into the Alex Jones / Libertarian extremist camp. Contrary to what [some Web sites] are promoting, I know from first hand experience that these types of “truthers” are ubiquitous at all International ANSWER sponsored anti-war demonstrations, but I have not seen any of them at the handful of “tea parties” I’ve attended. You can call them “right-wing” if you like, but they are definitely not conservative. Actually, they are the exact opposite of conservative, they are radicals – and nuts. They’re anti-military, anti-war, anti-Bush, conspiracy kooks who often stink of marijuana.If a group like this bunch Alex Jones supporters were to show up at any “tea party” I’ve been to, I suspect they’d be run out, or at the very least booed and heckled. At anti-war demonstrations these very same people are welcomed with open arms. In fact, it’s not uncommon to see followers of “Libertarian” Alex Jones and members of the Maoist group, The World Can’t Wait, marching together carrying the same “9/11 truth” banner.
Bedell may not have been a Leftist, but he was most certainly not a conservative either. And he was not a Republican.
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As you read, keep in mind the following stat:
Also, keep in mind Obama put in as one of his Czars a 9/11 Truther.
....Signs emerged that Bedell harbored ill feelings toward the government and the armed forces, and had questioned the circumstances behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
In an Internet posting, a user by the name JPatrickBedell wrote that he was "determined to see that justice is served" in the death of Marine Col. James Sabow, who was found dead in the backyard of his California home in 1991. The death was ruled a suicide but the case has long been the source of theories of a cover up.
The user named JPatrickBedell wrote the Sabow case was "a step toward establishing the truth of events such as the September 11 demolitions."
That same posting railed against the government's enforcement of marijuana laws and included links to the author's 2006 court case in Orange County, Calif., for cultivating marijuana and resisting a police officer. Court records available online show the date of birth on the case mentioned by the user JPatrickBedell matches that of the John Patrick Bedell suspected in the shooting....
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This small UPDATE comes from HotAir and it comes directly after posting an example of a story pigion-holing Bedell's "right-wingism":
This small UPDATE comes from HotAir and it comes directly after posting an example of a story pigion-holing Bedell's "right-wingism":
....No mention in the story of Bedell’s Bush-hatred or his party affiliation. It fell to the boss emeritus to dig that up, not for the purpose of indicting Democrats for what he did but to try to preempt the inevitable tedious attempts to lay this at the feet of conservatives. I don’t think she has much to worry about this time. It’s simply too far a logical leap to blame the military-loving mainstream right for an attack on the Pentagon, which explains why even noted “wingnut” critics like John Avlon and Sullivan staffer Patrick Appel are taking a pass on this one. If there’s any silver lining in the very dark clouds created by Bedell and Joe Stack (and even the Kentucky census worker fiasco), it may be that partisans on both sides have necessarily become more cautious about trying to divine coherent motives from incoherent minds. Not all partisans, natch, but some.
Your exit question: Is it possible to be a “left-wing extremist” anymore or do nuts who embrace some lefty ideas before launching an attack automatically fall under the broader heading of “anti-government,” a term that’s conveniently also used to describe conservatives’ opposition to statism? That’s why CSM ended up labeling him a right-winger, I suspect. Righties want a smaller federal government and Bedell hated the military and the military’s part of the federal government. Voila!
UPDATE 2 (Gateway Pundit):
UPDATE: So… Will the state-run media report this? The Pentagon shooter is linked to several gay rights groups along with PETA, NPR, various drug legalization orgs, Greenpeace and Al Franken.
UPDATE: The media’s “right wing extremist” is a registered democrat.
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It was pointed out that much of what the IRS Joseph "the bomber" Stack talked about was directly from Michael Moore movies:
Have you noticed how things said in his manifesto seem to all be taken straight from Michael Moore movies?Anti-health care system= Sicko
Anti-Capitalism= Capitalism, a Love Story
IRS cronyism with businesses= Capitalism, a Love Story
Anti-Bush= Fahrenheit 9/11
Blames Big Corporations for job issues= The Big One
(lots of debate here at the above quotes source) For a well thought out story string of stories, see Verum Serum's insights: Here, here, as well as the excerpt you see here:
One – Joe Stack was a liberal. As I pointed out recently, Stack:Hates George W. Bush and his “cronies”
Hates Big Pharma
Hates Big Insurance
Hates GM executives
Hates organized religion
Refers favorably to communism
And in his last words before dying, denigrates capitalism.
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Remember von Brunn? He also was a bit left leaning in his understanding of politics and government:
Remember von Brunn? He also was a bit left leaning in his understanding of politics and government:
...While Mr. von Brunn is currently being made out to be the poster child of the Republican Party, even a cursory look at his professed views shows he is the avowed enemy of the GOP in its current incarnation. Among many others, Mr. von Brunn hates Rupert Murdoch, Fox News (that means you, too, Shep!), George W. Bush and John McCain. And according to the FBI, Mr. von Brunn even had in his vehicle the address of the Weekly Standard, home base of the dreaded "neo-cons."
Seems Mr. von Brunn wasn't a big fan of the Iraq War and also believed that 9/11 was an "inside job." Given this political sketch, Mr. von Brunn would feel at home at Camp Casey, Cindy Sheehan's antiwar outpost in Crawford, Texas, and at the Daily Kos convention, rather than partaking in a National Review cruise with pro-Israeli war hawks Mark Steyn and Victor Davis Hanson.
It's not Charles Lindbergh's Republican Party any more. And it hasn't been for more than a half-century. But don't tell that to the facile minds at the DHS [the Department of Homeland Security] and CNN.
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