Will Bill O'Reilly be held accountable for hate speech against Dr Tiller?

As you have probably heard by now, late-term abortion provider Dr George Tiller was shot and murdered yesterday while attending church in Wichita, Kansas.

Church. Shot him in church.

As I commented on the Feministe thread, not even the mafia does hits in church.

If you would like to send condolences, the Feminist Majority will forward them to Dr Tiller's family.

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There is much fascinating and intense commentary in the wake of Dr Tiller's murder, signaling deep moral confusion about the subject of abortion, at least here in the USA. I recommend Jill's Feministe thread about the kinds of late-term abortions Dr Tiller performed; these were usually medical emergencies. Also recommended is Heart's post on the Quiverfull connection. (I knew there had to be one.)

Meanwhile, we have William Saletan at Slate, who asks the loaded (pardon expression) question: Is it wrong to murder an abortionist?

To me, Tiller was brave. His work makes me want to puke. But so does combat, the kind where guts are spilled and people choke on their own blood. I like to think I love my country and would fight for it. But I doubt I have the stomach to pull the trigger, much less put my life on the line.

Several years ago, I went to a conference of abortionists. Some of the late-term providers were there. A row of tables displayed forceps for sale. They started small and got bigger and bigger. Walking along the row, you could ask yourself: Would I use these forceps? How about those? Where would I stop?

The people who do late-term abortions are the ones who don't flinch. They're like the veterans you sometimes see in war documentaries, quietly recounting what they faced and did. You think you're pro-choice. You think marching or phone-banking makes you an activist. You know nothing. There's you, and then there are the people who work in the clinics. And then there are the people who use the forceps. And then there are the people who use the forceps nobody else will use. At the end of the line, there's George Tiller.

Now he's gone. Who will pick up his forceps?

Tiller's murder is different from all previous murders of abortion providers. If you kill an ordinary abortionist, somebody else will step in. But if you kill the guy at the end of the line, some of his patients won't be able to find an alternative. You will have directly prevented abortions.

That seems to be what Tiller's alleged assassin, Scott Roeder, had in mind.

Megan McArdle writes in The Atlantic:

Imagine a future in which the moral consensus has changed, and our grandchildren regard abortion the way we regard slavery. Who will the hero of history be: Tiller, or his murderer? At the very least, they'll be conflicted, the way we are about John Brown.

I was waiting for someone to mention John Brown. They always do, on both the right and the left. His moral certainty haunts us.

McArdle continues:

We accept that when the law is powerless, people are entitled to kill in order to prevent other murders--had Tiller whipped out a gun at an elementary school, we would now be applauding his murderer's actions. In this case, the law was powerless because the law supported late-term abortions. Moreover, that law had been ruled outside the normal political process by the Supreme Court. If you think that someone is committing hundreds of gruesome murders a year, and that the law cannot touch him, what is the moral action? To shrug? Is that what you think of ordinary Germans who ignored Nazi crimes? Is it really much of an excuse to say that, well, most of your neighbors didn't seem to mind, so you concluded it must be all right? We are not morally required to obey an unjust law. In fact, when the death of innocents is involved, we are required to defy it.

As I say, I think their moral intuition is incorrect. The fact that conception and birth are the easiest bright lines to draw does not make either of them the correct one. Tiller's killer is a murderer, and whether or not he deserves the lengthy jail sentence he will get, society needs him in jail for its own protection.

Still, I am shocked to see so many liberals today saying that the correct response is, essentially, doubling down. Make the law more friendly to abortion! Show the fundies who's boss! You know what fixes terrorism? Bitch slap those bastards until they understand that we'll never compromise!

Well, it sure worked in Iraq. I think Afghanistan's going pretty well, too, right?

Using the political system to stomp on radicalized fringes does not seem to be very effective in getting them to eschew violence. In fact, it seems to be a very good way of getting more violence. Possibly because those fringes have often turned to violence precisely because they feel that the political process has been closed off to them.

Indeed, I think it is notable that this happened after Obama's election, at a time the rightwing feels beleaguered. According to most statistics I have seen, the actual number of abortions is decreasing. Thus, this terrorist act was not about a situation that is progressively worsening... in pro-life terms, the situation is IMPROVING.

Therefore, we can conclude the real catalyst was a feeling of hopelessness on the part of the anti-abortion movement; the sentiment that they have "lost" the battle for good.

Strategically, this motivation is very different from that of John Brown, who hoped to ignite a full-scale rebellion (and eventually, there was one, called the Civil War). By contast, Scott Roeder appears to have acted because there is NO HOPE of a full-scale rebellion, so he might as well do whatever desperate acts he can manage.

Even if he has to do it in a church.

And finally, Salon correctly points out that Fox News demagogue Bill O'Reilly has been waging a non-stop verbal war on Dr Tiller for years now. After calling everyone from Michael Moore to the DailyKos bloggers "terrorist apologists" and worse--I think it's now Bill's turn to wear the title of TERRORIST APOLOGIST, since his incendiary and inflammatory screeds have everything to do with WHY Dr Tiller was in the right-wing cross-hairs.

There were only three doctors in the entire country (and now only two) who did late-term abortions. Why do we only know the name of Dr Tiller? Largely because Bill O'Reilly was obsessed with him, in particular:

Tiller's name first appeared on "The Factor" on Feb. 25, 2005. Since then, O'Reilly and his guest hosts have brought up the doctor on 28 more episodes, including as recently as April 27 of this year. Almost invariably, Tiller is described as "Tiller the Baby Killer."

Tiller, O'Reilly likes to say, "destroys fetuses for just about any reason right up until the birth date for $5,000." He's guilty of "Nazi stuff," said O'Reilly on June 8, 2005; a moral equivalent to NAMBLA and Al-Qaida, he suggested on March 15, 2006. "This is the kind of stuff happened in Mao's China, Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union," said O'Reilly on Nov. 9, 2006.

O'Reilly has also frequently linked Tiller to his longtime obsession, child molestation and rape. Because a young teenager who received an abortion from Tiller could, by definition, have been a victim of statutory rape, O'Reilly frequently suggested that the clinic was covering up for child rapists (rather than teenage boyfriends) by refusing to release records on the abortions performed.

When Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, an O'Reilly favorite who faced harsh criticism for seeking Tiller's records, was facing electoral defeat by challenger Paul Morrison, O'Reilly said, "Now we don't endorse candidates here, but obviously, that would be a colossal mistake. Society must afford some protection for viable babies and children who are raped." (Morrison ultimately unseated Kline.)

This is where O'Reilly's campaign against George Tiller becomes dangerous. While he never advocated anything violent or illegal, the Fox bully repeatedly portrayed the doctor as a murderer on the loose, allowed to do whatever he wanted by corrupt and decadent authorities. "Also, it looks like Dr. Tiller, who some call Tiller the Baby Killer, is spending a large amount of money in order to get Mr. Morrison elected. That opens up all kinds of questions," said O'Reilly on Nov. 6, 2006, in one of many suggestions that Tiller was improperly influencing the election.

Tiller's excuses for performing late-term abortions, O'Reilly suggested, were frou-frou, New Age, false ailments: The woman might have a headache or anxiety, or have been dumped by her boyfriend. She might be "depressed," scoffed O'Reilly, which he dismissed as "feeling a bit blue and carr[ying] a certified check." There was, he proposed on Jan. 5, 2007, a kind of elite conspiracy of silence on Tiller. "Yes, OK, but we know about the press. But it becomes a much more intense problem when you have a judge, confronted with evidence of criminal wrongdoing, who throws it out on some technicality because he wants to be liked at the country club. Then it's intense."

Tiller, said O'Reilly on Jan. 6 of this year, was a major supporter of then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. "I think it's unfairly characterized as just a grip and grin relationship. He was a pretty big supporter of hers." She had cashed her campaign check from Tiller, "doesn't seem to be real upset about this guy operating a death mill, which is exactly what it is in her state, does she?" he asked on July 14 of last year. "Maybe she'll -- maybe she'll pardon him," he scoffed two months ago.

This is where it gets most troubling. O'Reilly's language describing Tiller, and accusing the state and its elites of complicity in his actions, could become extremely vivid. On June 12, 2007, he said, "Yes, I think we all know what this is. And if the state of Kansas doesn't stop this man, then anybody who prevents that from happening has blood on their hands as the governor does right now, Governor Sebelius."

Three days later, he added, "No question Dr. Tiller has blood on his hands. But now so does Governor Sebelius. She is not fit to serve. Nor is any Kansas politician who supports Tiller's business of destruction. I wouldn't want to be these people if there is a Judgment Day. I just -- you know ... Kansas is a great state, but this is a disgrace upon everyone who lives in Kansas. Is it not?"

Speaking of DISGRACE, I think we know who the DISGRACE is.

Of course, he will not apologize for inflaming the rabble. But we cannot allow him to forget that he is accountable, too.

It is not Governor Sebelius, but Bill O'Reilly who has blood on his hands.

Blog Carnival... BlogRush... How we changed

I am thrilled to be included in the ERASE RACISM Blog Carnival. Regarding my post about John Brown, Charles Modiano writes:

As I was reading more of this informative piece, all I kept thinking was, how has there never been a motion picture on this man’s life!!! This was also my sentiment when I personally wrote “History’s Hit Job on Thomas Paine” (the only founding father to unequivocally denounce slavery without personal hypocrisy). What does it say that in 2007, we continue to glorify slaveholders of times past, but routinely ignore or bury the legacy of those whites who most fiercely resisted that “peculiar institution”.

Incredibly, this never occurred to me! No movie about John Brown! Maybe they just don't know what to do with him?

Johnny Cash, may his soul rest in peace, perfectly played John Brown in the rather tepid miniseries NORTH AND SOUTH, based on the John Jakes novels. He properly narrows his eyes and intones "We shoot to kill," at one juncture, and you believe him.

For my money, the man to play John Brown would be Tommy Lee Jones, looking all intense and grizzled and shit. Wouldn't he be GREAT? I'm sure he could glare at you and sagely warn "We shoot to kill," with the same gravitas as Johnny Cash.

I hope some Hollywood casting guru is reading this? You think? Nah.

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The new sensation in Blogdonia, BlogRush, is messing up my posts, and I think I know why. I took out the "no follow" feature on my blog, so search engines could also search comments as well as posts (this modification is called "do follow"). As a result of this twiddling of mine, BlogRush, which supposedly syndicates your "last 12 posts," has instead been syndicating the last 12 COMMENTS instead. So you get posts with titles like "Hey Daisy!" instead of the titles I have assigned.

Consequently, when I logged into the all-hailed Phase 2 of BlogRush, I discovered all of my posts have little icicles on them... which means nobody clicks on them and they are therefore NOT HAWT. :(

I hope they fix this, and I dutifully emailed them about it. Certainly, I can't be the only "do follow" blog out there? (I learned to do that from reading other people's blogs, after all!) Also, if you see goofy titles in the BlogRush widgets, you'll know why.

~*~


Cleaning under my couch, which I do every couple of years or so, yields about a dozen books I had long ago written off as lost. Thus, it's just like shopping! I should probably do it more often.

Casey Walker's MADE NOT BORN: The Troubling World of Biotechnology is definitely a Halloween-related book. O, Brave New World that has such people in it.

In this book, I discovered the following poem, by Jerry Martien:


HOW WE CHANGED


first we made a genetically
improved cat

a cat with wings

before we knew it the cat had
eaten all the birds

so we had to make a genetically
faster flying bird

only it wouldn't
sing unless we gave it
money

so we made a genetic
dog
who'd sing whenever
someone told him to

we couldn't shut him up

the dog got on all the radio and
tv talk shows

logo
the famous genetically
engineered singing
canine

cloned a new
song for every day

and while the birds
bombed the cats
we all sang along with the dog.

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Listening to: Laura Nyro - Eli's Comin'
via FoxyTunes

October 16, 1859

The biographies either emphasize what a mild-mannered fellow he was, or how crazy he was; fire in the eyes. I would like to have met him, and seen for myself.

I assume his demeanor changed, depending on the subject at hand.

Radicals from Ohio swear he was from Ohio, as radicals from New York swear the same. In fact, he was born in Torrington, Connecticut:

During his first fifty years, John Brown moved about the country, settling in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts, taking along his ever-growing family. (He would father twenty children.) Working at various times as a farmer, wool merchant, tanner, and land speculator, he never was financially successful -- he even filed for bankruptcy when in his forties. His lack of funds, however, did not keep him from supporting causes he believed in. He helped finance the publication of David Walker's Appeal and Henry Highland's "Call to Rebellion" speech. He gave land to fugitive slaves. He and his wife agreed to raise a black youth as one of their own. He also participated in the Underground Railroad and, in 1851, helped establish the League of Gileadites, an organization that worked to protect escaped slaves from slave catchers.

In 1847 Frederick Douglass met Brown for the first time in Springfield, Massachusetts. Of the meeting Douglass stated that, "though a white gentleman, [Brown] is in sympathy a black man, and as deeply interested in our cause, as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron of slavery." It was at this meeting that Brown first outlined his plan to Douglass to lead a war to free slaves.

Brown moved to the black community of North Elba, New York, in 1849. The community had been established thanks to the philanthropy of Gerrit Smith, who donated tracts of at least 50 acres to black families willing to clear and farm the land. Brown, knowing that many of the families were finding life in this isolated area difficult, offered to establish his own farm there as well, in order to lead the blacks by his example and to act as a "kind father to them."

Despite his contributions to the antislavery cause, Brown did not emerge as a figure of major significance until 1855 after he followed five of his sons to the Kansas territory.

And in Kansas, it got ugly.

It's important to remember that he was a violent man. He fully believed that he who lived by the sword, died by the sword.

Literally, he used swords:

In Aug. 1855 he followed 5 of his sons to Kansas to help make the state a haven for anti-slavery settlers. The following year, his hostility toward slave-staters exploded after they burned and pillaged the free-state community of Lawrence. Having organized a militia unit within his Osawatomie River colony, Brown led it on a mission of revenge. On the evening of 23 May 1856, he and 6 followers, including 4 of his sons, visited the homes of pro-slavery men along Pottawatomie Creek, dragged their unarmed inhabitants into the night, and hacked them to death with long-edged swords. At once, "Old Brown of Osawatomie" became a feared and hated target of slave-staters.

Of course, I have been to Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. I have seen the armory's engine house, which isn't even as big as a typical contemporary suburban house. I remember being startled at it's wee size: Did he really think he could hold them off from there? Good lord. A suicide mission!!! Or did he really believe a mass slave rebellion would ensue? Perhaps he had reason to be optimistic, but in retrospective, such an endeavor seems like madness:

...Brown had only 21 men (16 white and 5 black - three free blacks, one freed slave, and a fugitive slave). They ranged in age from 21 to 49. Twelve of them had been with Brown in Kansas raids.

On October 16, 1859, Brown (leaving three men behind as a rear guard) led 19 men in an attack on the Harpers Ferry Armory. He had received 200 breechloading .52 caliber Sharps carbines and pikes from northern abolitionist societies in preparation for the raid. The armory was a large complex of buildings that contained 100,000 muskets and rifles, which Brown planned to seize and use to arm local slaves. They would then head south, drawing off more and more slaves from plantations, and fighting only in self-defense. As Frederick Douglass and Brown's family testified, his strategy was essentially to deplete Virginia of its slaves, causing the institution to collapse in one county after another, until the movement spread into the South, essentially wreaking havoc on the economic viability of the pro-slavery states. Thus, while violence was essential to self-defense and advancement of the movement, Brown's hope was to limit and minimize bloodshed, not ignite a slave insurrection as many have charged. From the Southern point of view, of course, any effort to arm the enslaved was perceived as a definitive threat.

Initially, the raid went well. They met no resistance entering the town. They cut the telegraph wires and easily captured the armory, which was being defended by a single watchman. They next rounded up hostages from nearby farms, including Colonel Lewis Washington, great-grand-nephew of George Washington. They also spread the news to the local slaves that their liberation was at hand. Things started to go wrong when an eastbound Baltimore & Ohio train approached the town. The train's baggage master tried to warn the passengers. Brown's men yelled for him to halt and then opened fire. The baggage master, Hayward Shepherd, became the first casualty of John Brown's war against slavery. Ironically, Shepherd was a free black man. For some reason, after the shooting of Shepherd, Brown allowed the train to continue on its way. News of the raid reached Washington by late morning.

In the meantime, local farmers, shopkeepers, and militia pinned down the raiders in the armory by firing from the heights behind the town. Some of the local men were shot by Brown's men. At noon, a company of militia seized the bridge, blocking the only escape route. Brown then moved his prisoners and remaining raiders into the engine house, a small brick building at the entrance to the armory. He had the doors and windows barred and loopholes were cut through the brick walls. The surrounding forces barraged the engine house, and the men inside fired back with occasional fury. Brown sent his son Watson and another supporter out under a white flag, but the angry crowd shot them. Intermittent shooting then broke out, and Brown's son Oliver was wounded. His son begged his father to kill him and end his suffering, but Brown said "If you must die, die like a man." A few minutes later he was dead. The exchanges lasted throughout the day.

By morning (October 18) the engine house, later known as John Brown's Fort, was surrounded by a company of U.S. Marines under the command of Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee of the United States Army. A young Army lieutenant, J.E.B. Stuart, approached under a white flag and told the raiders that their lives would be spared if they surrendered. Brown refused, saying, "No, I prefer to die here." Stuart then gave a signal. The Marines used sledge hammers and a make-shift battering-ram to break down the engine room door. Lieutenant Israel Greene cornered Brown and struck him several times, wounding his head. In three minutes Brown and the survivors were captives. Altogether Brown's men killed four people, and wounded nine. Ten of Brown's men were killed (including his sons Watson and Oliver). Five of Brown's men escaped (including his son Owen), and seven were captured along with Brown.

We need to go back to my post on Saturday morning, and play the James Brown refrain here: I'm a bad mother. Indeed, by all accounts, Brown dazzled all the soldiers and authorities he encountered, with his utter lack of fear and total righteous attitude.

And then, his trial, which for it's day, apparently made OJ's look like a tea party. His famous final words, upon his death sentence:

I have, may it please the Court, a few words to say.

In the first place, I deny everything but what I have all along admitted: of a design on my part to free slaves . . .

Had I interfered in the matter which I admit, and which I admit has been fairly proved . . . had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, or the so-called great . . . and suffered and sacrificed, what I have in this interference, it would have been all right. Every man in this Court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment.

I see a book kissed which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament, which teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do unto me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me further to remember them that are in bonds as bound with them. I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say that I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done, as I have always freely admitted I have done in behalf of His despised poor, I did no wrong, but right.

Now if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked,cruel and unjust enactments, I say, let it be done.

John Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859, virtually the eve of the Civil War. Some people blamed him for the Civil War. And certainly, his unapologetic, incendiary abolitionist presence hovered over Union troops, and they even made up a marching song about him, which they sang with enthusiasm. The Battle Hymn of the Republic was taken from the Union marching song:

John Brown's body lies a moulderin in the grave
John Brown's body lies a moulderin in the grave
John Brown's body lies a moulderin in the grave
But his soul goes marching on

Yes, I do like Julia Ward Howe's Christian rewrite, but I have always preferred the original.

The discussion of vigilante/street justice and whether it is ever warranted continues today; on the right, regarding violence against abortion clinics, doctors and employees; on the left, regarding direct-action groups like Earth First and the Animal Liberation Front. In the 70s, the Weather Underground, as well as radicals such as Karl Armstrong and David Fine, rekindled a long-standing feud between those radicals who held to pacifism at all costs, and those who thought pacifism rendered one a sitting duck.

And in every such discussion, there is his name, waved about like a bloodied banner: What about John Brown? His name is invoked as an indictment, as well as a blessing.

His soul goes marching on.




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Listening to: Patti Smith Group - Till Victory
via FoxyTunes