Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Plan to Kill Obama and Black Schoolchildren

Here's news of yet another plot uncovered. No one wants to be right about the possibility of these scenarios, but is amazing how quickly we are dismissed as "paranoid," "hate-mongers" when we express these very valid fears. Several posts back, I wrote about the history of lynching in America and its link to fears of losing power/dominance. I was surprised at the number of people who accused me of stirring up racial resentments. One person even referred to me as "dangerous." Gordon writes about the phenomenon of "black victimology," but this is a situation where fears and and anxieties are too often dismissed.

Two young men who are believers in “white power” have been arrested and charged in Tennessee in what federal officials described as a plan to assassinate Senator Barack Obama and kill black children at a school...

Federal officials said that both of the men who were arrested — Paul Schlesselman, 18, of West Helena, Ark., and Daniel Cowart, 20, of Bells, Tenn. — told interrogators that they had talked of assassinating Mr. Obama. Lawyers for the men could not be reached.

The two men “planned to drive their vehicle as fast as they could toward Obama shooting at him from the windows,” according to an affidavit filed in federal court in Jackson, Tenn., by an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Mr. Obama has no plans to be in Tennessee, and the affidavit does not make clear whether the men had picked a place for an attack.

The assassination was to be the culmination of a “killing spree” that would also single out children at an unnamed, predominately black school, federal officials said. The men talked of “killing 88 people and beheading 14 African-Americans,” according to the affidavit.

The two men each had “very strong views” about Aryan white power and “skinhead” ideology, the federal officials said, and the numbers 88 and 14 have special significance in the white power movement. The number 88 is shorthand for “Heil, Hitler” — H is the eighth letter in the alphabet —and 14 signifies a 14-word mantra among white supremacists: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”...


Clearly, we are not imagining this.

5 comments:

Gallington Press said...

I heard about that ish...xan you believe it? In 2008? Scary, aint it?
Brandi

Werner Herzog's Bear said...

As someone who comes from a shit rural town I grew up with committed bigots who were about the most stupid, lazy, good for nothing bastards you'd ever find, and they violently clung to their whiteness. It pains me, but so far none of the stories of plots against Obama's life strike me as far-fetched or not to be taken seriously.

Anonymous said...

If you can't get osama, then go for obama. That's America for you. And thank god for it. Anybody got some butter for my popcorn?

Anonymous said...

I strongly disagree about the fact that those two guys were lunatics or something. They are 21st century revolutionaries who wanted to do something about what they believed in and my heart yearns for them.

gordon gartrelle said...

Zora,

I reserve the word "victimilogy" for those instances in which people crave victim status, not those in which people deal with legitimate threats.

Also, victimology knows no color.

These idiots' plot is a prime example. White supremacists live in a twisted fantasy world where white people are the ultimate victims oppressed by the brown hordes (and their white liberal and gay allies). Now that's victimology.

Does anybody else find it hilarious that they planned to wear white tuxes and top hats?