To Terrorize or Not To Terrorize

The papers are full of the radical Christian group that planned to kill an police officer and then others at his funeral: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/29/AR2010032901541_pf.html. (Yet they are not, of course, terrorists - news.firedoglake.com/2010/03/29/ceci-nest-pas-un-terroris). This follows the arrest of Norman Leboon for threatening Rep. Eric Canter, among many others: www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/29/norman-leboon-arrested-th_n_517246.html. And there are the various incarnations of the Tea Party spitting at politicians, calling them racial epithets and worse. The question is why are these white people so angry? And about what? Obviously the healthcare reform is the latest source of their ire, but conservative white males have been angry for a long time. Some call Obama a Nazi; failing to recognize the irony. Some seem to have no idea that facism and socialism are not the same thing. Others seem to hate Obama because he is Black -- though they won't admit it. What's odd is how few seem to hate corporations. They are angry at the "illegal" immigrants that are taking their jobs, the poor who they believe they are paying taxes to support, the government for challenging their "freedom" and anything that has the word "tax" attached to it. But these are just the outlets for their anger. One wonders what the source is. Here I have to ponder whether it is the falling state of the white male in America. Most know that they will some day become the minority, and this scares them. Women are outperforming them in educational achievement, Blacks are theoretically taking their jobs through affirmative action (though this doesn't really exist anymore). Gays are trying to destroy our Christian roots. And Mexicans and those from South America are changing the color and language of America. Really it appears that ressentiment (ala Nietzsche) is at the heart of the matter. What's odd is that classic populism attacking the rich and corporations seems to have failed in this case. The years of Reagan and other conservatives shifting the source of the blame for the upward movement of wealth and increasing unemployment have worked and it is hard to break through the hatred that has built against those who have destroyed the American dream. One wonders if this trend can be changed; or if this group is large enough to really matter in the long run . . .