Wednesday, April 7, 2010

The Other Charlie Wilson's "War"


Update -

April 9th - US District Judge James Hutton set bail for Charles Alan Wilson in the amount of $20,000, determining he was not a flight risk. If Wilson is able to post the bond, he would be under a curfew from 6 pm to 8 am, cannot have firearms, cannot use alcohol, and is restricted to eastern Washington except for court apperances in Seattle.

April 7th -The man accused of making death threats against Representative Eric Cantor and other members of Congress including Nancy Pelosi, Norman Leboon, has been found by prosecutors unable to stand trial for those threats, because he suffers from multiple personality disorder. Like Leboon, the man arrested recently for making threats against Rep. Pelosi, Gregory Lee Giusti, also has a history of mental illness, and is undergoing an evaluation to determine if he can stand trial.
Charlie Wilson was not a recognized member of the Yakima, Washington Tea Party group, "Remember Us, We the People", but Wilson did participate in a 120 person protest by the group over recent health-care reform legislation, held near a Yakima hotel where Senator Murray was speaking. "We the people" was a recurring phrase in Wilson's threats, as were references to other people sharing his sentiments. According to the Yakima Herald, organizers of the Tea Party protest indicated they did not know Wilson, and that they did not advocate violence.

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This post is about the Charlie Wilson who was arrested for making 'true threats' to the two senators from Washington state, not the Charlie Wilson profiled in the Oscar-nominated bio-pic movie in 2007, "Charlie Wilson's War".

THIS Charlie Wilson is the man arrested in Washington, and his "War" is the acts of aggression referred to by Wilson throughout the transcribed threats that are listed in the FBI complaint : www.justice.gov/usao/waw/press/2010/apr/pdfs/WILSON%20COMPLAINT.pdf
Wilson is being charged with violating Title 18, United States Code, Sections 115 (a)(1)(B) and (b)(4) - a felony.
What I intend to do with this post is to excerpt the statements by Wilson, listed in the FBI complaint transcripts of his words, and to cross-reference them with statements from the Right in relation to Health Care Reform legislation, and other subjects.

Excerpting the threats, chronologically:

from March 22, 2010
"There are many people out there who want you dead. Just remember that, as you are politicing[sic] for your reelection.... Now that you've passed your health-care bill, let the violence begin....We the people will not subside, succumb, to socialism. ... Let the violence begin. You have awakened a sleeping giant. The American people will not put up with it."

Wilson, in using the words "many people out there want you dead", and in his references to "people not succumbing to socialism", "sleeping giant" and "American people" clearly believes, despite his insistence that he is an "Independent", and despite attempting to give the impression he is somehow not aligned politically, Wilson clearly sees himself as belonging to a larger group of people who share his views, and perhaps a shared affinity with the people who have shaped his beliefs.

The reference "We the people" is clearly a reference to the opening words to the Preamble of the United States Constitution. I have been struck by the number of groups on the Right who try to cloak themselves in the mantle of the Constitution, as if they, and only they value it. Too often these very people seem either to be ignorant of its actual content, or to be ignorant or have a twisted view of how our Constitution has been applied throughout our history. Some of them seem to come up with their own distorted ideal of the Constitution, entirely different from the reality. This seems to be one more link between Wilson and the political Right; Wilson's own words provide compelling insight into his beliefs.

from March 23rd, 2010:

"With the passing of your health-care bill, it is living proof now that....This great country that believes in God and guns. Since you've done this, there's going to be some bigger targets on your (expletive) back. I hope somebody kills you, and I hope somebody kills [the President]. Yes, die, dead. You're signing my death warrant, so I want to sign yours (more expletives)."

This excerpt reiterates the notion that Wilson believes he is not alone in his views on health-care reform, but rather that he is part of a group of similarly minded people, including Second Amendment proponents. It repeats his mistaken belief in the lie perpetuated by Sarah Palin and others about death panels, and the misrepresentation on end of life counseling such as making provisions for wills and living trusts. Clearly, Wilson has bought the premise seen on so many of the protest signs, including the Tea Party signs, without knowing or making the effort to fact-check the Right's talking points for validity. This misapprehension, in turn, is used as a justification for assassinations; and frankly, anyone promoting these lies has to be a fool to expect otherwise.
www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/aug/10/sarah-palin/sarah-palin-barack-obama-death-panel/

approximately an hour later, excerpted from a much longer voice mail,
on March 23rd, 2010:

"...you are going to have a target on your back...for voting in socialism into this country, with your health-care reform bill, and cap n tax....How long do you think you can hide?...By your attempts to overtake this country with socialism, somebody's gonna get to you one way or another and blow your (expletive) brains out....If I have the chance, I would do it...You have created a hatred in this country against socialism.... politicians are going to be held accountable... with your life....with your life." Wilson goes on to claim he is not a 'tea party bagger'[sic], not a Republican or a Democrat, claiming he is an Independent voter, however he clearly appears to have sympathies for the politics of the Right, and fairly far to the Right. Wilson goes on in his voice mail threat " I want to (expletive) kill you (more expletives). We will not be socialized (many more expletives)."

www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2010/mar/18/top-ten-facts-to-know-about-health-care-reform/


Anyone who has fact-checked the many allegations that the recent health-care reform legislation constitutes some kind of a socilialist government take over would understand that the health care and the insurance industries remain private, that the current legislation is fundamentally different from the health care provided in places like the UK. For example, politifact.com awarded a "pants on fire" rating to Sarah Palin's claims during the 2008 presidential / vice presidential campaign that Obama wanted "to experiment with socialism", the worst rating for lies they have - except for the 2009 Lie of the Year award they gave to Palin for the false death panel claims.

www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/3008/dec/03/sarah-palin/the-mccain-campaign-experiments-with-dishonesty/

Wilson went on to make many, many calls on March 23rd, 2010, and continued to make multiple calls through April 4th, 2010. While removing the obscenities and expletives cuts the transcribed language more than by half, those transcribed messages are still too long to include in total here. I encourage Penigma readers to read all of them for yourselves in the complaint. Further proof that Wilson had believed false statements by the Right, including those made by people like Sarah Palin, and Republicans from both the House and the Senate, are illustrated by the following excerpts from the transcribed threats in the complaint,

also from March 23rd, 2010:

"I do believe that every one of you (expletive) socialist democratic progressive (expletive) needs to be taken out...There is a growing hatred, my dear, for you progressive socialist democrats. Socialism will not work. There is growing hatred....my hatred is coming for you. Since you are going to put my life at risk, and some bureaucrat is going to determine my health-care, your life is at risk, dear. Your life is at risk....your life is at risk.... There are a lot more of us. Your life is in danger, since you are putting my life at danger. Turn about's fair play."

Wilson, age 64, believes, from these statements, the horrendous lie that Palin circulated, that "seniors and the disabled" will have to stand "in front of Obama's death panel so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgement of their level of productivity in society, whether they are worthy of health care". Palin has never repudiated her lie, and she has continued to spread misinformation about health-care reform provisions to her unquestioning, blindly accepting adherents. This excerpt is further evidence that while not a formal member of any group, Wilson clearly does not consider himself a lone wolf, he believes he is one of many who have these beliefs - on the Right.

and later, still on March 23rd, 2010:

"Expletive you socialists up the expletive ass. ....baby killer....you baby killing expletive bitch.....baby killer....We will not be socialized, you expletive expletive."

Wilson clearly believes the lie that was yelled out by Rep. Randy Neugenbauer on the floor of the House on the day of the health-care reform vote, a lie that has been widely, frequently, loudly repeated by the Right, like Texas Republican Representative John Carter, that the health-care reform bill has provisions paying for abortion. It does not: www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2010/mar/28/john-carter/rep-john-carter-says-health-care-law-provides-full/

on March 24th, 2010:

"put a (expletive) gun to your head....blow your (expletive) brains out.... You are ruining this country. You have awakened a sleeping giant, and we are coming after you. Yes, we the people. As you trash our Constitution, you tried to lead us into a socialist nation, we're gonna (expletive) you up....blows your fucking brains out."

As to 'ruining this country':
www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/mar/15/virginia-foxx/foxx-blames-recession-democratic-congressional-tak/

from another call on March 24th, 2010:
"The old saying goes, my dear, all's fair in love and war. This is war, so everything is fair. Cover your back....Cover your back, all's fair in love and war. Nobody comes out a winner. You may think you are a winner now. You're gonna be the biggest (expletive) loser. You have a horrendous amount of people that dislike you and your policies, and since we are, you have declared war on the American citizens, and we are declaring war upon you."

This is the 'war' in Charlie Wilson's war. It repeats the same core theme that Wilson is part of a larger group, possibly something he needed to believe to boost his courage to make the threats. If Wilson believes he is part of a group, it raises the question who that group would be. Clearly it is not the left, not the Democrats, not the Progressives.

from the transcribed calls on March 26th:
"Now that you have finally screwed the people of this State, and helped screw the people of this country....your policies and your ideas suck."

These lies about the provisions of the health-care reform bill, about the Obama administration, about Democrats in Congress - that there is rampant socialism, that health-care reform is a government take-over, that it pays for and encourages abortions, that it is a threat to the elderly and disabled through death panels, that it runs rough-shod over the Constitution, all of these claims - these LIES - come from the Right. They come from Palin and Bachmann, they come from Boehner and Cantor and McConnell, and all of their associates. They circulate to the Right from Beck and O'Reilly and their Fox news colleagues, they spread from talk radio, like Limbaugh and all of his imitators. They are repeated by the Right wing bloggers and commenters. Had these influential people not lied, deliberately, loudly, and often, had they not chosen to use irresponsibly their First Amendment protected free speech to inflame and incite, it is far less likely that the Senators from Washington and their staffs would have been threatened, instead of receiving the usual level of legal but offensive calls they receive about hot issues.

In researching this story, to demonstrate this connection between the Right, and Charlie Wilson, just a quick look on the Fox News website for "glenn beck, obama, socialism" produced 68,240 entries. That was just Glenn Beck, just Fox News; not performing a full search engine search.

The following is from Tuesday, April 6, 2010, an example of just one source where Charlie Wilson got the false idea that Obama is a socialist, and by extension, Democratic Senator Patty Murray. I want readers of this post to think about what Beck says, and then to remember Wilson's words, how vehemently Wilson wants President Obama dead over this notion of socialism, and how he wants Murray dead for socialism. And then I want you to think about that number of entries for "Beck, Obama, Socialism" on the Fox News site: 68,240.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4139297/barack-obama-socialist

Clearly, these statements in the threats by Charlie Wilson directly connect to the actions and statements of the Right. They cannot distance themselves from these threats, they cannot repudiate his actions; they share fully in all the threats to the members of Congress and others made by Charlie Wilson and the yet-to-be-arrested others who have generated similar threats. They share that responsibility because they put the ideas in his head and then they made a deliberate effort to agitate his emotions. Lies are dangerous things.

11 comments:

  1. I think you raise some very interesting points but I don't like the video game causality implications. Although there is an apparent relationship between violent video games and violent children it is not a clear cause and effect relationship. The two things studies that try to show this relationship skip over two main things:

    1) The number of kids that play video games and are well-adjusted is greater than the number of kids that play video games and are well adjusted. Using inductive reasoning, the argument "video games causes children to become well adjusted" is actually a more valid arugment. The discrepancy shows that both arguments are invalid.
    2) Any correlation that is not accident (which itself has not been shown) could be either cause-effect of efffect-cause. The claim "all children who play violent video games become violent" is illegitmate. However, the argument "all violent children who will become violent will play violent video games" is a legitimate (although unproven) claim.

    The same standards apply to politics and violence. It would be irresponsible to say that people like Palin and Bachmann, Beck and Limbaugh cause people to be violent.

    I also need to point out that Dog Gone did not make the above claim, and I think it's important to make that disctinction. She is not saying that people like Beck cause Wilson to be violent, but that their rhetoric attracts and incites people who are violent. DG implies that the Right encourages and engages this sort of behavior, which is by itself a very dangerous claim.

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  2. However, I personally love danger. So here goes.

    I'll focus on Palin, Beck and Limbaugh becuase they are entertainers rather than politicians. All three have one thing in common with the Tea Party: they are registered for-profit entities that have an established business model to provide a service for the purpose of earning a profit.

    Profit margins are grown in two main ways: increasing the number of customers and increasing the volume that each customer generates. In the case of Beck/Limbaugh/Palin, they all understand that reinforcing existing emotions is the easiest way to increase volume.

    They incite anger and hatred in order to turn a profit. The fact that their rhetorical style is to use generalities and catch phrases to appeal to emotions and avoid substanitive claims demonstrates this. [If you feel that Beck/Limabugh/Palin are full of substantive claims, let me know what they are and we'll talk.]

    Most well adjusted people can control their anger and their hatred without resorting to violence. I know a lot of conservatives personally. They are all angry, every last one, and none of them are violent. All I have to fear from them is a dramatic reduction in Facebook comments from them.

    However people that are not emotionally stable are drawn towards people that reinforce their emotions. Conservative entertainers do so with regard to profit and without regard for the well being of the individual.

    How do I come to this opinion? Because they do not qualify themselves. If they cared more for a cause than for profit they would make a point to reinforce positive behavior as well as positive (in their opinion) belief. They would caution people to control their feelings and take positive steps towards change rather than rile people up and cash their checks.

    Now that we are seeing examples of people who are threatening violence, the responsible thing for the conservative entertainers to do would be to call for supporters of their cause to find peaceful and productive means of resistance and change.

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  3. I think you dropped an "n't" in the second paragraph of your comment, AB, but I believe I understand your meaning.

    I grew up in a household full of conservatives; I wouldn't describe all conservatives as angry (usually). I don't think of our own TTuck as angry - well, maybe briefly cross with me from time to time, LOL, but I can have that effect on conservatives...and sometimes not-conservatives too.

    In the case of your video game playing analogy, without a control comparison group of non-video game playing individuals, cause and effect correlations are useless. There is no way to tell if or how video game playing affects well-adjusted kids. Would the be better adjusted if they didn't play, and might mal-adjusted kids be less maladjusted; neither; or an entirely different result. You seem to be looking at the quality of adjustment as an absolute, not a gradient variable, which I think is incorrect.

    However, in my premise, there are two key factors:

    1. I find the right to make assertions about their numbers, which they claim are larger, while other indicators suggest they are smaller. I am positing that in order to be more like that larger ideal, the Right is embracing, soliciting, cultivating out more marginal and extreme elements that they would not have sought out before - that they would have rejected previously. (Think Buckley and the Birchers, back in the 60's on the Right.)

    2.The more extreme the element the far greater the probability, the predictability of extreme - including violent - behavior. Maybe you cannot predict which group or individual will behave that way, but it is likely a grater number will do so.

    You have I'm sure seen conservative boasting about the large devoted following of Fox news or Limbaugh or Palin while she was a VP candidate for office. You can't have it both ways -

    you cannot fairly claim influence,

    use that influence irresponsibly - as indicated by the poor record when fact checked -

    and then deny having that influence when things go badly, like the threats and vandalism,

    after deliberately cultivating these marginal and extreme people.

    I do not claim pure cause and effect. The purveyors of the emotional misinformation are not the only causal factor. But they do seem to be a consistent contributing factor.

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  4. I'm not at all convinced at the causality link. While it is true that there are people who happen to listen to and believe people such as Palin, Limbaugh, Bachmann, etc, and a few of those people have gone on to commit (or threatened to commit) violent acts, I still don't see a causal link. The evidence just isn't there in my opinion.

    Yes, its true that a number of conservative politicians and entertainers have consistently told lie after lie about health care reform. However, although some of these people who have made threats apparently believed some of the lies, that doesn't necessarily prove that they were motivated by those statements to commit or threaten to commit violent acts. I submit that if anything, this is getting blown out of proportion, and these acts should be seen to be what they are: violent criminal acts by deranged individuals who will be held accountable for their actions in a court of law.

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  5. "I'm not at all convinced at the causality link."

    I think you're missing my point. My point is that there is no causal link. But responsibility is not all about causation. No one is saying that Republicans are causing violence. [I realise that "inciting" is very close to "cause" in meaning, so perhaps I wrote poorly.]

    But that doesn't mean they are not responsible for it.

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  6. I agree with AB, that a shared responsibility for this, is subtly but significantly different from causation.

    For one thing, cause, as in proximate cause, is more direct; this is very indirect. I cannot prove - although prosecutors of Mr. Wilson may - that Wilson directly watched Beck, or listened to Limbaugh, or read or saw Boehner on the news, or ever attended a speech by Palin.

    I hope Pen will have better luck than I have had with posting the accompanying photos of tea party and other protest signs, from different events/dates and locations. There is only room here for a few examples from the many I looked at, but the pattern was striking, suggesting an odd ort of consistency and an unnatural cohesiveness that intrigued me.

    I credit you gentlemen with a sensitivity to meaning and nuance, and to the use of language, especially its more organic qualities.

    So, I'm sure that when I point out that the same sign language has been turning up over and over and over in the threats that have been made public, threats made to so many different congrssmen and senators, in such different parts of the country, I got curious. True to my nom de plume, I can dig, and I can track too. In this casse I was tracking the connections.

    I was intrigued by the consistency of the language, and frankly the monotony of the concepts.

    I was annoyed too that the Right was trying to deny these threats came from people on the right when the evidence indicated such consistency with their statements.I think I deminstrated the connections pretty well in the case of Mr Wilson.

    There is a difference between the tragically mentally ill man arrested recently for making a youtube video threats, against Cantor, Pelosi, and a thousand or two other people, and extremists who are sane making these threats.

    Can you show an indication, ToE, that Wilson or any other person issuing threats other than Leboon is nuts rather than enraged?

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  7. When I used the word organic, I was using it in the sense of the another aspect of the Wilson threat, the astonishing number of justifications for the threats and for his emotions which were factually, demonstrably untrue, factually inaccurate.

    If these threats were 'organic', if they arose out of direct experience, for example, of the federal funding of abortions, or in the case of the protests against acorn, of convictions for widespread voter fraud instead of essentially some sporadic voter registration nuisances, I would expect to see more originality in language, building on fewer common themes.

    When so many claims BOTH are inaccurate and false, AND therefore NOT directly experienced as portrayed, AND the language and issues are all the same -----it raises red flags, it raises queare stions about where this language these ideas are originating, it raises doubts.

    When you add in the numerous repetitions of the perception that these ideas are widespread...it suggests a facet of wide circulation rather than original, personal experience.

    What struck me about Charlie Wilson was that his rage resulted from fear. In the end, he will become more a victim of his own fear and rage, than Senator Murray or her staff.

    If all that happens, as AB outlines, because someone was manipulated for politics and profit....what does that say about the manipulaters.

    Something I learned from my father, my ultra-conservative father, was that whether you like or dislike someone, agree or disagree, honesty matters, facts matter. If someone is dishonest, if someone is careless, or worse, carefully manipulative of facts - run, don't walk as far away as you can get. Because every time someone - in this instance, many people- will get hurt. Every single time. Ideology never trumps integrity. That is what you are really looking at when you fact check.

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  8. It is interesting that so many of the threats made by Wilson contain references to We the People, part of the name of the local tea party group, and references to others who he viewed as having common cause with him. Wilson seemed to feel some kind of kinship with the tea party members.

    The Tea Party members on the other hand appear to have been largely unaware of Wilson, he was not on their list of members, and they did not as a group share his views on the use of violence.

    The sense of belonging that Wilson had seems very one-sided.

    That Wilson was in such close proximity to Murray, and claims to routinely carry his .38 in public, just a few days before his arrest, and during some of his most

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  9. Whoops!
    That Wilson was in such close proximity to Murray, and claimed to routinely, legally, carry his .38 in public, just a few days before his arrest, and during the period of some of his most threatening phone calls, is chilling.

    In part due to the threats by Wilson, additional security was present at the event.

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  10. It is interesting to me that the phrase "We the People" is part of the preamble of the Constitution - yet few of those who recognize the words would be able to complete the entire preamble.

    "We the People of the United States, in order to form a perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

    Please note the establish Justice and promote the genreal Welfare comments. Those who phumper about the Constitution seem oblivious to both segments. First, in a just society, how do we have 1% of the population control and dictate the law and economy in such a way that they own roughly 85% of ALL of the property? Second, is not promoting the general health of the country in the interest of general Welfare, and more, is it not just to see to it that those who have the least, have at least the small kindness of decent medical care?

    I personally prefer the following passage, written in large measure by the same man (Thomas Jefferson) -

    "When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed"

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  11. Please note, it does not say "all CITIZENS are created equal", nor does it qualify the reasons for separation. Our nation has become so skewed, so out of balance, in terms of haves vs. have nots, it is time for us to demand a change, but not one of "no more taxes", but rather tax and profit fairness.

    The Tea Party crowd likes to point to the "Tea Party" in Boston of 1773, but they prefer, rather than looking to the humanistic and egalitarian Declaration of Independence, to skip over it, and instead point to the pre-amble of the Constitution - and in that they only pick up the "power of the people" rather than the genesis of that power (inalienable rights and rights granted by the governed) or the fundamentally egalitarian attitude of the Declaration of Independence. They skip it because it would require them to examine whether their stance on a highly uneven system was fundamentally fair, and fairness has never been their interest. Their only interst has been in cutting their own taxes and threatening anyone who dares to do anything they don't like.

    In short, they have totally misunderstood the reason for the Boston Tea Party, the attitutde of the colonists of the time demanding fair representation, and everything that drove them ultimately to declare independence. The attitude of the colonists was NOT that ALL taxes are bad, nor were they unwilling to pay a fair share, they just demanded a voice and representation AND equal treatment in the British government. Clearly the Tea Party folks of today don't want equal treatment before the law, they want UNEQUAL treatment - and if they don't get it, they're going to threaten and even perpetrate violence to get it. The ultimate irony is that they are helping those who HAVE the power (i.e. in effect they are helping the British of our day) - because the 'lower' taxes are really only going to be lower on the most wealthy, the most powerful - this anti-tax movement which came to power in 1981 and of which the Tea Party is just another iteration - has resulted in 50% reduction in taxes on the most wealthy, and less than 5% (at a federal level) on the rest of us.

    They should take the title "Torries" - it would be more appropriate.

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