Torturing White America

If over baked bad movie plots are now the basis of deciding right and wrong, so be it. We need not even look to Hollywood for help. Because America is full of home grown terrorists, there are some real life scenarios that can guide public policy now that civilized behavior has become passé.

“A future president Clinton will gladly give thumbs up to the thumb screws.”

A Californian named Chad Castagana sent white powder and threatening notes to Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann, David Letterman, Senator Charles Schumer, and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, among others. His note intended for Jon Stewart read “Do you know Alan Berg? You should. Death to demagogues.” Alan Berg was a Denver talk radio host who was murdered by white supremacists.

The white powder wasn’t anthrax or anything lethal, but it surely was meant to frighten and intimidate the recipients. The letter meant for Jon Stewart that alluded to Berg should clearly have been seen as a death threat. If Dershowitz, Clinton and company are correct, Castagana should have been tortured when he was arrested.

Everyone loves torture if the intended victim is brown. A student at UCLA, Mostafa Tabatabainejad, was stunned five times with a taser when he refused to show ID in a library. Tabatabainejad didn’t threaten anyone, didn’t have a weapon, and was attempting to leave the premises when he was stopped. He got the stun gun treatment anyway.

Nancy Pelosi was not yet House Speaker when she received Castagana’s missive but she was a leading member of Congress already entitled to Secret Service protection. A threat sent to her or Senator Schumer fits the Patriot Act  definition of domestic terrorism.

By the new standards of the day, Castagana should have been tortured until he cracked. He didn’t get a taser stun or a whipping with a wet noodle. He is out on bail, walking the streets with the rest of us.

Castagana has plenty of company. Anti-abortion terrorists have been at work for many years using violence and the threat of violence. Since 1977, anti-abortion terrorists have committed 7 murders, 17 attempted murders, 3 kidnappings, 152 assaults, 305 completed or attempted bombings and arsons, 375 invasions, 482 stalking incidents, 380 death threats, 618 bomb threats, 100 acid attacks, and 1,254 acts of vandalism.

“Anti-abortion terrorists have been at work for many years using violence and the threat of violence.”

White terrorist David McMenemy doused his car with gasoline and drove into a women’s health clinic in Davenport, Iowa. He thought the clinic was an abortion provider; it wasn’t, but who has time to research when there is killing to be done. Torturing him may have saved lives. He might have had tales to tell about his violent cohorts. Hopefully someone in law enforcement is working on the rendition orders right now.

McMenemy didn’t even rate news coverage in a major newspaper or television network. White domestic terrorists rarely do. They are in fact encouraged by some in the media. Castagana described his muses this way. “Ann Coulter is a Goddess and I worship Laura Ingraham and Michele Malkin.”

Coulter has advocated murder on more than one occasion. Ingraham encouraged her radio listeners to jam phone lines on election day so that Democrats could not report voting problems. Malkin is a self-hating dark skinned Filipina who thinks that internment of Japanese Americans during World War II was a great idea. All three advocate torturing terror suspects who are Muslim or Arab. Of course, if they truly believe what they say, they would have turned themselves in for a water boarding session. We have to find out if they inspired any other would be killers. It would only be fair.

Margaret Kimberleys Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com. When sending email, please remember to replace the (at) with @. You can read more of Ms. Kimberley's writings at freedomrider.blogspot.com.

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