The American Spectator : An Angry Pothead

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An Angry Pothead

By R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. on 3.11.10 @ 6:08AM

A case of purposely mistaken political identity.

WASHINGTON -- There has been yet another eruption of violence from what our Liberal friends a year or so ago were wont to call "the Angry Left." However, if you read the Washington Post you might think this recent outburst of violence came from talk radio.

The angry leftist behind the violence is John Patrick Bedell, 36, who on the evening of March 4 walked up to an entrance of the Pentagon, pulled a gun on two Pentagon guards, Jeffrey Amos and Marvin Carraway, and was shot dead. Both guards were wounded.

In the aftermath of this attack it was reported that Bedell was a pot-smoking intellectualoid from California who left word on the Internet that according to his findings a "coup regime" took over Washington at the time of President John F. Kennedy's assassination, and has governed the country "up to the present day." What is more, the "coup regime," according to Bedell, was complicit in 9/11. This judgment might strike you as extreme, but apparently it is not, at least not on the left. You will recall that President Barack Obama's recently resigned environmental, czar, Van Jones, had signed a petition to this effect before being invited into the Administration.

In the Post's report on Bedell's assault -- headlined "Pentagon Shooter's Erratic Journey" -- a high school classmate recalled: "I remember him [Bedell] being a sweet-natured, funny peacenik." Another acquaintance reported to the Post that Bedell was a heavy marijuana user, and elsewhere one of Bedell's brothers reported that he was a perpetual student who so far as the brother knew never held a job while bouncing from campus to campus and developing his esoteric theories. All in all, this glassy-eyed ideologue was surely a man of the left, the infantile left to be sure, but the left.

Nonetheless in the Post's companion piece analyzing Bedell's assault and appearing on page one under the headline "The Disaffected Lashing Out at Symbols of Power," Post reporters write of "Bedell's rampage as a distorted manifestation of the anti-Washington view that has driven the rise of right-wing militias." Yes, they said "right-wing militias." Then just a few paragraphs away from the Post's news report of Bedell being a pothead and a "sweet-natured, funny peacenik," the Post analytical piece gibbers on about "militias and hate groups" that "are interlinked to a much greater degree by the Web and mainstream radio and TV talk shows that echo many of the same viewpoints." So if Post readers think Rush Limbaugh had a hand in the recent assault on the Pentagon, they can be forgiven.

Now I actually listen to talk radio from time to time, and I cannot recall ever hearing one of the conservative talk hosts "echo[ing] many of the same viewpoints" of the wretched Bedell or any other member of the Angry Left. For that matter, I cannot imagine any member of the Angry Left finding himself in accord with conservative talk radio. How does one explain the Post's analysis, which is contradicted so starkly by the Post's news report? Does anyone edit the newspaper today?

My explanation is that some journalists are actually very pious people. They have a deep faith in their heroes, and the Angry Left remains revered in these journalists' trusting minds. They see a California pothead, who shares Van Jones's suspicion that the Bush Administration was complicit in 9/11, attempt to gun down Pentagon guards, and they want to change the subject. They change the topic to "right-wing militias." Unsatisfied with that act of legerdemain, they bring in talk radio and TV talk shows. It has all happened before.

On November 22, 1963, an American Communist, Lee Harvey Oswald, who admired the Cuban Revolution, gunned down JFK in Dallas, Texas, and the same kind of pious journalists caught gibbering in the Post the other day fastened the nation's attention not on left-wing violence but on right-wing critics of Kennedy living otherwise peaceful lives in Dallas. The violent potential of militant leftists was never pondered, though America was about to enter into a decade of protest that witnessed leftists burning down university buildings, bombing R.O.T.C. facilities, and otherwise committing acts of violence on behalf of peace and a better world.

Thus John Patrick Bedell, a life-long member of the Angry Left, gets himself killed while assaulting the Pentagon, and the pious journalists at the Washington Post lump the poor guy in with right-wing militias. It is shoddy journalism. Much worse, it is a shocking act of disrespect for the dead.

topics:
John Patrick Bedell, Washington Post

About the Author

R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. is the founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator. He is the author of the forthcoming The Death of Liberalism, published by Thomas Nelson Inc. His previous books include the New York Times bestseller Boy Clinton: the Political Biography; The Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton; The Liberal Crack-Up; The Conservative Crack-Up; Public Nuisances; The Future that Doesn't Work: Social Democracy's Failure in Britain; Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House; The Clinton Crack-Up; and After the Hangover: The Conservatives' Road to Recovery.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (54) | Leave a comment

Margie| 3.10.10 @ 6:14PM

This doesn't surprise me. Just take a look around in the blogosphere, here and elsewhere to see conservatives treated in like manner.
These are those who claim to be the "true conservatives." The "non-interventionists". These holier-than-thou's claim that America is the "Aggressor" and that we're the reason the terrorists are terrorists. We kill women and children! Why, if it weren't for us (the U.S.A.) (oh, and Israel), those poor little terrorists wouldn't be so mad at us and attack us!

I used to wonder why, when beginning to post, I was told that I was no conservative, that I am really for "Big Government" and that I actually hated my country.
Well it isn't because I'm not a true conservative, or that I don't love my country. But it's because these individuals are sick. They are the old left over hippie anti-war freaks, just intellectually supreme in their vocabularies and condescending in their attitudes. A lot of them also think 9/11 was an "inside job."
They seem to have gone slightly missing lately. I wonder why that is?
At any rate, I consider them enemies of America, and dangerous.

chuck| 3.11.10 @ 9:03AM

The nail has been hit squarely on the head. Toddard, et al come to mind.

Alan Brooks| 3.11.10 @ 9:45AM

Even Tim McVeigh could not have been called (to touch on the obvious) any sort of a conservative. McVeigh was called by his first interrogator, "one of the most horrible, demented people [in the interrogator's experience]"
Whats his name, Beetle, is just another super-nut like McVeigh.

Alan Brooks| 3.11.10 @ 10:03AM

...in fact, these a-holes aren't even rightwing, they are nihilists, as Hitler was. Everything aside from genuine spirituality can be reduced to Darwinism; the McVeighs, the Hitlers, the Beetles probably merely want to reduce the population.
That may seem like a stretch, but if it is, you might be shocked at how little of a stretch it is. As Paul said, there is the celestial and the terrestrial-- we are NOT in heaven.

Alan Brooks| 3.11.10 @ 4:38PM

... I mean, what a world of hate this is!

stmichrick| 3.11.10 @ 9:35PM

Margie
In describing the n0n-interventionist illness you overlooked one of its more genteel symptoms which is shared by left and right, Bush Hatred.

basur| 10.27.10 @ 6:41AM

When RET writes like this, he is HLM- like. I wish I could write half as well.

Deborah D| 3.11.10 @ 6:55AM

Mr. Tyrrell, you describe Orwell's "doublethink" quite well in this column (The power to hold two completely contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accept both of them.)

I was reading Thomas Sowell yesterday, and he was writing about how students today aren't taught how to think, but what to think. I think all of the ability to think rationally has been bred out of those (especially in liberal media) who write such things and believe them or expect you to believe them. Or perhaps they've learned the value of propaganda -- repeating a lie often enough makes it true, no? If young people aren't taught how to think and are only taught one way of looking at things as the right way, then perhaps the propaganda ministers of the MSM believe (with good reason) that they can get away with it.

Alan Brooks| 3.11.10 @ 9:56AM

"and he was writing about how students today aren't taught how to think, but what to think."

Very important, thanks for including this. Unfortunately, we can change the way people think, but not they themselves-- so education can only be improved marginally, which is not a prediction, but a guarantee. Think on this: privatize education in its entirety and someone still has to pay for it-- unless the teachers are volunteers (fat chance of that, huh?) and the materials are donated. So someone else has to always pay for it. Liberals and most (the dimmer bulbs) libertarians can't grasp that. And it is crucial.
Now, I AM pessimistic; yet there is a difference between being pessimistic and apocalyptic.

coal carrier| 3.11.10 @ 7:01AM

“…leftists burning down university buildings, bombing R.O.T.C. facilities, and otherwise committing acts of violence on behalf of peace and a better world.”

And now these pothead dropouts from Woodstock are running the US government. God help us.

Ret. Marine| 3.11.10 @ 7:04AM

This article point to the fact that all things in the leftist mindset are nonetheless old news. Repeat after me, Patriot=bad for one's soul, leftist good intentions=poor choices, poor results and never ever having to say to the country they wish to destroy, I'm sorry.
Yes a good mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Tenn Slim| 3.11.10 @ 7:55AM

Opine
Consider the Post. Obvious to the most casual reader. A Liberal, Left oriented print source, that is rapidly losing readership.
It comes as no surprise, therefore, that the referenced article would be anything other than as reported. We have drifted far off the Common Sense path and will suffer greatly for our errors.
end
Semper Fi

Howard| 3.11.10 @ 7:59AM

One factor that also explained the "press" view of the JFK murder was LBJ wishing to avoid war with the Soviet Union. The LBJ White House went along with the liberal desire (aided by the KGB) to blame the assassination on the" right-wing atmosphere" in Dallas in 1963. The reality was that Oswald was a leftist who was perhaps recruited by the KGB after he defected to the U.S.S.R. in 1959. After JFK was killed the KGB covered it's ass by pointing the finger at Dallas. With memories of the Cuban Missile Crisis quite fresh, LBJ did not state the obvious. Years later, out of office, he surmised that Castro had a hand in the killing. Not a bad idea.

Speedbump| 3.11.10 @ 8:06AM

I love how the left continually trots out "militias" as some sort of boogey-man, in order to scare small children into growing up to be Southern Poverty Law Center lawyers...they don't understand that, in the minds of the founding fathers, every able bodied male above the age of eighteen is really meant to be a citizen soldier in the "militia" of their respective states...

FTM| 3.11.10 @ 8:30AM

Ensconced in a university someplace or a government office or an urban center, the liberal mind becomes assured of it's own internal superiority that it comes to think itself elite. The liberal mind has decided and is assured by the likes of itself that it is odrained by nature itself to lead and direct the less endowed.

When confronted by reality, outside of the liberal environment of a university or a welfare dependant urban area or a government office the liberal mind becomes confused because it's leadership fails and is rejected and try as it might is simply left with no haven of retreat. It would seem that in the majority of cases the liberal mind collapses into a state of shrill bitterness but from time to time lashes out. This seems like such a case to me.

Howwzat for a monobrow assessment?

Ned| 3.11.10 @ 9:11AM

"Another acquaintance reported to the Post that Bedell was a heavy marijuana user, and elsewhere one of Bedell's brothers reported that he was a perpetual student who so far as the brother knew never held a job while bouncing from campus to campus and developing his esoteric theories. "

Oh I see, a Clinton or Obama that actually inhaled.

PsychoDad| 3.11.10 @ 12:31PM

"Oh I see, a Clinton or Obama that actually inhaled."

And held it.

JimP| 3.11.10 @ 9:51AM

Emmett:

Thanks for posting this. The more of we who lived through that era who speak the truth about it the better. The myth of the peaceful 60's anti-war counter-culture movement must be countered with the truth. And the truth is that the Left OWNS political violence. In this country as well as overseas and they have owned it for the last 100 years, at least.

cab404| 3.14.10 @ 9:36AM

Agree. The self-branding of the Left as champions of peace is typically Orwellian. Misanthropes, anarchists, nihilists, all of these types naturally gravitate leftward. Recall a member of the 19th-century elite's pantheon named John Brown. Northeastern intellectuals bankrolled this madman and his schemes to catalyze civil war. A few of his cadre, covered in self-righteousness, were Harvard men. Do the elites of today condemn John Brown? What about the rank-and-file Left? I am disquieted to think that the answer to both questions is no.

Bilwick| 3.11.10 @ 10:01AM

Hey, State-fellators out there (CopyLeft. et al): You want the militia movement to dry up and blow away? I suggest cutting back on the statism. People tend to feel less threatened by their government when the government isn't, you know, threatening them. Just a thought.

NJK| 3.11.10 @ 11:30AM

We listen to talk radio on a daily basis, Rush, Levin, and Savage, being our favorites. Guess what, we are hard working taxpayers, yes we pay taxes WaPo. We are also Catholics, treat others as we want to be treated, and don't like the angry left, including the WaPo, and people like this shooter. I guess we are part of one of those right wing militias. By the way, where is the brilliant specimen of journalism at the disgraceful WaPo, Woodward, and his friend Bernstein? Nowhere to be found. Maybe if he would do what is right, and expose Obama and his criminal friends in Congress for what they are, he might sell more that 25,000 books. Good grief. It proves what Mark Levin says about the left, THEY ARE LIARS!

mgm| 3.11.10 @ 11:32AM

When RET writes like this, he is HLM- like. I wish I could write half as well.

Marc Jeric| 3.11.10 @ 11:44AM

The 1960's? I remember them well. I was then finishing, belatedly, my PhD thesis at UCLA. There was a book fair in the open space in front of the student union. Books were then priced in the range of $6-10; a big 2-inch thick volume of "Collected writings" by V. I. Lenin was selling at one dollar. I asked the fellow if he knew who was susidizing that book; he did not know; so I threw to the grass the whole range of books, saying:
" Did I have to escape from a communist hell to find this crap selling for one dollar at UCLA?" The fellow was flabbergasted but said nothing, probably afraid of my angry burst.

Vern Crisler| 3.11.10 @ 12:05PM

From what I've read of the guy, I suspected he was a deranged follower of Lew Rockwell and Ron Paul.

PsychoDad| 3.11.10 @ 12:32PM

FAIL

Mickey Moose| 3.12.10 @ 12:56AM

Vern, you must be an anti-freedom / anti-capitalistic Democrat! I like you!

Northern Rebel| 3.11.10 @ 12:50PM

Alan Brooks:

Reading AmSpec is starting to pay off. You actually sounded reasonable! I know you will soon prove me wrong, but I'm seeing progress! (can conservatives use that word in it's true definition?)

Sean| 3.11.10 @ 1:49PM

The guy was mentally ill and had been institutionalized before and his parents wanted him held again. I have also read that he was on psychotropic drugs also. This has nothing to do with right or left just a crazy guy.

PCP Smoker| 3.11.10 @ 6:15PM

Don't try to diffuse it by claiming he was crazy. He was a leftist. A pot smoking leftist like you. Nice try scumbag

Whiz Bang| 3.12.10 @ 12:49AM

SEAN wrote ---- "The guy was mentally ill and had been institutionalized before and his parents wanted him held again, on psychotropic drugs also, just a crazy guy."

Geez, Sean, this loonytoon fits the perfect profile of a leftist / statist / Democrat / any or all of the above. Don't insult ordinary retards by comparing them to Democrats!

Jeremiah| 3.11.10 @ 2:03PM

Some time ago, a senior at a premier journalism school, asked me if she could interview me for a case study she wanted to write about a controversy I was involved in and which she had observed from the periphery. I agreed.

She proudly told me she had gotten an A on it and sent me a copy wanting to know what I thought. I told her she had one unfortunate error: she had described me as 'a crusading liberal' and my antagonist as an 'archconservative.' I was a conservative, I pointed out to her, and my antagonist was quite the liberal.

She was stunned. "That can't be," she exclaimed.

"Why?" I asked in genuine puzzlement.

"Well, you're nice. You're a good man and he was so nasty," she said, almost pleading with me.

So it dawned on me to ask her what, exactly, she thought the difference between a conservative and a liberal is. Now it was her turn to be honestly puzzled. "Liberals are good and kind and conservatives are selfish and greedy," she replied.

So I told her that I am, indeed, a good conservative man and that my oipponent was an ill-tempered liberal - and proceeded to explain to her what the philosophical differences are between the two. Startled, she blurted out, "Oh my God, I might be a conservative, too."

This was a senior at one of the nation's three top journalism schools. We have a lot of work to do.

Clint| 3.11.10 @ 2:08PM

Must have been the pot... I don't know who is the bigger hypocrite, the Washington Post or Mr. Tyrrell (Jr.). Both exercise the same class warfare tactics that only serve to divide us. On the one hand I find the liberals who want to take my money to use to reduce my freedoms for committing the crime of not conforming to their version of society. On the other hand, I find Mr. Tyrrell who believes that he can just take my freedom because I don't subscribe to his version of society. Who am I to believe? Since we are doing this based upon opinions and subjective considerations, what makes Mr. Tyrrell's version any better than the numbskull's over at the Post? Why not use my own? What's wrong with pot? If I am not harming anyone else or anyone else's property, what right does Mr. Tyrrell have to tell me what drugs I can take? Where does it end? How is this any different (in principle) than New York telling me I can't have salt on my dinner table because some busybody has decided that I am not smart enough to make my own choices?

Like many so-called conservatives (and almost every liberal), Mr. Tyrrell is real good at pointing the finger and making judgments on who has been a good little boy (or girl or it - can't discriminate against trannies they say) and who has not. Mr. Tyrrell would be better served by having a steamy hot cup of STFU and writing about something else. We can pretty much figure out all by ourselves that the Pentagon shooter was a disturbed person. Their politics only matter to smegma merchants like Mr. Tyrrell who seek to profit from our problems.

Thanks for nothing.

John Navratil| 3.11.10 @ 3:23PM

Clint,

I'm conservative and I think you ought to be able to smoke pot if you like. What you should not do is, under the influence of pot or not, shoot guards at the Pentagon. The two points, as writ, are unrelated.

There is a body of evidence that pot does some interesting rewiring of the brain. That's your problem so long as you don't make it anyone else's. On that, I expect we agree.

Perhaps if you served yourself a steaming cup of STFU along with the proverbial "chill pill" you would see that many in this forum share a scepticism for control. You might also tell us where RET concluded the pot was to blame. All I read was an attribution as a pot smoking peacenik. It doesn't appear that he made that up.

Clint| 3.11.10 @ 4:04PM

I agree with your points that the two issues appear to be unrelated, sir. The linkage suggested in the article's title and use by the author suggests otherwise and casts aspersions on the entirety of the medical marijuana movement (of which - unfortunately - I have had to become a recent adherent). I also know (first hand) that pot can have an affect on the brain, but so can many, many things that are legal now, so your argument doesn't seem to hold water, only the hypocritical tone that is quite often associated with what used to be our conservative movement.

I appreciate your advice that I should STFU on this issue and go along. Going along is how we got to the place we are now, Mr. Navratil. It seems we now have a choice of who gets to control us and I say I want neither and I want no part of the hypocritical movement that now says it can tell me how much salt I can use (that's next), what books I can read and everything else. I want none of it and if the price of killing it is a disagreement with you regarding the efficacy of my conduct, I will have to take the risk of offending you sir and asking for your forgiveness after we have achieved an end that is for your benefit as well.

If there was no connection why was the reference in the title of the article and in the article? Please, I think I understand your disappointment with my point of view, but surely you would agree that if there is no linkage, then it had no business being in the article to begin with. It was placed in the article to inflame people's passions and it succeeded. My respect for the writer is even lower than when I posted my original "rant" and I suspect your respect for me could find no lower standing.

John Navratil| 3.11.10 @ 9:34PM

You are smoking dope if you think anything said was remotedly germane to medical marijuana. The entire article was about how violence is generally attributed to the right while this man was clearly of the left.

I cannot be called a hypocrite when I merely observe; in this case that marijuana has been considered psychoactive. I made no argument that people should not choose for themselves. Hypocrisy would require me to impose on others that which I would not impose on myself. If you can find this in my post, please show me where.

I did not suggest you should shut-up and go along. I really should have left the STFU out and relied on the "chill pill".

I am happy to share your view that too many people (IMHO from the left) are trying to regulate too much personal activity; usually in the interest of safety, the children, the environment or protection of the individual. However, your statement "I will have to take the risk of offending you sir and asking for your forgiveness after we have achieved an end that is for your benefit as well." is as patronizing as anything you lament. I'll decide, as you will, what is for my benefit... thank you very much.

As to your suggestion that "pot smoking" had no linkage. Please! The man was described as a heavy marijuana user! Your suggestions make as much sense and the politically correct removal of skin color when describing a crime suspect.

Take heart however that your posts have in no way offended me. My skin is a little thicker than that. Now... about that "chill pill"...

bluecollarbytes| 3.11.10 @ 10:38PM

I agree. The piece has nothing to do with 'medical marijuana'. Mr Tyrrell paints pictures with words and the marijuana references (fact) were included as part of the Bedell-package.
There are strong 60s counter-cultural connections to pot in the minds of many on the left and right. But fortunately the reality is it's just a plant.

Whoa, like, dude...| 3.11.10 @ 3:28PM

You are one mucho angry moto-burner. Chillax, and let the other man's negativity go.

For tomorrow, I prescribe the ol' 'wake and bake' BEFORE your 2PM breakfast of Cap'n Crunch and AmSpec.

John Locke| 3.12.10 @ 12:52AM

I'm a libertarian and I think pot should be legal. I don't think anyone should smoke it, however -- or at least not until every Democrat is already dead.

Anthony| 3.11.10 @ 2:49PM

Bob, Right-wing hysteria and violence have been favorite canards of the MSM for decades. Indeed, when Oswald shot Kennedy, the media, specificly Cronkite and Co., immediately gave play to the notion that Kennedy was killed because of "southern conservative" distain for Kennedy and his policies, the sub text of which was Kennedy's Civil Rights policies. Dallas was, and still is, impuned as a hot bed of anti-Kennedy hatred.
The fact that Oswald was a dedicated Communist, who was a member of the group, Fair Play for Cuba, and was upset with the Cuban missile crisis, and who had previously resigned his American citizenship and moved to the Soviet Union, was totally lost on Cronkite and the other leftist media elites of his day.
Ironicly, the same MO played out when Robert Kennedy was killed by a middle-eastern, anti Israel fanatic; once again, the sub text was conservative opposition to Kennedy's Civil Rights platform.
Once the Left has its by-line, no facts will change it. Just ask Dan Rather.

PCP Smoker| 3.11.10 @ 6:08PM

Let it be a lesson for all you Roo-Paul supporters who can't live a day with a hit of the bong. Get off the dope and go to work, you fucks

Osamas Pajamas| 3.12.10 @ 12:45AM

I was especially pleased to learn that the registered-as-a-Democrat Pentagon terrorist shooter John Patrick Bedell had --- as I do --- "a more than passing interest in libertarian economics."

So I set forth upon a great intellectual journey in search of Bedell's blog remarks and found none whatever, and of course, therefore, none connecting him with "libertarian economics."

I reasoned, therefore, that because the Democrat-captured media were as usual lying to the American people about Bedell's so-called "right-wing" motivation or credentials, that this, too, was a direct lie.

Now, aren't these corrupt media skunks always gassing on about "the public's right to know?"

A good many of my friends have been practicing nooses, but before they go after the armed-and-dangerous part of the dictatorship, perhaps they should practice first on the propaganda outlets, whose job it is to prop-up these corrupt fxscist bxstxrds in government everywhere. Drag a few of 'em out from under OhBummer's desk, where they're Doin' Da Lewinsky, 24/7. Practice makes perfect, ya know. ~:

Luv Sarah| 3.12.10 @ 1:08AM

Wow. Hard to tell who is more destructive these days --- the anti-libertarian Democrat skunks in the White House and Congress or the anti-libertarian "conservatives" here and in other blogs --- altho' there are plenty of libertarian conservatives around --- and the tide is rising.

Of course the Democrats love it when libertarians and conservatives are fighting one another --- instead of ganging-up on the Democrats and beating the crap out of them.

And by the way, there are a bunch of anti-conservative libertarians with their noses jacked-up to the moon over any alliance with conservatives.

Both sides show no obvious interest in defeating the common enemy. You dumbbells.

Supra Vaider| 3.12.10 @ 2:48AM

I wanted to thank you for this excellent read!! I definitely enjoyed every little bit of it. I have you bookmarked your site to check out the new stuff you post.

Reefer Madness| 3.12.10 @ 5:41AM

I thought puffing that Sweet Leaf was supposed to like, make you mellow and less of an uptight square, maaaaaaan!

tailgunner| 3.12.10 @ 2:20PM

He was a REGISTERED DEMOCRAT.

Roger| 3.13.10 @ 8:59AM

Let's not forget how "they" conveniently forgot all the left wing enviromental violence and animal rights violence. Far more violence coming from the left it seems to me. Right-wing militia types seem more interested in "Leave me alone" or "Live and let live" than briging on gatuitous violence to make a statement.

LWW| 3.14.10 @ 6:29PM

"These are those who claim to be the "true conservatives." The "non-interventionists". These holier-than-thou's claim that America is the "Aggressor" and that we're the reason the terrorists are terrorists. We kill women and children! Why, if it weren't for us (the U.S.A.) (oh, and Israel), those poor little terrorists wouldn't be so mad at us and attack us!"

Margie,

Just ignore history and facts; common-sense should tell you that if you mess with people, create countries out of thin air and use / abuse our intelligence agencies and military to support corporate dominance and spread our empire in foreign lands, resentment will surely sprout like weeds.

Keep believing the propaganda that the government is here to protect us. Be very afraid of the bogeyman that arise from every corner, with bombs in their underwear and sh.. for brains. They are not are enemy; our enemy is within and if you "conservatives" don't soon wake up and recognize the common links between the Bush / Clinton / Bush / Obama presidencies, you will become the walking dead.