Ah yes, another hate talker is accused of plotting violence, this time against federal judges:
A blogger and Internet radio host from New Jersey was arrested Wednesday by the FBI on charges he threatened to kill three federal appellate judges in Chicago.
The federal charges, filed in Chicago, alleged white supremacist Hal Turner called for the judges' murders after they affirmed on June 2 a lower court decision to dismiss challenges to Chicago's ban on handguns.
Turner is no stranger to law enforcement. Just this month, he was charged in Connecticut with making threats against legislators.
He came to attention of authorities in Chicago after the killings of the husband and mother of U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow in 2005.
Turner posted the work addresses of appeals court judges who had ruled against white supremacist Matthew Hale in a civil case presided over by Lefkow.
Sometime back, journalist Max Blumenthal (who was at one time a night editor for BuzzFlash) exposed the past relationship of Sean Hannity with Hal Turner. Blumenthal described Hannity as virtually a mentor to Turner, and Turner claimed that Hannity was pretty much his soul mate in outlook, but implied that Hannity had to tone it down because of his high media profile.
When we discuss hate talkers and how seriously they are responsible for the rise in political murder and violence in the United States -- by pouring the gasoline on the floor and encouraging others to light the match -- it is just one other story that gets lost in the increasingly short news cycles.
But it is the story of FOX and Limbaugh and Coulter -- and so many others who are paid salaries for convincing a segment of working class America that "liberals" are not "true Americans" and are their enemies. Ironically, of course, Hannity and his multi-million dollar salaried hate talk pals are creating domestic terrorists within our midst. All this so that the corporatists can continue getting their way in D.C. It's a complicated relationship in which the Rupert Murdochs of the world get paid by corporate America to try and divert the attention of economically-stressed out white Americans from how their pockets are being picked by the wealthy.
Hal Turner is just the dark underside, one of the implementers of the logical conclusion of hate talkers like Hannity: the enemy -- liberals and "Un-American judges," among others -- must be eliminated, as David Neiwert has pointed out in his book, "The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right."
But, as BuzzFlash has warned again and again, if we continue to dismiss the Hannitys of the world with condescension, we will see more Hal Turners and more politically motivated murders.
Progressives who advocate for democracy must hold the hate talkers like Hannity accountable -- and they must invest in a pro-democracy media infrastructure.
Otherwise, as Max Blumenthal wrote, we will continue to deal with the violent outcome of the Hal Turners of America: "Hannity's Soulmate of Hate."
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