Here's what it's like in hostile territory
Mobile, Alabama is not only the Old South-steeped hometown of former Senator and Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, but also the place that gladly gave GOP candidate Donald Trump his first stadium-sized rally in 2015, and another in December 2016. They overwhelmingly voted for Tommy Tuberville to replace Senator Doug Jones in 2020 and their new Congressman, Jerry Carl, went along with Trump's "Stop the Steal" push that led to insurrection.
Mobile's largest locally originated newspaper is a newsweekly -- none of Alabama's three largest cities have daily newspapers anymore -- that aims straight for the status quo. The most visible and vocal of its co-publishers was a staffer for segregationist-friendly, former Mississippi Senator Trent Lott. This newspaper owner sent out the following in his weekly newsletter today:
There’s no doubt this has been one of the stranger weeks in recent U.S. history, and as I write this we’re all waiting on eggshells to see if the warnings of more violence preceding Joe Biden’s inauguration bear out in any way. It seems crazy to think anyone would attempt another invasion of the Capitol building with 20,000 armed soldiers waiting to defend it and the people inside, but we’re still getting warnings from law enforcement for all the state capitals and DC about groups like the Proud Boys and Boogaloo Bois allegedly readying for conflict.
It’s surreal to think something like that could happen in the United States, but this is hardly the first time we’ve had turmoil created by extreme groups. Looking back at the late ‘60s and ‘70s, left wing, anti-Vietnam protest groups wreaked their own brand of havoc. Most of us probably don’t remember, but groups like the Weather Underground routinely detonated bombs aimed at destroying or damaging symbolic buildings such as … The U.S. Capitol.
One particularly fascinating quote about what was happening at that time comes from Richard Nixon’s memoirs, in which he wrote:
“From January 1969 though April 1970, there were, by conservative count, more than 40,000 bombings, attempted bombings and bomb threats — an average of over 80 a day. Over $21 million in property was destroyed. Forty-three people were killed. Of those 40,000 incidents, 64 percent were by bombers whose identity and motive were unknown.”
It's easy to see the false equivalence, the way he dips back 50 years to avoid showing the rise of extremist right-wing terrorism in the post-Reagan era. There's no mention of the Bundy Bunch seizing and vandalizing federal property in eastern Oregon, of them drawing down on federal agents both there and in Nevada, of Oklahoma City's deadliest domestic terror bombing wherein a right-wing extremist killed 168 people.
Yet, this soft-peddled propaganda is embraced as balanced, "common sense" talk in Mobile. It's also part of the reason this state lags behind the rest of the nation in COVID vaccines.
= new reply since forum marked as read
