Far-right shootings raise fear of hate offensive in America

[ck4829]

A series of attacks by rightwing extremists has raised fears of a new wave of violence triggered by the economic crisis and the election of the country's first black president.

Since the inauguration of Barack Obama this year a series of shootings have taken place, with targets ranging from an abortion clinic to a liberal church and police officers. The attacks have often been fuelled by a potent mix of race hate and conspiracy theories.

Last week's shooting by neo-Nazi James von Brunn of a black security guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, a few blocks from the White House, was the most recent incident. Now many experts are worried that extremists will eventually take aim at Obama himself.

"There is now a worry that Obama is going to be a target. It is a really serious situation. It is simply because of the colour of his skin," said Heidi Beirich, director of research at the Southern Poverty Law Centre, which closely monitors hate groups in the United States. In papers left in Von Brunn's car after last week's shooting, investigators have already found anti-Obama statements. Von Brunn wrote in a note: "The Holocaust was a lie. Obama was created by Jews." Von Brunn, who shot dead Stephen Johns before being shot himself, is in hospital and has been charged with murder.

The shooting has sent shock waves through the US, but in fact it is the tip of an iceberg of incidents over the past year involving far-right gunmen or those inspired by conspiracy theories and inflamed by conservative media pundits.

Two weeks ago Kansas-based abortion doctor George Tiller was gunned down in a church by an anti-abortion campaigner. In April, Joshua Cartwright shot dead two policemen in Florida after a domestic disturbance. Police interviews established that he was "severely disturbed" that Obama had been elected. In North Carolina a former marine is facing charges after police investigating an armed robbery found a private journal containing a plan to kill Obama and white supremacist material.

In January, the day after Obama was inaugurated, a white man in Brockton, Massachusetts, went on a gun spree that killed two blacks. He also had links to white supremacist groups. That followed another shooting spree last summer in which an unemployed truck driver in Tennessee shot two people dead at a church. The gunman, Jim Adkisson, left a note saying he was targeting the church because of its liberal and gay-friendly outlook.

But perhaps the most disturbing recent incident involving the far right happened in December 2008, when police investigated the murder of James Cummings in Maine. Searching his house, they discovered literature on how to build a dirty bomb and many ingredients that could have been used to make such a weapon. Cummings, who collected Nazi memorabilia, had amassed four barrels of radioactive material.

Experts believe that the upsurge in rightwing shootings mirrors the 1990s, when militia groups sprang up across the US, often believing anti-government conspiracy theories. The election of Obama and the sheer scale of the economic crisis have now provided a huge boost to a movement that had appeared to decline markedly over the past decade.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/14/rightwing-extremists-racists-us