Right wing prepares anti-Obama “underground”

CounterVortex

As the grassroots right groundswell mobilized by Sarah Palin subsides in defeat, the New York Times reports Nov. 7 a sudden surge of gun sales across rural America—explicitly seen as a response to the election of Barack Obama—with NRA propaganda fueling the flames:

On Concerns Over Gun Control, Gun Sales Are Up
DENVER — Sales of handguns, rifles and ammunition have surged in the last week, according to gun store owners around the nation who describe a wave of buyers concerned that an Obama administration will curtail their right to bear arms.

“He’s a gun-snatcher,” said Jim Pruett, owner of Jim Pruett’s Guns and Ammo in northwest Houston, which was packed with shoppers on Thursday.

“He wants to take our guns from us and create a socialist society policed by his own police force,” added Mr. Pruett, a former radio personality, of President-elect Barack Obama.

Mr. Pruett said that sales last Saturday, just before Election Day, ran about seven times higher than a typical good Saturday.

A spot check by reporters in four other states easily found Mr. Pruett’s comments echoed from both sides of the counter.

David Nelson, a co-owner of Montana Ordnance & Supply in Missoula, Mont., said his buyers were “awake and aware and see a dangerous trend.”

Mr. Nelson said sales at his store had risen about 30 percent since Mr. Obama declared his candidacy. “People are concerned about overreaching legislation from Washington,” he said. “They are educating themselves on the Internet.”

[…]

In Colorado, would-be gun buyers set a one-day record last Saturday with the highest number of background check requests in a 24-hour period, according to figures from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.

“We’re not really sure who is promoting the concept that a change in federal administrations might affect firearms possession rights,” said an agency spokesman, Lance Clem, “but we do know that it’s increased business considerably.”

[…]

The political battle over guns raged fiercely throughout the campaign in many states where gun ownership is common. On Monday, the day before the election, home-delivered copies of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette arrived in plastic bags that said, “Vote Freedom First” and “Defend Freedom — Defeat Obama.” The bags were paid for by the N.R.A., whose initials were printed on each one.

The NRA website, in a special post-election statement from Wayne LaPierre, “What They Didn’t Tell You Today,” writes: “It’s not a matter of figuring out if Obama’s anti-gun or not. We already know he is. What we’re looking for now are signs of how aggressive he will be in trying to enact his gun-control policies…”

Meanwhile, right-wing shock jock Sean Hannity is promoting a series of “Freedom Concerts ’09” that will feature Billy Ray Cyrus, Charlie Daniels, Lee Greenwood and Oliver North to spread the anti-Obama gospel. (BeliefNet, Nov. 1) On his radio program, Hannity has recently broached forming a Conservative Underground in response to Obama’s election. The comments have been noted on blogs such as Topix.com and Randi Rhodes Show Forums, where one reader wrote:

What about Hannity? He has started his campaign with ‘conservative underground, resistance, under siege, etc.; great stuff to energize the militia types. Fine if he wants to keep spewing lies about what will happen under Obama, but to craft some sort of a para-military basis for his crap.. If McCain won and the ‘Left’ said ‘underground’ etc., he would be yelling ‘Terrorist’ every second word. Feh!

See our last posts on the NRA and the radical right.

  1. Obama: the Black Stalin
    Just because they’re out of their minds doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous. From AP, Nov. 10:

    Georgia congressman warns of Obama dictatorship
    WASHINGTON — A Republican congressman from Georgia said Monday he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist dictatorship.

    “It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he’s the one who proposed this national security force,” Rep. Paul Broun said of Obama in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. “I’m just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may — may not, I hope not — but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism.”

    Broun cited a July speech by Obama that has circulated on the Internet in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military.

    “That’s exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it’s exactly what the Soviet Union did,” Broun said. “When he’s proposing to have a national security force that’s answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he’s showing me signs of being Marxist.”

    Obama’s comments about a national security force came during a speech in Colorado in which he called for expanding the nation’s foreign service.

    “We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set,” Obama said in July. “We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”

    The Obama transition team declined to comment on Broun’s remarks. But spokesman Tommy Vietor said Obama was referring in the speech to a proposal for a civilian reserve corps that could handle postwar reconstruction efforts such as rebuilding infrastructure — an idea endorsed by the Bush administration.

    Broun said he believes Obama would move to ban gun ownership if he does build a national security force.

    Obama has said he respects the Second Amendment right to bear arms and favors “common sense” gun laws. Gun rights advocates interpret that as meaning he’ll at least enact curbs on ownership of assault weapons and concealed weapons. As an Illinois state lawmaker, Obama supported a ban on semiautomatic weapons and tighter restrictions on firearms generally.

    “We can’t be lulled into complacency,” Broun said. “You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I’m not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I’m saying is there is the potential of going down that road.”

  2. It begins…
    Not that it wasn’t predictable. From AP, Nov. 15:

    Election spurs ‘hundreds’ of race threats, crimes
    Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting “Assassinate Obama.” Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars.

    Incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America.

    From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts have been delivered by adults, college students and second-graders.

    There have been “hundreds” of incidents since the election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes.

    One was in Snellville, Ga., where Denene Millner said a boy on the school bus told her 9-year-old daughter the day after the election: “I hope Obama gets assassinated.” That night, someone trashed her sister-in-law’s front lawn, mangled the Obama lawn signs, and left two pizza boxes filled with human feces outside the front door, Millner said.

    She described her emotions as a combination of anger and fear.

    “I can’t say that every white person in Snellville is evil and anti-Obama and willing to desecrate my property because one or two idiots did it,” said Millner, who is black. “But it definitely makes you look a little different at the people who you live with, and makes you wonder what they’re capable of and what they’re really thinking.”

    Potok, who is white, said he believes there is “a large subset of white people in this country who feel that they are losing everything they know, that the country their forefathers built has somehow been stolen from them.”

    There’s more, if you want it…

    1. Reap what you sow!

      To hear of these color people whine and squil, because them “White Folks” are targeting them out after obama was elected as presedent,just makes me laugh, is as if they didn’t see it comming, clearly they voted by the color of skin rather then policies. Proven statistics show that majority of the blacks never voted before in there life untile obama appeared out of no where, so what does that tell ya. Its funny to see these hiphop black fools walking about like there bad asses walking in gang like groups thinking there intimidating and ontop of the world, you fools better think again, ya you may have ‘panged’ someone here and there, but they were mostly unarmed and helpless people, what are you going to do when a mob of well trained militia men are actually hunting you down just to kill you. When the gov’t falls, so goes with it the bullshit laws you think will protect you, so you better start reviewing your life , because you gang fools are being watched closely.

      1. squil like a pig?
        The above comment certainly qualifies as hate speech, so technically we should’t be approving it. But it is such a textbook case of Ugly Americanism that we’re letting it stand as an examplar of what we’re up against in this country. How come none of you racist yahoos can spell worth a damn, by the way? Just wondering.