{"id":12448,"date":"2010-09-05T20:30:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-05T20:30:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-09-05T20:31:54","modified_gmt":"2010-09-05T20:31:54","slug":"the-american-taliban-strikes-in-the-central-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2010\/09\/05\/the-american-taliban-strikes-in-the-central-valley\/","title":{"rendered":"The American Taliban Strikes In The Central Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s been some discussion of Markos Moulitsas’s new book, American Taliban<\/a>, with some DC bloggers claiming that Markos overstates the case and that you can’t really compare American conservatives and the Afghanistan Taliban. Here’s Matt Yglesias trying to make that argument<\/a>:<\/p>\n

So, yes, the Taliban is misogynistic and so are most religious traditionalists. And, yes, the Taliban is nationalistic and so are right-wing political parties in most democracies. And, yes, the Taliban is enthusiastic about war-fighting as a way to achieve policy aims and so is Bill Kristol. This is all true and somewhat important. But it’s also true that American progressives and American conservatives are  peacefully coexisting in a functioning republic, whereas the Taliban is waging an extremely violent military campaign against its ideological antagonists.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sorry, Matt, but this “peaceful coexistence” claim is dangerously naive and ignorant of the violence being committed in the name of right-wing oppression. We can look to the Central Valley to see two recent and frightening examples of the American Taliban in action, both from the city of Madera.<\/p>\n

As reported by KFSN TV in Fresno, a Planned Parenthood clinic in Madera was firebombed<\/a> on Thursday – just days after a similar attack was made on a local mosque:<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/param><\/object><\/p>\n

Madera’s Planned Parenthood clinic is closed Thursday after someone firebombed it with a Molotov cocktail. The FBI is investigating this case as it continues to search for clues in an attack on a mosque last week on the other side of town….<\/p>\n

Madera Police do not have anyone in custody but a spokesperson with Planned Parenthood says she has a good idea of who it might be.<\/p>\n

“I believe it’s extremists who are, want to make a statement.” said public affairs director Pasty Montgomery.<\/p>\n

This attack comes just one week after someone targeted a local Muslim mosque across town. Investigators found a brick thrown through the window and anti-Muslim signs posted on the walls.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Across California, various acts of hate, whether a firebombing of a Planned Parenthood clinic or a protest against a proposed mosque in Temecula<\/a>, are on the increase. Even in a state where abortion rights are enshrined in our Constitution, those who provide abortion services and the women who seek to use them have to go through a lot of security procedures to protect against what should rightly be called terrorism.<\/p>\n

When a fellow Californian such as Markos goes to the trouble of describing not only these violent acts, but also the troubling worldview behind them that is fundamentally like the worldview shared by the Taliban, their work ought to be embraced and spread as a valuable rallying point against these extremists. Otherwise what happened in Madera last week will become more common, and more violent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s been some discussion of Markos Moulitsas’s new book, American Taliban<\/a>, with some DC bloggers claiming that Markos overstates the case and that you can’t really compare American conservatives and the Afghanistan Taliban. Here’s Matt Yglesias trying to make that argument<\/a>:<\/p>\n

So, yes, the Taliban is misogynistic and so are most religious traditionalists. And, yes, the Taliban is nationalistic and so are right-wing political parties in most democracies. And, yes, the Taliban is enthusiastic about war-fighting as a way to achieve policy aims and so is Bill Kristol. This is all true and somewhat important. But it’s also true that American progressives and American conservatives are  peacefully coexisting in a functioning republic, whereas the Taliban is waging an extremely violent military campaign against its ideological antagonists.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sorry, Matt, but this “peaceful coexistence” claim is dangerously naive and ignorant of the violence being committed in the name of right-wing oppression. We can look to the Central Valley to see two recent and frightening examples of the American Taliban in action, both from the city of Madera.<\/p>\n

As reported by KFSN TV in Fresno, a Planned Parenthood clinic in Madera was firebombed<\/a> on Thursday – just days after a similar attack was made on a local mosque:<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Madera’s Planned Parenthood clinic is closed Thursday after someone firebombed it with a Molotov cocktail. The FBI is investigating this case as it continues to search for clues in an attack on a mosque last week on the other side of town….<\/p>\n

Madera Police do not have anyone in custody but a spokesperson with Planned Parenthood says she has a good idea of who it might be.<\/p>\n

“I believe it’s extremists who are, want to make a statement.” said public affairs director Pasty Montgomery.<\/p>\n

This attack comes just one week after someone targeted a local Muslim mosque across town. Investigators found a brick thrown through the window and anti-Muslim signs posted on the walls.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Across California, various acts of hate, whether a firebombing of a Planned Parenthood clinic or a protest against a proposed mosque in Temecula<\/a>, are on the increase. Even in a state where abortion rights are enshrined in our Constitution, those who provide abortion services and the women who seek to use them have to go through a lot of security procedures to protect against what should rightly be called terrorism.<\/p>\n

When a fellow Californian such as Markos goes to the trouble of describing not only these violent acts, but also the troubling worldview behind them that is fundamentally like the worldview shared by the Taliban, their work ought to be embraced and spread as a valuable rallying point against these extremists. Otherwise what happened in Madera last week will become more common, and more violent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-87"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-3eM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12448\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}