Right-wing terror strikes in Wisconsin

Grieving Sikh-Americans

One wonders at the frequency of these horrific events.  They jitter our national consciousness in flurries.  Blips on an EKG measuring the heartbeats of William Golding's Beast. 

Wade Michael Page, a 40-year-old ex-Army veteran and a white supremacist (he was in a racist band known as "End Apathy") opened fire at a Sikh temple in Racine, Wisconsin on Sunday, killing 6 and wounding 4.  Page was killed in an exchange of gunfire with responding police officers.

Wade Michael Page doin' his white power thing

As we have seen in the aftermath of two other similar incidents (the shooting in Tuscon last year and the recent shooting in Aurora), it is futile to hope that this incident will create any momentum toward sensible gun control laws.  And with guns and ammunition so readily available, there is not much that can be done about blown-fuse lunatics who go on killing rampages.

But that doesn't mean that nothing can be done.  This case is a bit different than the other two.  Unlike Jared Loughner, the shooter in Tuscon, and James Holmes, the shooter in Aurora, Page had a political agenda.  He was a white supremacist, after all. 

Once again, I'm reminded of that 2009 Department of Homeland Security report.  The one entitled  "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment."  When it was issued, right-wing blowhards from Fox News to Rush Limbaugh to Michelle Malkin, tore their beards and wailed, claiming the report was to be the Obama administration's justification for oppressing conservatives. What will they say about the report now?  (My guess?  Nothing.)

The FBI is treating the Racine incident as an act of "domestic terrorism,"  whatever that may mean.  But if it involves putting the thumb on right-wing paramilitary groups and hate-filled redneck zombies, I say "crack down and crack down hard."

Got no use for Nazis.