November 13, 2003, Portland, Oregon – KATU’s Paul Linnman, and his 6:30 PM team on the ABC affiliate reported the discovery of a “right wing religious” group which was planning to destroy the offices of the FBI in Portland.

They “hated government” according to the report.  (Don’t all “right wingers?”)

Let’s look into this.  We'll begin with the K.K.K and get to the Nazis later.

Included in the graphic photos of assault weapons shown, were a number of other items.  One of them was a flag or banner with a cross traditionally associated with the K.K.K.  So, Mr. Linnman and friends believe that the K.K.K. is a “right wing religious” organization.

Shall we have some history on this subject?

The K.K.K., or Ku Klux Klan, is an organization which after Reconstruction flourished in the South, then spread to other areas of the country.  Now who, do you expect, ran the South until quite recently?  What political party, in other words?  You know, the folks who hung blacks for trying to vote.  The people who created Jim Crow.  

Right wing Republicans?  

Democrats are  the anti-racism party, so it must have been these right wing Republicans..  Right?.  I mean, when you think of religious regions in America, what areas immediately come to mind?  The South, of course.  Right wing Republicans like Falwell.  But, this Portland group of “right wing religious” thugs has been operating in Oregon.  We’re not like that, here, are we?  We have never been like that, have we?  Here’s a lift from a November 2003 Oregon Magazine article about racism in Oregon.
 

So, it is true that the Klan once thrived in Oregon.  Unfortunately for Mr. Linnman, they weren’t “right wing religious Republicans.”  And the K.K.K candidate didn’t overturn a sitting governor with Republican votes.  Democrat voters did that.  The same Democrat voters who wanted Oregon to enter the Union as a slave state in 1859, and whose wishes were denied by Oregon  Republicans.

One supposes that Mr. Linnman is ignorant of the history of the South, slavery, racism, religion and of Oregon.  Had he any knowledge of the topic, he would not have left every viewer in his audience with the impression that these thugs are out of the same ideological base as conservative Republicans, always identified by television anchors like himself as being “right wing” and often as being responsive to the demands of America’s “religious right wing,”

There are those who believe that this constant litany by people like Linnman is intentional. A kind of conspiracy.  I do not agree with that position.  I think Mr. Linnman and his friends are simply ignorant, lazy fools who operate out of a fixed frame of liberal reference, and have never in their lives bothered to question whether or not anything they say has a whit of truth attached to it.

A modern Democrat might say in response to my facts here, “Those people don’t represent the party, today.”  That Mr. Linnman should imply that these terrorists in any way represent the American religious right wing is trash journalism of the most putrid kind.  

Fifty bucks says Paul Linnman is a registered Democrat, and is completely unaware that it was his party that walked out of congress when Lincoln’s Republicans demanded the end to slavery.  That it was his Democrats who designed, flew and fought under the Stars and Bars.  That it was his Democrats who voted against the Civil Rights act of 1867 (And 1964) and the 14th Amendment.  That it was his Democrats who created Jim Crow and the K.K.K.  

What, you say, if he should read this piece and be transformed to such an extent that in the future he told his audience the truth?  To such an extent that he dropped his irresponsible and blatently biased labeling when doing stories like this? Do not worry about it.  His mind is made up, and he does not want to be confused by the facts.  And, from a social and professional standpoint, for Paul Linnman to report the truth would be suicide.

The Oregon journalistic establishment, and the social circles within which Mr. Linnman thrives, prefer their fantasy.  They exclude anybody who tells the truth.  Paul Linnman is a journalist right up to the point where it will cost him his sinecure, or invitations to the right gatherings. 

Besides, history is yesterday's news.  In time, Oregon historians will, like Winston Smith, rewrite it so it pleases the right people.

By the way, if you are curious why Linnman used the specific designation in question, here, it is because liberals, who are superb at hanging nasty labels on people, long ago decided to hang the lable "Nazi" on the people who don't like big government. That would be the right wing in America, a great many of them Christians. Thus, in tonight's KATU broadcast, some good mileage was made in identifying people like me as soul brothers of the terrorist thugs. It has long been part of the left wing media's litany.  (The founding fathers, most of them Christians, and all of them anti-big-government types, would not fare well with Mr. Linnman and his friends if they were alive, today.)

Because our educational system is run by idiots, most people hearing garbage like this from "journalists" just nod their heads and go jogging. But, identifying the right with Nazis was, while great propaganda, a flawed move.  "Nazi" stands for "national socialist," and the only national socialists in this country are liberal Democrats.

Nazis are for big government, not against it.  That the thugs in Linnman's report identified themselves as "right wing Christian, anti-government" types (what Linnman calls Nazis) merely means that they all went to a public school, and so haven't the faintest idea what their labels mean.

(LL)

© 2003 Oregon Magazine