Story highlights
- Bergen and Sterman: Wednesday's shootings are possible act of leftist terrorism
- In the 1960s and 1970s, left-wing terrorism was a common occurrence in the United States
(CNN)On Wednesday morning, a gunman attacked congressional Republicans practicing baseball, injuring five people including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise. The man identified as the shooter, 66-year-old James T. Hodgkinson III, was taken into custody and later died.
While the incident remains under investigation, a review of Facebook pages belonging to Hodgkinson show he supported Sen. Bernie Sanders during the election and was fervently opposed to President Donald Trump. One Facebook post read: "Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It's Time to Destroy Trump & Co." Sanders confirmed that Hodgkinson had volunteered for his presidential campaign and, in no uncertain terms, condemned his violent acts.
Two Republican congressmen who were at the baseball practice, Florida Rep. Ron DeSantis and South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan, also said that a man who looked like the shooter had asked them before the shooting if the players were Republicans or Democrats. Duncan replied they were Republicans.
Hodgkinson's political leanings, his potential targeting of GOP victims and the symbolic importance of those victims raises the very strong possibility the shooting was an act of leftist terrorism...
While less prevalent in the national consciousness today, in the 1960s and 1970s, left-wing terrorism was a common occurrence in the United States, with many attacks perpetrated by radical groups such as the Black Panthers, the Weather Underground and other smaller, less-well-known groups. The 1960s and 1970s were also a time of great political polarization given the protests around the Vietnam War and the intensification of the civil rights movement.
The Weather Underground was an anti-Vietnam War organization that targeted the Pentagon, the US Capitol and banks. The group claimed credit for 25 bombings in 1975 alone, according to the University of Maryland's Global Terrorism Database.
Anti-war militants also carried out major bombings at City Hall in Portland, Oregon, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, while the Black Panthers mounted 24 bombings, hijackings and other assaults...
The necessary comparison of incidents of far-left and far-right terrorism raises important questions about political polarization and radical violence. Since 9/11, according to data collected by New America, far-right terrorists have conducted a much higher number of lethal attacks in the United States than leftist terrorists, killing a total of 53 people.
But in the past two years, amid the polarization of the election campaign and of Trump's election victory, political violence seems to again be emerging on the left...
Although these two attacks motivated by black nationalist ideology share little in common with the politics of Hodgkinson, the three of them together summon echoes of the past, when the United States experienced domestic terrorism at the hands of leftists and black nationalists.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/14/opinio...ion/index.html
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