So, do you think there will be large scale round-ups of poorly-shaven white men?
Man in clinic crash thought center was abortion clinic
A man accused of driving his car into a women’s health center and then setting the vehicle on fire thought the facility was an abortion clinic, Davenport police said today.
“He was using his car to torch the building,” detective Mike Bowers said.
David Robert McMenemy, 45, of Sterling Heights, Mich., is charged with second-degree arson. He is accused of driving his car into the Edgerton Women’s Health Center about 4:30 a.m. Monday.
McMenemy remains in the Scott County Jail.
The car has been impounded and officials are examining its contents, including whether any explosive-type materials are present.
The center does not perform abortions and does not provide abortion referrals, said Tom Fedje, the president of Edgerton. He said the center does advise pregnant women on the various options available to them.
Bowers said McMenemy has no ties to the Quad-City area and has been driving around the Midwest since August.
“He has admitted looking them (abortion clinics) up in phone books and online,” Bowers added. “I have no idea why Iowa.”
Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa is monitoring the incident, spokeswoman Kathi Di Nicola said. Planned Parenthood is the only agency to provide abortions in the Quad-Cities, performing the procedure at its women’s health clinic in Bettendorf.
Bowers said McMenemy apparently thought abortions were performed at the Edgerton center.
“He drove into the clinic and set his car on fire using an accelerant. He knew what he was doing. He planned it. It wasn’t an accident,” the detective added.
Of course not … because he’s trying to save the “BABIES”. Religiously or ideologically driven violence is not treated seriously in this country if it is directed at clinics that provide for women’s health. It’s NOT called by it’s proper name … TERRORISM.
Since the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal, there has been an organized campaign by anti-abortion extremists which has resulted in escalating levels of violence against women’s health care providers. In an attempt to stop abortion, anti-abortion extremists have chosen to take the law into their own hands.
What began as peaceful protests with picketing moved to harassing clinic staff and patients as they entered clinics and eventually escalated to blockading clinic entrances.
This foundation of harassment led to violence with the first reported clinic arson in 1976 and a series of bombings in 1978. Arsons and bombings have continued until this day. Anti-abortion extremists have also used chemicals to block women’s access to abortion employing butyric acid to vandalize clinics and sending anthrax threat letters to frighten clinic staff.
Tom Fedje, Edgerton Women’s Clinic, was quoted as saying:
“What I’d really like to do is have the opportunity to sit down and visit with this person and let him know how much he inconvenienced hundreds of pregnant women for obstetrical care. I’d like to let him know….I’d like to let him know hundreds of kids who need immunizations.”
Not that the bastard would care. No, what matters is HIS motivations. What children need, what WOMEN need … these considerations aren’t even on the radar of people like this. While we have no reports yet of his religious affiliation, one wonders what else might have motivated him.
While the FBI directs it’s attention toward so called “eco terrorists” (who attack what this government REALLY cares about, PROPERTY), the Republican party ramps up it’s adoption of the hateful rhetoric of the far right, people who are genuine dangers to the public are treated as common criminals at best, ignored at worst.
Like the white supremicists caught in Texas, an arrest all-but ignored by the media, and NOT trumpeted by the government, we can only call someone a “terrorist” if their attack, plot or violent fantasies encouraged by a government agent provocateur fits the narrative of scary brown people or muslims aching to blow up suburbanites and eat the flesh of their dead children’s corpses. Or who will steal their jobs … or burn up their SUVs. The “be afraid” story MUST be maintained and stoked.
Luckily, no one in Iowa was hurt physically by this latest domestic terrorist. It’s only a matter of time before someone is, while our politicians and law enforcement professionals continue to look the other way, too busy cashing in on fearful jingoism, prejudice and zealotry.
Hat tip to Moiv for bringing this to my attention, as the media certainly hadn’t.
This country is so screwed up.
So, does tht make us Dems and lefties tougher on terrorism? I would certainly label it terrorism. send the bastard to guantanamo!!!
If the Cheney crime cabal were serious about fighting terrorism, they would start with domestic terrorism. It’s easier to fight because it’s closer to home, we don’t need Arabic or Peshto or Farsi translators to find out what they’re up to, and they have the ability to target the United States directly instead of just United States “interests.”
But in reality they need those domestic terrorists because they are allies. They have the same goal in mind — to instill fear into the populace.
I have to think that under a Democratic administration people would not be quite so afraid, if only because the government wouldn’t be yelling OHMIGODLOOKOUTITSATERRORIST every time something doesn’t go their way.
I could respond with a snark about anti-terrorism on the right being “outsourced” or “privatized” to the Southern Poverty folks. But that’s far too close to the truth.
I was aware of this arrest, mostly because I once lived in east Texas and because being here in Michigan, there are lots of the Michigan Militia types to whom Tim McVeigh was something of a hero. I do believe these people are being given a pass by the feds, for the most part, because they are too close to some of the prominent sympathies: white supremacy; Christian supremacy (protestant, of course); American ascendancy; anti-everyone else. Deep suspicion of government and anti-tax bias only helps the Right Wing in their work.
I wonder what the repubs would do with them if they (repubs) really did have a hammer-lock on the country as they’d like too.
And they did exactly the right thing. They ARRESTED him. That is; law enforcement not military. It’s a crime. I will not pass judgement on this man until he has his due process in court.
I wholeheartedly caution all the good people here to take a step back. This is an emotional issue as women’s health is near and dear to us all. It is all too easy, because it is all too obvious, to point out the hypocrisy as Madman has rightly done here. I only caution to what our reactions are and the direction to where our rightly indignant sentimentalities lead us. We must first and foremost temper our sentimentalities with reason. What I mean by this:
As hard as it is to swallow, we should actually support the arresting and further trial of this man to prove, in a court of law, that he is a perpetrator. If we can do that, while illuminating the fact that this is indeed terrorism, then we have the moral high ground of insisting that all alleged perpetrators of terrorism, foreign and domestic, are held to the same standard of law and due process as provided for under our Constitution. That includes GITMO detainees.
I hope I was clear in making that my point.
oh, I agree on allowing the law to take it’s course. My point is that it’s important to call what people like him do by its proper name. It is terrorism. Now, being a latte-sipping liberal, I think that terrorism can ONLY be fought using the tools of law enforcement. However, they arrest a few pennyless nuts in Miami, and the Justice Department suits eagerly appear before the cameras. This man’s attack appears to be the latest in a long string of violent attacks on women, for political/religious reasons. That’s terrorism, and should be identified as such.
One of the other comments mentioned the militia movement in MI, where he’s from, and the general acceptance of that POV by law enforcement. This is just asking for disaster.
Yes, and this diary is VERY important. My response was only to point out how easily that we could fall into the same way of treating terrorist as the do on the other side of the political spectrum, maunly because this issue is very, very dear to us on the left. I only wanted to caution against moral equivalency going off in the wrong (IMO) direction. Yet we do have a good foundation here for equivalency, my opinion is to frame this into legal equivalency and the moral ground will automatically fall into the place where it should.
Good, very good, diary, Madman
those are very good points, and important to remember.
I agree… the REAL terrorism is right here at home… but Bush won’t do anything because for the most part they are the crazy zealots, racists, hatermongerers, aryans that make up his base of support.
I always laugh at this, really I do! These neo-nazi numbnuts don’t even realize that “Aryans” are actually a tribe from the mountains of IRAN!
God! I just love irony!