Posted on Wednesday, 4/08/2009 - 6:23 p.m. PDT — by Firefox
Did Paranoid Right-Wing Media Fuel the Pittsburgh Cop Killer's Rage?
By Max Blumenthal, The Daily Beast. Posted April 8, 2009
Richard Poplawski, the man who allegedly murdered three Pittsburgh cops, was clearly influenced by Fox News's Glenn Beck and right-wing radio. Tools
On April 6, two days after the 22-year-old Richard Poplawski allegedly murdered three police officers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a radio host named Alex Jones settled in before a microphone in his studio in Austin, Texas to do some damage control. "The mainstream media has certainly enjoyed tying me into this story," Jones complained. "They're attacking me and saying I'm delusional and there's no New World Order The Second Amendment, what the country's founded on--it's all my fault!"
Poplawski was a neo-Nazi wannabe who railed against blacks, Jews, "Zionists," and gun control. And like many members of the far-right fringe, he allegedly visited Jones' Web sites and posted alarming reports by Jones' writers on the white supremacist message board, Stormfront. (Poplawski's posts are here, authored under the handle, "Braced For Fate.") While Alex Jones generally avoids overt racism, he has found an eager audience on Stormfront by conjuring dark visions of an impending New World Order, claiming FEMA is secretly building a national concentration camp network, and announcing that President Barack Obama has planned mass gun seizures on his way to establishing a leftist dictatorship. "Remember, the first step in establishing a dictatorship is to disarm the citizens," warned a March 13 commentary on Jones' website, Prison Planet.
In the wake of Poplawski's alleged murder spree, the killer's friends and family members painted a portrait of a paranoid young man whose worldview was informed almost totally by the kind of conspiratorial themes entertained by Jones. Poplawski's best friend, Edward Perkovic, who also spouted white supremacist rhetoric, told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that his friend "grew angry recently over fears Obama would outlaw guns." Poplawski's mother remarked to police investigators that her son targeted cops "because he believed that as a result of economic collapse, the police were no longer able to protect society."
But hysterical warnings of government gun grabs and a socialist takeover of the U.S. are no longer the sole proprietary interest of fringe players like Jones. In the Obama era, Jones' conspiracy theories have graduated to primetime on Fox News. And radicals like Poplawski are tuning in. Indeed, according to the Anti-Defamation League, the alleged killer posted a YouTube clip to Stormfront of top-rated Fox News host Glenn Beck contemplating the existence of FEMA-managed concentration camps. ("He backed out," Poplawski wrote cryptically beside the video.) Three weeks later, Poplawski posted another Youtube clip to Stormfront, this time of a video blogger advocating "Tea Parties," or grassroots conservative protests organized by Beck and Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich (see here and here) against President Barack Obama's bailout plan.
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Joined: Aug 2008
Current Posts: 264
Leave it to the Left press to have to expose the story of the neo-nazi wannabe Poplawski. A story you don't see the mainstream corporate or right-wing press carrying. Oh no, all those against gun control are going to keep real quiet on this one.
And nobody is going to say boo or scapegoat the right wing for getting 3 cops killed or the neo-nazis. The cops, who are right wing themselves, will keep their mouths shut too since many seem to have latent tendencies towards neofacism themselves.
Poplawski's mother is sure no psychologist and obviously didn't understand her son. He didn't kill because cops couldn't control society, he killed because he recognized them for being officials agents of the government which has created the widespread and massive unemployment now despite their pollyanna propaganda to the contrary that things are getting better.
Not for the Poplawskis of the world they are not.
But let's keep talking about the obsolete Weather Underground threat and not the organized right wing true terrorists today. Because too many of their ranks are inside police departments.
Joined: Aug 2008
Current Posts: 264
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/04/05/Poplawski-frequented-right-wing-Web-sites/UPI-66971238977599/
"Richard Poplawski posted his profile and photographs of his tattoos on the white supremacist Web site Stormfront, which serves as a clearinghouse for neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic groups, using the site to display an eagle tattoo spread across his chest, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette reported Sunday.
"I was considering gettin' life runes on the outside of my calfs," he wrote on Stormfront, referring to a common symbol among white supremacists, especially followers of The National Alliance, a neo-Nazi group linked to a a collection of violent organizations, the newspaper said."
For all the Hitler admirers on this site, admire Poplawski now. And you politically challenged Hitler closet admirers know exactly whom I'm referring to.