While the perpetrator of the Boston Marathon attack remains unknown, it didn’t stop some mainstream media from immediately making speculations Monday.
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews led the charge. He was convinced the perpetrator was a domestic terrorist, but didn’t stop there.
“Normally domestic terrorists, people, tend to be on the far right,” he said.

Matthews followed this bogus claim by explaining that he also knew why these “far right terrorists” attacked. The date, April 15, was Tax Day.

“I don’t think Tax Day means a lot to the Arab world or Islamic world or certainly not to al-Qaeda,” he added.

Matthews, and MSNBC as a whole, have an extensive history of depicting Libertarians, Tea Party members and other conservative groups as extremists.

In 2010, MSNBC aired a special called, “Rise of the New Right,” which, according to the network’s website, depicts “the growing fear among citizens of losing their rights and freedoms” resulting in “violent rhetoric and anti-government groups.”

In the special, Matthews repeatedly refers to members of the Tea Party and supporters of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) as extremists.

Also in 2010, MSNBC attempted to depict Paul as racist by releasing a fraudulent transcript of his interview on “The Rachel Maddow Show,” which falsely indicated he answered, “yes” when asked if businesses should have the right to say, “We don’t serve black people.”

While mainstream media outlets like MSNBC try time and again to paint these groups as racist, extremist and violent, they are following the government’s lead.

In April 2009, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a report titled, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.”

The report insists, without presenting any evidence, that right-wing extremism is rising rapidly due to job loss, foreclosures and, of course, the election of a black president.

Perhaps most troubling is that the report says the department recognizes extremism as not just hate or racist groups, but groups that “reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority” or “are dedicated to a single issue,” such as gun control.

A 2012 report by the department-funded National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism also named those “suspicious of centralized federal authority” and “reverent of individual liberty” as “extreme right-wing,” possibly terrorists.

While these and other documents indicate the department is eyeing domestic terrorist “threats” identified by vague characteristics — vague enough to include anyone who opposes the efforts of this administration to further strip our liberties — it has aggressively increased its capacity to combat Americans.

This year alone, amid of a sequester “crisis,” we have seen reports in the mainstream media of the Department of Homeland Security buying up to two billion rounds of ammunition — enough to fight a 24-year Iraq war — along with several thousand assault weapons.

We have also seen the vast majority of Congress remain silent at the possibility of drone strikes on U.S. soil, with fleets of drones being equipped to monitor Americans from above.

We have witnessed a tenacious push for gun control and the dismantling of our God-given right to defend ourselves.

And let’s not forget the 2011 renewal of the Patriot Act, which allows warrantless spying on Americans, and the 2012 authorization of the indefinite detention of Americans without trial.

One of these facts alone is easily dismissible, but put together, they become worrisome. And the Obama administration, notorious for its lack of transparency, does little to calm these worries.

The vast majority of mainstream media, if not busy propagandizing the fear and hatred of certain groups, stay clear of this issue — they would be chastised as “conspiracy theorists,” and paranoid.

But I ask you this: Just who is paranoid here? The American people or our government?

And which is more dangerous?

Nick Smith is a junior broadcast and digital journalism major. His column appears weekly. He can been reached at nxsmith@syr.edu and followed on Twitter at @Nick_X_Smith.

Published on April 17, 2013 at 1:20 am