After a Bernie Sanders campaign volunteer attempted to assassinate Republican members of Congress in Virginia, and the violent left-wing group Antifa again in the news, many on the left continue to insist that “both sides” need to moderate their violent political rhetoric, but that it is the right that is more dangerous in the U.S. today. Yet history proves that leftists are guilty of most of the political violence in the U.S. today and throughout our history.
Democrat volunteer James T. Hodgkinson opened fire as Republicans practiced for a charity baseball game, seriously wounding Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), on June 14, 2017. Immediately after that, the New York Times blamed Republican “violent rhetoric” for the Democrat shooter’s actions. And as the nation took stock of Hodgkinson’s actions, many voices also called for “both sides” to stop with the harsh political rhetoric. The conceit is that “both sides” are responsible for Hodgkinson’s crime.
But finding “both sides” at fault neither fits with the event in question nor with the historical record.
At the turn of the 1900s, when American leftism adopted a more Marxist, class-conscious bent in the socialist, communist, and anarchist movements that often overlapped, political violence kicked into high gear in the United States as it had in Europe. While the old continent succumbed to those leftist trends and incorporated them into its politics, the U.S. never quite did. But that didn’t stop extremist groups from perpetrating a long list of acts of political violence, which continues from the 1900s-era anarchists all the way to the Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter movements today.
It began over 100 years ago as the United States became afflicted with extremist actions perpetrated by ideological bomb throwers and assassins. By no means exhaustive, this partial list of violence committed by the American Left over the last century or so nevertheless runs shockingly long.
Note the use of the term anarchists does not necessarily refer to people who want to eliminate government. The term used to have a non-political meaning, people who are trying to bring about public turmoil via terrorism.
1886 – 1911 Union Movement Dynamite Terror Campaign
Starting in 1886, the violent, left-wing labor movement in the U.S. began a campaign of terror bombings targeting American politicians and businessmen intended to force capitulation to union demands.
The Haymarket Square Incident, May 1886
On May 4, a mass meeting of workers was called to protest the police actions the previous day. A crowd of 20,000 had been expected, but it was a cold rainy day, so only about 2,500 showed up to hear speeches by Albert Parsons, Samuel Fielden, and August Spies. Responding to pressure from businessmen, 600 police reserves were called in duty that night at the West Chicago, Harrison, and Central stations near the site of the protests. An extra 100 officers were added to the Des Plains station, less than a half block from Haymarket Square.
The rally began at 8:30 pm and the crowd was calm (and wet from the rain). Chicago Mayor Harrison rode by on his horse a short time later and was satisfied that the protest was peaceful. He ordered the police inspector to send the reserve officers home. The police inspector refused and two hours later, he ordered his men to disperse the crowd. The speakers were approached by Police Captain William Ward, who commanded the meeting to end in the “name of the people of Illinois.” Just then, a pipe bomb was thrown from a vestibule at Randolph and Des Plains Streets. The bomb exploded in the middle of a column of police. One officer was killed instantly, and six others were mortally wounded. The remaining officers quickly recovered and began shooting wildly into the fleeing crowd of laborers. The shooting continued for more than five minutes.
The person responsible for the bombing was never caught. Nevertheless, in the end, eight anarchists were put on trial, and seven were convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. Four were hanged in November 1887, one committed suicide and three were later pardoned by Illinois governor, John Peter Altgeld.
1910 Bombing of the Los Angeles Times HQ
As part of that union terror campaign, the headquarters of the Los Angeles Times was practically destroyed when John and James McNamara, both active in the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers, set off a bundle of dynamite at the building. The explosion and fire ultimately killed 21 and injured another 100. The brothers became a cause celebre, with their innocence an article of faith on the left until the pair admitted their guilt in detail.
1916, San Francisco Preparedness Day Parade Bombing
As America prepared to enter the First World War, in July of 1916, the city of San Francisco organized what it called a Preparedness Day Parade to celebrate America’s impending move to war. But radical union members and opponents of America’s war plans had other ideas, and a suitcase bomb was set off along the parade route killing 10 and injuring another 40 marchers.
Many union members, anarchists, and other radicals opposed the march because it was organized by members of San Francisco’s business community and the extremists carped that the organizers of the parade were really only celebrating the money they might make off war profiteering.
With that criticism still ringing in their ears, police arrested two radical labor activists, Thomas Mooney and Warren K. Billings. The two were later convicted for the attack. Ultimately both were given life in prison for the bombing, but by 1939 California Governor Culbert Olson pardoned the men after a plethora of inquiries showed that the testimony and evidence was highly suspect.
The real perpetrators of the bombing were never identified.
1919 Anarchist Bombing Campaign
As the various anarchist and socialist groups grew in numbers in both Europe and the U.S., violence became a central part of their effort to win power and the year 1919 brought America a string of bombings meant to coincide with the Communist celebration of May Day.
In total, 36 dynamite bombs were sent to American politicians across the country. No one died from the bombs as most were stopped by authorities, but a maid working for Georgia Senator Thomas W. Hardwick had her hands blown off when she opened the package that the senator received. The Senator’s wife was also seriously injured by the explosion.
That wasn’t the end of the 1919 campaign. In June of that year, the anarchist groups detonated bombs in eight American cities. Several lost their lives during this campaign.
1920 Wall Street Bombing
Another anarchist bombing occurred on September 19, 1920, in New York’s financial district killing 30 people immediately, and another eight died later of wounds sustained in the blast. There were 143 seriously injured, and the total number of injured was in the hundreds. The bomb was set for 12:01pm when people would be leaving their offices and going on the street to get lunch. While no one was captured for the crime, investigators believed the bombing was carried out by Galleanists, and the attack was related to postwar social unrest, labor struggles, and anti-capitalist agitation in the United States.
1927, Anarchists/Socialists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti Executed for Murder
In April of 1920, a paymaster and a security guard were shot and killed at a shoe company in South Braintree, Massachusetts. The murderers, described by witnesses as two Italian men, stole $15,000 after the shootings and escaped with several other men in a car. The investigation soon led police to Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Both were described as known radicals and anarchists.
The pair were discovered with loaded guns on their person when arrested and they were quickly accused of the murders. After a trial, they were convicted of the killings and the robbery, but the state’s evidence was weak, and much of the claims against the two were discredited. Despite that, the convicted men were executed in 1927, after years of controversy over the verdict. For decades many said the two were innocent, but forensic scientists tested bullets fired from Sacco’s gun in 1961 and again in 1983 and it was said to have matched the weapon that killed the guard.
The convicted men’s execution sparked more trouble for the U.S., though not directly here in the homeland. After the executions, Italian anarchist Severino Di Giovanni bombed the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Still, the trial was a sensation since it came on the heels of the many bombings that had already happened and during what would become America’s first “red scare,” a wave of fear about the anarchist, socialist and communist movements causing such mayhem across the country. Also, it should also be remembered that communists had already shocked the world only a few years previous by overthrowing the Tsar of Russia, so the fear of Communist insurrection was no mere wild fantasy.
Political Assassinations
Concurrent with the rise of socialist bombings, a series of political assassinations occurred nearly all at the hands of leftists. As it happens, a large number of politicians murdered in the U.S. after 1900 were killed at the hands of leftists.
To list just a few of the many political assassinations in the U.S. after the rise of the political left:
- President William McKinley was assassinated by self-professed anarchist Leon Czolgosz in 1901
- Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg was killed in 1905 by a hitman hired members of a mining union.
- Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was shot in 1933 by an anarchist during a speech being given by President Franklin Roosevelt.
- Long Beach, New York, Mayor Louis F. Edwards was assassinated by members of the police union in 1939.
- President John F. Kennedy killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, a communist in 1963.
- Senator Robert F. Kennedy killed in 1968 by Sirhan Sirhan, a mentally unstable Palestinian.
- Congressman Leo Ryan killed in 1978 by members of The People’s Temple whose message included communist and socialist ideas.
Leftist Violence in the Post WWII Era
While much of the violence in the U.S. previous to WWII was relegated to union clashes, proto-Communist groups, and Democrat Party-sponsored Ku Klux Klan violence, as the world regrouped after the world’s most massive war, leftist groups grew at an incredible rate and violence was their stock and trade.
The Black Panther Party
In October of 1966, black activists Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party. The pair claimed the group was started for the self-defense of the black race. Its ideology was based on black nationalism, Marxist rhetoric, and revolutionary socialism. The group was violently anti-police and anti-Semitic. Whatever the original intent, the group soon broke down into gangster activities and perpetrated a series of murders and engaged in drug dealing.
The Weather Underground
The communist-inspired Weather Underground (WUO) operated between 1969 and 1977 and aimed to foment revolution and was not averse to perpetrating bombings to achieve that goal. It was an offshoot of the socialist college group, the Students for a Democratic Society. WUO was responsible for several acts of terror. In 1970, San Francisco policeman Brian V. McDonnell died in an unsolved bombing that many suspects involved Weathermen. Three of their own members also lost their lives when a bomb prematurely detonated in a Greenwich Village townhouse in 1970.
The Symbionese Liberation Army
Between 1973 and 1975 the Symbionese Liberation Army, which styled itself as part of a rapidly aging “new left,” kidnapped Hearst newspaper heiress Patty Hearst and embarked on a campaign of terror. In one incident in 1973, the group killed African American Oakland school superintendent Marcus Foster. The group also robbed several banks and got in shootouts with police.
FALN Terrorism
Starting in 1974 the FALN, or the Armed Forces of National Liberation of Puerto Rico, launched a campaign of terror to force the United States to bestow independence on its Island Protectorate. FALN took responsibility for about a dozen bombings between 1974 and 1979, one of which was the Fraunces Tavern bombing in New York City in 1975, which killed four and injured more than 40 others.
Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber
Ted Kaczynski was an anarchist with leftist, neo-Luddite, and environmentalist views who launched a 17-year bombing campaign starting in 1978 that killed three and injured 23 more.
Anti-Tea Party Violence
On August 6, 2009, Tea Party supporter Kenneth Gladney went to a town-hall meeting hosted by Rep. Russ Carnahan, Missouri Democrat. While passing out “Don’t Tread on Me” flags, he was viciously attacked by SEIU members. One even called him a “nigger.” and that was just the start. The assault of Kenneth Gladney was the first act of violence at any tea party rally, and there were others, none of which were initiated by the Tea Party. Unions spent much of the remainder of the Obamacare showing up at rallies and intimidating people who disagreed with Obamacare.
St. Louis County officials waited until November 25 to press charges and then only after pressure from the public. Of course, despite injuries to Gladney’s back, neck and legs the DA each was charged with the lightest possible version of assaulting a person and interfering with police. The NAACP protested the trial, not to support Gladney, but to get the charges against the SEIU thugs dropped. You see, they believed Gladney deserved it because he was an Uncle Tom. It didn’t matter because those who beat up Gladney were found not guilty after the prosecution delivered a tepid case (on purpose?).
Environmental and Animal Rights Terrorism
Eco-Terrorism and animal rights activists have also been responsible for numerous acts of violence starting in the 1970s and continuing right up to today. Members of groups such as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), Greenpeace, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), and Earth First! have all been identified as perpetrators of acts of terror over the last 30 years by the FBI.
Again, this article is by no means an exhaustive list of left-wing terrorism in the U.S., and there are many, many more examples, big and small. But these are some of the most significant left-wing perpetrators of political terrorism since 1900 in the U.S.A. The record shows that terrorism in U.S. history has been mostly a history populated by leftist activists. In fact, a 2001 report prepared for the for US Department of Energy Office of Safeguards and Security noted that “Leftist extremists were responsible for three-fourths of the officially designated acts of terrorism in America in the 1980s.”
The lineage of left-wing violence carries on right to this very day. We see it in the form of the so-called “Antifa” movement responsible for political violence on the nation’s college campuses, as well as the Black Lives Matter movement which has been responsible for a string of riots over the last five years after the death of Trayvon Martin in 2012. But it was also seen in the riots and property destruction wrought a year earlier by the short-lived Occupy Wall Street movement.
There is also a growing list of violent acts being perpetrated by liberals in this era of Trump, and at least 30 acts or threats of violence have already been committed against Republican politicians.
So, when celebrities such as Kathy Griffin, Madonna, Robert De Niro, and Johnny Depp echo calls for political violence, they are bowing to well over 100 years of left-wing terrorism perpetrated in the United States.
Much of this post was first seen at Constitution.com
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