Domestic Terrorism

by hilzoy

The AP, via Zuzu at Feministe and Phil in comments:

"Explosive Found at Austin Women’s Clinic

A package left at a women's clinic that performs abortions contained an explosive device capable of inflicting serious injury or death, investigators said today.

"It was in fact an explosive device," said David Carter, assistant chief of the Austin Police Department. "It was configured in such a way to cause serious bodily injury or death."

The package was found Wednesday in a parking lot outside the Austin Women's Health Center, south of downtown Austin.

Nearby Interstate 35 was briefly closed, and a nearby apartment complex was evacuated while a bomb squad detonated the device."

WIMN's Voices (also via Zuzu):

"The national press? Aside from 97 words from the AP and a brief mention from CNN — nothing (according to a Nexis search at 5:15 pm today). In that lone CNN mention, we’re told that “Officials from the Homeland Defense Team, which includes police officers, also other Austin officers, the Department of Emergency Ordnance Disposal unit and the FBI and the U.S. Bureau of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives” were on the scene. Yet still, not a peep from the national press. Now, imagine if this clinic had been a bank, or a high school, or a sports arena. I bet we would have heard something about it then."

Zuzu:

"For some reason, terrorism doesn’t count if it’s directed against women and their health care providers. It’s just not news, and the fact that it goes unremarked in the national media — and hell, even in the local media, as in the case of the Austin bomb — contributes to the idea that women are not important and that violence directed at women is not only to be expected, but to be dismissed. (...)

We saw something similar with the Virginia Tech shooting — the campus police initially dismissed the idea that the gunman would be a danger to anyone else — even though they hadn’t identified or caught him at the time — because they saw a dead woman and just assumed that it was a “domestic incident” and there would be no further violence. Clinic bombings are treated as the equivalent of shrugged-off “domestic incidents” — hey, it’s just violence against women. It’s not like it’s going to affect real people or anything.

And they never call it by its name: terrorism."

If you think about it, the whole AP article is bizarre, and not just because it's very short, or because it doesn't mention either terrorism or the fact that this sort of thing has a history (pdf; h/t Shakespeare's Sister.) Consider the headline: "Explosive Found at Austin Women’s Clinic". There is no agent in that headline: no one who planted the bomb in an attempt to kill people. The bomb was just "found". Possibly it fell from the sky, or wafted in on the morning breeze. And obviously the right thing to emphasize, under the circumstances, is the bomb's being found, not someone having planted the bomb in an attempt to terrorize women seeking abortions and the doctors, nurses, receptionists, and janitors who work at the clinic.

The article's first sentence reads: "A package left at a women's clinic that performs abortions contained an explosive device capable of inflicting serious injury or death, investigators said today." There is an agent in this sentence, which is a relief: it would be spooky if all these things kept happening with no one actually doing them. But what's left out this time is intention. The bomb was not planted at the clinic; it was left there. Leaving something somewhere is something you can do by accident -- "Oh no, I left my keys locked in the car!", or "Darn, I left my leopard skin pillbox hat on the bus!" Perhaps we are to imagine that someone, somewhere, might be saying: "Silly me; I left my bomb at the abortion clinic!"

Somehow, I doubt it.

In the second paragraph, we learn that the bomb "was configured in such a way to cause serious bodily injury or death", but, again, the grammar obscures the person who did the configuring. In the next paragraph we hear again that the bomb was "found". And those are all the points in the article, such as it is, at which the fact that a human being tried to kill or maim other people might have come up.

The article does not underplay the lethality of the bomb itself. But at every point it underplays or omits the fact that someone designed it to be lethal, and then planted it in a place where, had it not been detected, it would have killed people. It's as though the bomb just appeared all by itself by spontaneous generation, without the assistance of any actual human being who was doing his best to kill his or her fellow human beings.

Comments

[Rev Donald Spitz]

Grow up. Do you think anyone actually cares that a babykilling abortion mill is blown up? You don't seem to concerned about the babies that are being murdered at the babykilling Austin Women's Health Center.

[rilkefan]

I was going to praise hilzoy's Orwell-sharp reading, but I have to respond to the above comment with:

Who Would Jesus Blow Up?

[rilkefan]

Another outstanding, trenchant reaction from Ogged.

[Gary Farber]

I don't expect it's likely the Rev. Donald will have a coherent and to-the-point response to a collection of Hilzoy's posts on what makes a living human being, but I'm too lazy at the moment to fetch them myself, and can but await -- or not care, one or the other -- the degree of the good Reverend's intellectual response.

Alternatively, perhaps the Reverend could explain if his Bible quotes (at his own site) are intended to persuade his non-Christian readers of anything, other than that they should convert.

Scott Lemieux blogged about the Austin event here, by the way.

[otmar]

Sheesh, when I read that first comment I though "what a poignant parody of right-wing talking points".

[Hartmut]

As a slight counterpoint: Over here "terrorism" will only make it into the headline (of serious news), if the bomb actually explodes (independent of the target!).
The norm is "Bomb found at..." with the details in the article. The fact that somebody planted it is often/usually not mentioned explicitly, if there is not yet a clear idea about who did it. To the contrary it is the "unplanted" bomb that gets the special treatment (there is still a lot of unexploded WW2 ordnance in the soil here).
Concerning the US any domestic terrorism seems to be a taboo theme because it doesn't fit the preconceived notion that "not all Muslims are terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims".
As a cynic I say let's wait for Al Qaeda blowing up abortion clinics and then see the heads on the right explode (except for those of course that actually applaud Muslim terrorism, if it hits the "correct" target).
[barf, vomit]

[Jesurgislac]

Otmar: Sheesh, when I read that first comment I though "what a poignant parody of right-wing talking points".

So did I. I was wondering which of the regulars had written it. If I hadn't been asleep, I'd have suspected me...

[McWyrm]

Yeah - I'm gonna object.

In Cincinnati two pipe bombs were planted outside a mosque a couple years back and got no mention in the national press. I really don't find the phenomena that strange, nor do I imagine it is exclusive to women's clinics or mosques. Whomever posted above has a good point - there isn't actually much of a story in a bomb that didn't go off. It isn't going to make headlines.

Further, the police at VT didn't "shrug off" the killings initially, they merely assumed they wouldn't continue after the initial incident. It's disingenuous and unfair to pretend otherwise.

Finally, until the guilty parties have been identified, to whom do you suggest the press attribute the bomb-planting? Complaining about the use of passive voice when, in fact, the active agent is unknown seems remarkably petty.

[Jesurgislac]

McWyrm: Complaining about the use of passive voice when, in fact, the active agent is unknown

Well, we can guess: it seems likely - extremely likely - that the active agent will be found to be a pro-lifer.

It's possible that the terrorist who placed the bomb in a women's clinic to kill the staff and any patients present, did so for some other reason than because they are attending or working in a clinic where women can get abortions... but it's not likely.

[hilzoy]

McWyrm: I would not have complained about the passive voice in the absence of the consistent elision of the agent and his or her intentions, and the general lack of coverage. It's the pattern that bothers me. Of course the passive voice alone, while not my favorite stylistic device, is not the sort of thing I'd write a blog post about.

[hilzoy]

McWyrm: on further reflection, though, I wasn't objecting to the passive voice at all. I would have been fine with "Bomb Planted At Abortion Clinic". It's the fact that all the verbs make the agent disappear, not because they're in the passive voice (lots of passive voice verbs have obvious implied agents), but because they are the sorts of verbs that do not require an agent at all.

[john miller]

hilzoy, despite my complete and unadulterated adoration for your writings, I think this one is a little off mark.

I can't imagine anyone thinking, when reading the article, that the explosives just appeared, nor would they think that they were not planted by someone who is pro-choice.

The only thing I agree with is that this type of action is not described as terrorism. Just as should be explosives found outside a mosque.

I do not put VT into the category of terrorism, however.

[MJN]

I see an arrest has been made.

You would not necessarily know this from, say, the front page at CCN.com.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

The good news about finding the bomb unexploded is that it provides much better evidence about the maker that way. I hope they catch him.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

Whoops already an arrest. This charge is interesting: "The suspect was charged with using weapons of mass destruction".

And I may have been wrong about the evidence since they blew it up.

Though I suppose a controlled explosion you can get more out of than the uncontrolled variety.

Hmmm, my computer is doing its 10th slow crash of the day. Gotta run.

[aimai]

John Miller's comment is a reminder of why a good liberal arts education is not, in fact, wasted even if it doesn't make the big bucks. Hilzoy's post contains a perfectly unexceptionable and, indeed, inarguable analysis of what struck me, too, as a pretty passive and bizarre choice of words. Here's a clue for those who think its much ado about nothing--the shorter the piece? the more the individual words count. The more important the piece, the more words the AP and those citing it use in writing it up. We can learn two things from the length of this piece.
1) Its not important to the AP.
2) Every word they selected to be in the piece carries a ton of weight in any interpretation.

No, John Miller, its true that no thinking person will assume that because there isn't an "agent" involved in the AP's story that the bomb *literally* fell from heaven. But the event will not be easy for the casual reader to slot into its correct place in the political news of the day.

Traditionally the "news"--a series of flash bites of information spewed at the reader or viewer--is situated for the reader/viewer by some form of editorial framing. Man bites dog makes sense because the reader is reminded, or expected to know, that usually its the other way around. A piece of information which is *not* framed for the reader hangs out there, undigested and undigestible (to mix my metaphors). To me as a reader of political and social commentary that is a huge red flag. Imagine our surprise if any leftist organization had "left a bomb" outside a bank. Would it be "ireresponsible of the press to speculate? It would be irresponsible not to." to quote peggy noonan on another instance.

aimai

[John Thullen]

The suspect is a recent graduate of the Texas penal system.

A person, a passive-voiced person with no pronouns but only disposable verbs and objects, could dream up a pretty good narrative on that fact alone.

You know, a state with a certain former governor allowing a certain former Watergate figure broad access to its penal system to convert and recruit the prison population into a prolish sort of Army intent on battling the liberal forces of evil across the land. Tatoos of scenes from Revelation would be the identifying feature of these new apocalyptic agents.

On the other hand, this guy, should he turn out to be more than a suspect, might have been hired by someone from either crazy extreme of the debate to throw a wrench into the recent Supreme Court decision.

I'm gonna wait and see.

[John Thullen]

I once brainstormed a fictional account of a high State Department official, whose portfolio included AIDS prevention through abstinence and combating human trafficking in the world prostitution trade, being caught up in a gigantic prostitution scandal.

That didn't come true either.

What is important is that politicians of a certain stripe take the "No New Taxes" pledge and stick to it.

[McWyrm]

Jesurgislac: Well, we can guess...

Yeah, you can guess. Do you really insist that the AP do your guessing for you?

hilzoy: all the verbs make the agent disappear ... they are the sorts of verbs that do not require an agent at all.

The AP article contains two pertinent verbs:

A package left at a women's clinic...was configured in such a way to cause serious bodily injury or death.

Now, the article was really, really short. But I don't see anything inappropriate in the choice of verbs here.

The passive-voice thing was really the more minor of my complaints about this post. On reflection, I see that it was Zuzu - not hilzoy - who says the police "shrugged-off" the initial VT killings. That's messed up, but not the fault of anybody here.

However, I don't find the lack of national coverage odd. I live in Cincinnati. The mosque that was targeted is just down the street. The mosque bombing was a big local story but never received any national attention, and it looks like the same thing is happening with this case.

You could make the case that there needs to be more national coverage of (isolate, small-scale, thwarted) domestic terrorism incidents, but I don't think you can credibly argue that attacks on women's clinics are selectively ignored.

[thebewilderness]

One of the saddest things about the way news stories are managed is that people are so used to it they think it is reasonable.
Hilzoy is pointing out a pattern of dismissal in news stories that has been ongoing for many years. It simply adds insult to injury that, when it is pointed out, the response is to dismiss the objection. It would take very little trouble to do the compare and contrast exercise that would illustrate the clear difference.

[Joshua]

You know what else confuses me about this story?

It was a real bomb. Like for really reals. Primed to explode and kill many people. Designed for it, even.

Remember the Boston bomb scare? The Great Mooninite Invasion of '07? The mass hysteria over some frickin' LEDs wired up to look like a cartoon character? National news!

Real, actual, people-killing bomb? Feh, no big deal.

[Hartmut]

As above I would say it mainly does not get the coverage it deserves because a) no bang happened and b) domestic terrorism doesn't fit the storyline that it's "dirty for'ners" or "left-wing extremists" that commit acts of terrorism. And for the use of words "left" in connection with the explosive device, I would see it as a method description. Someone comes and goes away later but "forgets" (or leaves) a bag/innocent looking object that later turns out to be a bomb. I can read several times a month that the bomb defusing squad blew up a piece of luggage someone left (often just for a minute) at an airport/railway station because said luggage could actually be a bomb. Not that long ago a group of youngsters tried to blow up an underground train in Berlin but the bombs hidden in bags they left were malconstructed and failed.
The cases of destroyed innocent luggage get a 5-10 line note on the local pages, the true bombs get to page 1 (with or without explosion). Btw, WW2 duds are mainly reported because of the traffic disturbance and the need to evacuate all houses in the area.
In the case of the bomb at the clinic, I'd consider it as the opportunity (for non-local news outlets) to write/make a piece about the general topic of domestic terrorism and its "natural" targets but it is imo not done out of fear of the bias-howlers (because apart from a few round-the-bend eco-whackos it is coming almost exclusively from the right and the whackos usually target not even persons but dead objects). Oklahoma was too big to be ignored and even then it was attempted to blame it on either the Left or the Muslims (some still do).

[McWyrm]

thebewilderness:One of the saddest things about the way news stories are managed is that people are so used to it they think it is reasonable.
Hilzoy is pointing out a pattern of dismissal in news stories that has been ongoing for many years.

Hilzoy essentially claims that this story is not getting national attention because it involves a women's clinic. When was the last time a domestic terrorism story that involved a one-time, single-target, thwarted attack got any national media attention, regardless of what the target actually was? If there is an example of a similar event with a different target getting significant national coverage, please name it.

Otherwise, STFU.

[OCSteve]

aimai But the event will not be easy for the casual reader to slot into its correct place in the political news of the day.

I honestly don’t know anyone over the age of 30 who would not immediately say to themselves upon reading that: “Right wing extremist”. It was certainly my first thought when Phil posted it in the other thread.

OTOH I think it would be entirely irresponsible for the article to speculate on the origins of the bomb – that is not news at that point. It is opinion or worse.

[OCSteve]

McWyrm: Something like, “Otherwise, you may want to rethink your position” works just as well as “STFU” and comes across as being a lot less strident. Just saying.

[McWyrm]

OCSteve:

Of course you're right. That was uncalled for, and I apologize.

[hilzoy]

McWyrm: Well, let's start with all the people the government has arrested for being suspected al Qaeda members who didn't even get to the point of planting a bomb. A lot of those accusations don't seem to have panned out, and yet I recall their getting a lot of coverage.

One might say "oh, but that's because they were part of an organized terror plot", were it not for the statistics I linked to in the post about the incidence of anti-abortion crime.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Though I suppose a controlled explosion you can get more out of than the uncontrolled variety."

Don't know about that; I seem to recall at least one "militia" prosecution in the late 90's that fell apart because they neglected to collect any forensic evidence concerning the nature of the alleged "explosives" before destroying them, leaving them with no proof that what they'd blown up were actually explosives. (Controlled explosions involve surrounding the 'bomb" with your own explosives, and detonating them; You get an explosion whether or not what you've got was really a live bomb.)

Let me say at this point that this was, unambigously, terrorism. And, yeah, reporting on domestic terrorism is really pathetic. If they're not ignoring non-Islamic terrorism, they're desperately trying to not let on that an Islamic terrorist was Islamic. Either way they're getting it wrong.

[Bruce Baugh]

Brett, good catch - now that you bring it up, I remember a series of scandals with regard to the FBI forensics labs, too, where hopelessly contaminated evidence ruined quite a few cases, including ones involving right-wing would-be terrorists.

[aimai]

OC steve,
I don't think the question is whether "any person over thirty" would think "right wing extremist" when they heard a bomb was left at a women's health clinic but whether the phrase is "right wing extremist" or "terrorist" or "christian do-gooder" really shapes the social narrative. For reasons that are very, very, clear the press avoids labelling terrorist activities done by *white guys* as terroristic--this is very consistent. They also avoid pushing the audience/readers into panic mode when they have decided that the damage is going to be limited to a select few and they go in the opposite direction if they can flog the story into massive circulation by alarming everyone. The case of the "blinking led lights under bridges" is just one example.

But let me give you another example--missing white girls vs missing non white girls. Studies have consistently shown that pretty white girls who go missing are noticed, talked about and pushed into the public conciousness with a savage glee by the media while essentially identical cases involving non white women simply disappear within a few hours. Why is that? That's a rhetorical question, because the answer is racism.

Just as, in this case, the answer (though overdetermined) is that what threatens pregnant women at a women's clinic isn't seen as important as what threatens other kinds of people in other kinds of situations. You might argue, and I would, that casting the blame onto white christian terrorists as widely as it would need to be cast is seen as more problematic than casting the blame on non white terrorists. If a koran had been left with the bomb we would never have heard the end of this incident. Eric rudolph, on the other hand, was a hero. It matters *a lot* who the press is assuming the reader reads into the story. And who the press reads into the story affects press coverage. This is an incontrovertible fact.

aimai

[Gary Farber]

"Of course the passive voice alone, while not my favorite stylistic device, is not the sort of thing I'd write a blog post about."

That is to be regretted.

"When was the last time a domestic terrorism story that involved a one-time, single-target, thwarted attack got any national media attention, regardless of what the target actually was?"

Last week.

No, wait, 19 hours ago.

Oh, crap.

We're sorry...

Your comment has not been posted because we think it may be comment spam. We routinely monitor comment activity and block comments that exhibit patterns of abuse. We apologize if you believe you've reached this message in error.

Continued in next comment.

[Gary Farber]

pt.2:

No, wait, 12 hours ago. No, wait, seven hours ago.

Uh, actually, a couple of times a week, minimum, as a rule. They are usually small stories, but, y'know, there if one actually reads newspapers, and not just blogs.

[Gary Farber]

"...and they go in the opposite direction if they can flog the story into massive circulation by alarming everyone. The case of the 'blinking led lights under bridges' is just one example."

As I recall, the Mayor flogged the story into what it was, and the media largely just reported on his hysterical response, but, of course, I didn't read every article written about the events, or anything close.

To be sure, the media is all about stories that get people to pay attention, responsible or not, with variant levels of responsibility or irresponsibility, depending on the type of media and the specific (for instance, local tv news is almost uniformly dreadful, and the network tv news, mediocre as it frequently is, isn't generally as bad as they are, or, say, the Weekly World News).

[OCSteve]

aimai: Can’t argue with much of that. Well said.

For reasons that are very, very, clear the press avoids labelling terrorist activities done by *white guys* as terroristic--this is very consistent.

Let me be very, very clear… Lock ‘em up and throw away the key. These people do NOT speak for me. He/she are simple thugs – terrorist may be giving them too much credit.

Eric rudolph, on the other hand, was a hero.

Or a great shame - in hindsight, I was pretty much gone when he started in with his crap. Don’t paint us all with the same brush please…

[Slartibartfast]

The good news about finding the bomb unexploded is that it provides much better evidence about the maker that way.

That, and all of the otherwise dead or maimed folks walking around still healthy.

Eric Rudolph was only a hero to the sick and twisted, IMO.

[J Thomas]

When was the last time a domestic terrorism story that involved a one-time, single-target, thwarted attack got any national media attention, regardless of what the target actually was? If there is an example of a similar event with a different target getting significant national coverage, please name it.

I mostly ignore the media because the signal-to-noise ratio is so small. But I sort of remember an incident a few years ago about some guy who had explosives in his shoes, I guess he was going to blow his feet off or something, but they caught him in time. He was definitely a one-timer, he had a single target, and he was thwarted with a vengeance.

And there was some sort of uproar last month or so about some guys who got on a plane and asked for seatbelt extenders. There's no reason to think they were planning an attack to thwart, but they got a whole lot of attention.

I guess it could be argued those weren't domestic attacks, though they were thwarted inside the USA. I don't remember many reports at all about domestic terrorism done by US citizens.

I've heard about a few minor attacks on palestinians in the USA done by organised jewish groups, but the ones I heard about didn't get any media attention at all beyond a line like "Joe's Falafel Hut burned down Tuesday night. The police say it was arson."

I guess the only domestic terrorism reports I can remember were all against abortion clinics. No, wait. I remember a couple against women's shelters, except both times it got represented as a lone insane man attacking the shelter. Not domestic terrorism in that case, right?

[Gary Farber]

"I've heard about a few minor attacks on palestinians in the USA done by organised jewish groups, but the ones I heard about didn't get any media attention at all beyond a line like 'Joe's Falafel Hut burned down Tuesday night. The police say it was arson.'"

Where did you "hear about" this? Does the fact that you say that "the ones I heard about didn't get any media attention at all" mean that if I ask for cites on such an assertion, you'll say that it isn't possible since -- somehow -- some kind of conspiracy covered up all possible reports? Or what?

I'm also quite curious how it is that you can make flat declarations about alleged events that you assert "get any media attention at all" and it also be that you "mostly ignore the media because the signal-to-noise ratio is so small."

How are you aware of what does and does not get "any media attention at all" when you "mostly ignore the media"?

(Small typographical and politeness point, incidentally: both "Palestinians" and "Jewish" are capitalized, unless one's intent is to be derogatory.)

[J Thomas]

Gary, I don't reliably capitalise any such things, and I mean no offense. I don't usually capitalise american but I capitalise USA for no reason I understand. The particular incident with the falafel hut, the palestinian involved had a lebanese passport and his son-in-law was lebanese.

The local newspaper reported that his restaurant burned down and that it was arson. A fellow student claimed to be a JDL member and claimed to have been involved in starting the fire which burned not only the small restaurant but also damaged a hairdresser's and a dance studio(?) in the same building. He could have been lying. My immediate thought about his story was to repeat it to some friends who were doing environmental activism, since I'd seen him hanging around them some and if they were doing anything that required secrecy they should understand that he wasn't trustworthy.

These were all minor matters that got minimal local media attention. I assumed they got no national attention. No particular reason they would.

I'd forgotten about it, but I heard one story from the environmental group. Somebody was going to build a subdivision in place of an essential watershed, and the construction crews had been stopped temporarily while some legal matters got settled. The logging hadn't started but they were all ready to cut the roads in etc, and there was heavy construction equipment lying around unguarded. So one night they raided it and did various sabotage methods on the graders etc. They weren't all that organised and tried pretty much every method they could think of, which meant that the sugar and acetylene probably wouldn't damage the engines because they'd find the less-obvious things and then look for all the same tricks the activists knew. And the result was -- nothing. The bad guys didn't report it to the media at all and the ecology guys got discouraged. They did it again before the stuff got put into a fenced area with security guards, and there was still no report. They were real real upset about it. It was like they went to all that work and risk and the other side just shrugged it off. They wanted to read about what dangerous criminals they were and there was just nothing.

[Bruce Baugh]

OCSteve: Look at this way. If anyone accuses you of being one of those conservatives who coddles and justifies terrorists, all these liberals here will vouch for you! Isn't that comforting? :)

[McWyrm]

hilzoy:...let's start with all the people the government has arrested for being suspected al Qaeda members .
I think you'll find that al Qaeda, being an international organization, is pretty much excluded from participating in domestic terrorism. Further, if the perpatrator in this case had been a member of an underground organization responsible for numerous spectacular acts of terrorism over a number of years there would be considerably greater media interest.

In general, domestic terrorism does not garner significant national media attention. Particularly when it is a single incident (not a sustained campaign or a cluster), when no one actually is hurt, and when the target has no national significance.

I'd be open to the proposition that domestic terrorism should be more widly reported, or even that terrorism against women's clincs should get special coverage.

But those are not the arguments that have been put forth here. hilzoy, you seem to be saying that the coverage of attacks on abortion clinics is systematically lacking or suppressed. To convincingly make that argument you really need to demonstrate that similar events not involving abortion clinics are widly covered by the national media. You haven't done that.

[J Thomas]

McWyrm, her argument fails if similar incidents with other targets get the same treatment.

If attempts to bomb stockbrokers, and farmers' markets, and kindergartens, and episcopal churches, and freemason lodges, and computer stores all have the same media reaction as abortion clinics, then she's wrong -- it isn't something special about violence against clinics that do abortions.

But if there *are* no domestic terrorist attacks on stockbrokers, farmers' markets, kindergardens, etc -- then that doesn't mean she's wrong at all.

[Hartmut]

Honest question: How long did it take for the serial church arson last year(?) to gain national attention and how long until it disappered again after the arsonists turned out not to be the "usual suspects"?

[liberal japonicus]

hilzoy, you seem to be saying that the coverage of attacks on abortion clinics is systematically lacking or suppressed.

from the post
The AP,
and
If you think about it, the whole AP article is bizarre,
and
The article's first sentence reads
and
In the second paragraph
and finally
The article does not underplay the lethality of the bomb itself. But at every point

Simply substituting what you thought Hilzoy was saying for what was actually written is not a good strategy, I think.

[OCSteve]

McWyrm: Further, if the perpatrator in this case had been a member of an underground organization responsible for numerous spectacular acts of terrorism over a number of years there would be considerably greater media interest.

I think that is a good point. Recall how much media attention the Unabomber received. (Wow, I originally misspelled it as “Unibomber” and Word had the correct spelling.)

[OCSteve]

Another thought I had somewhere along the way – consider if this exact same bomb had been found behind a synagogue. Would it not have been irresponsible for the initial report to speculate whether Palestinians or Muslims might be involved?

[just me]

A good comparison on domestic terrorism would be to compare reporting with regards to abortion clinics to either animal rights groups or environmental groups.

I remember a few years ago-closer to 2000 than 2007 reading an article on domestic terrorism, and animal rights groups and environmental groups committed the most domestic attacks for that period, although these acts get very little coverage outside of the local area.

I think lots of damage or sadly death is what bumps something up to the national news media scale.

[Jesurgislac]

OCSteve: Another thought I had somewhere along the way – consider if this exact same bomb had been found behind a synagogue. Would it not have been irresponsible for the initial report to speculate whether Palestinians or Muslims might be involved?

If in the past 30 years, over 200 synagogues in North America had been attacked by bombs or arson as part of a movement that publicly and proudly aimed to oust all Jews from the US, can you imagine that the initial report would not speculate that the bomber was thought to be part of that movement?

[liberal japonicus]

The Unabomber is an interesting case. My memory is that he wasn't given that much attention until we went uncaught for so long. Checking wikipedia, he jumped up in attention when he set off a bomb in an airliner, which is a federal crime.

I'd draw a parallel with Eric Rudolph, in that the narrative of a criminal on the lam seems to draw more focus.

The point about animal rights or environmental groups is a fair one, but those groups tend not to kill so much as destroy property, though in the UK, there have been attacks on people and it is only luck that more haven't been killed. The ADL page on ecoterrorism might be of interest.

[OCSteve]

Motive seems to be an open question:
Paul Ross Evans has no known ties to anti-abortion or extremist groups, The Austin American-Statesman said. Vicki Saporta, president of the American Abortion Federation, said the group is going through its records to see if he has ever been in the Austin clinic or made threats against clinics in the past.

Not the brightest terrorist either:
The bomb at the Austin Women's Health Center was inside a cooler. Investigators traced the cooler to a local Wal-Mart and discovered that a customer had purchased some of the other bomb materials at the same time, using an ATM card traced to Evans.

This while he was out on parole. I’m guessing (hoping) the sentence will be pretty stiff this time.

[J Thomas]

If in the past 30 years, over 200 synagogues in North America had been attacked by bombs or arson as part of a movement that publicly and proudly aimed to oust all Jews from the US, can you imagine that the initial report would not speculate that the bomber was thought to be part of that movement?

Yes, but the incidents you link to were 200+ single, isolated attacks. Most of them were small-scale and did minimal damage, though none of them were exactly thwarted. And some of them did get a little media attention.

I thought it would be useful to get a list of attacks on synagogues to match your list of attacks on clinics. But I didn't do the work. I did do a quick google search. "arson synagogues" got about 140,000 hits, while "arson clinics" got 573,000 hits. Looking at the first hundred or so, the synagogue reports often got news stories where the headline reported there was no evidence of arson, but the clinic stories did not. The synagogue stories included a large minority from britain, france, and russia, while the clinic stories were mostly american, with one report of arson in a russian drug rehabilitation clinic.

One of the synagogue incidents (with multiple hits) got lede mention that the synagogue was anti-zionist and had received threats.

I didn't see enough to get any precision, but the two cases look roughly comparable to me. There have only been 41 clinic bombings and 173 arsons so far, with 91 failed attempts. Surely there have been nearly that number or more of synagogue arsons in 30 years. And the number of google hits is within an order of magnitude. So it should be possible to make a comparison, for whatever value that provides.

[McWyrm]

liberal japonicus: Simply substituting what you thought Hilzoy was saying for what was actually written is not a good strategy, I think.

Hmmm. You may be right - I seem to be attributing to hilzoy sentiments expressed by Zuzu and company. Again. How irritating.

[Hartmut]

[a href=http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2007/04/other-kind-of-terror.html]Neiwert[/a] has some interesting observations on the case.

[Hartmut]

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2007/04/other-kind-of-terror.html>link
Too much used to BBC code, I hope this works now.

[McWyrm]

From http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070428/us_nm/texas_abortion_bomb_dc_1>Reuters:

27-year-old Austin man was arrested on Friday and charged with placing an unexploded bomb containing some 2,000 nails outside an abortion clinic in the state's capital.
<...>
The Texas Joint Terrorism Task Force -- made up of federal, state and local law enforcement authorities -- arrested Paul Ross Evans, who authorities said was on parole for an unspecified crime.
<...>
This was the first bombing attempt this year at an abortion clinic, according to the National Abortion Federation, which tracks violence against abortion providers.

Four incidents of attempted bombing or arson were reported in 2006, the NAF said. More than 40 abortion clinic bombings have occurred since 1977, with the last reported in 2001.

There - a huge does of zesty action words: arrested, charged, "placing an unexploded bomb" [can you place an exploded bomb?], bombing. Hell, they even slip in the T-word.

Perhaps the deficits in the AP article were due to a lack of information? The bomb was found Wednesday night and the AP article was posted Thursday morning.

BTW, I realize I come across as a contrarian asshole in this thread, but I really enjoy this blog.

[Gary Farber]

"...I realize I come across as a contrarian asshole...."

A number of us do, possibly because we are.

[Hartmut]

Isn't Reuters mainly for foreign consumption?
(don't know and too lazy to check at the moment).

[Jesurgislac]

McWyrm: Perhaps the deficits in the AP article were due to a lack of information? The bomb was found Wednesday night and the AP article was posted Thursday morning.

Possibly.

BTW, I realize I come across as a contrarian asshole in this thread, but I really enjoy this blog.

Oh, I come across as a contrarian asshole in lots more threads than this one, but I really enjoy this blog too. Stick around. It gets better. Have some coffee. Where are the cookies?