Meet America’s Newest Loser

Two weeks ago we introduced you to Scott Roeder, the murderer of Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller. At the time we noted that certain details of Roeder’s personal life seemed to fit in to a depressing pattern among right-wing extremists. Like so many others before him who have resorted to violence in the name of a grand, if hateful, ideology, Roder’s personal life was marked by failure. In personal and financial matters Roeder was a wreck, unable to maintain a marriage or hold a steady job.

Now we get word that another right-wing loser has gone on an ideologically inspired murdering spree.  Shawna Forde was a prominent member of the anti-immigrant Minuteman vigilante group that patrols the U.S. – Mexican border. She was also a member of FAIR, the Federation For American Immigration reform. Recently, after befriending Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minutemen vigilante patrol, Forde founded her own branch of that organization called the Minutemen American Defense group and came up with a novel method for funding that group’s activities: she and her associates would rob suspected drug dealers at gunpoint and use the proceeds to keep on keepin’ on It seemed like a great idea at the time, no doubt. After all, what could possibly go wrong with a plan that reads like the plot t0 a Guy Ritchie film?

What went wrong, of course, was murder. On the night of May 30 of this year, Forde and two of her associates broke into the home of an Arizona man named Raul Flores, whom they suspected of being a drug dealer. They planned to rob him, but instead ended up murdering the man, as well as his nine year old daughter, Brisenia. Flores’ wife, who fired upon the intruders with a weapon of her own, was gravely wounded.

As for Shawna Forde, she sits in a Pima County jail, wondering why all of her previous associates in the radical anti-immigrant community are scrambling as fast at they can to disassociate themselves from her, and no doubt contemplating the train wreck she has made of her already sorry life. And yes, like Roder who was a nobody before he found a purpose in the violent anti-abortion movement, like Holocaust Museum shooter James von Braun who was a frustrated artist before finding his voice in the Holocast denial movement, Forde’s own biography reveals a history of failure and petty criminality that seemed to find some form of sick redemption in the world of radical right-wing politics. A rather lengthy biographical sketch in the Everett Washington Herald notes:

Forde said many of her challenges originate from a rough start in childhood, including both physical and sexual abuse. Court records show she spent years bouncing between the street and juvenile lockups, where she served time for repeated convictions involving theft, burglary and prostitution.

The paper trail also leads to a Snohomish County courtroom where, at 11, Forde’s tiny fingerprints were taken as she pleaded guilty to her first felony.

…

Forde was born in Everett and wound up in foster care as a toddler. Her adoptive mother, who was interviewed for this story on the condition that her name not be published, said Forde was deeply troubled when she joined her family at 4. The girl became a source of turmoil, repeated mental health treatment efforts and attempts at intervention, she said. Forde was taken into state custody when she turned 12 after being convicted of burglary.

And so once again the lives of innocents are swiftly extingushed by the vengeful hatred of right-wing psycopaths –these losers who find violent release from their self-loathing in the harm they inflict upon others who are not like them. It would be just another sad episode in our nation’s fringe politics if it werent for the prominent politcians and other demagogues who daily echo their hatred on the national stage.

(Via Crooks and Liars)

Serolf Divad is of Mexican extraction, and damned proud of it.