FreeDuck wrote:I wouldnt call talk radio innocuous really, and I get nimhs point. (Sorry, my apostrophe key is not working) Nobody is blaming Rush or Savage specifically. Rather, the point appears to be that a narrative has been set up whereby you can blame all the bad that happens on the liberals. In the nineties, you had Clinton to project all of this on. But what we have seen over the last 8 years or so is a sort of redirection on people, not leaders, who hold certain political beliefs.
The irony of all this is that those liberals in that church probably could have helped this guy. Clearly he had issues not related to politics, but its people like him that this narrative is for.
You do remember that after the OKC bombing, Bill Clinton did blame talk radio.
Quote:Shortly after the Oklahoma City bombing, President Clinton condemned the "many loud and angry voices in America today." He charged that these individuals were trying "to keep some people as paranoid as possible and the rest of us all torn up and upset with each other." The president went on to say, "They spread hate; they leave the impression, by their very words, that violence is acceptable."
Although Clinton did not specifically mention radio talk show hosts in his critical remarks, many people believed that he was in some way blaming them for the terrible bombing. Carol Arnold, host of a radio talk show in Oklahoma City, responded, "It's really unfortunate that the president, after doing such a good job . . . in leading the government to provide backup and support quickly and efficiently, would follow it up by attacking the free speech of talk show hosts."
On the other hand, Alan Colmes, another radio host, tended to agree with the president and expressed his belief that a "poisonous atmosphere" had developed in the country. This, he said, "gives the cowards and the malcontents all the permission they need to do what they do best: hate."
http://www.crf-usa.org/bria/bria11_4.html
So it has happened when radio was blamed.
I think Clinton was on to something.
Ayers, meanwhile, is a good example of how this channeling of violent, even murderous, urges into the rationalisations of extremist ideology was pretty endemic on the far left in the 60s through 70s. And in some countries (the "Autonome" in Germany, for example), it still is. And yes, many on the left have a bit of a blind spot on dealing with this part of history.
But now, in America, on the left? I dont see it. Vis-a-vis political leaders, GWB anyway and Cheney, yes - I think there's too many extremist kooks who, while they lack the guts and resources to do it, honestly think murdering them would make them a hero of sorts. But vis-a-vis conservatives as a group? This language vilifying liberals, as anonymous group, as being collectively both dangerous and worthless, to the point where I'm really not surprised that some deranged man thought it only justified to go out and shoot him some - I dont see an equivalent.
Then again, I dont see an equivalent of the Bush derangement on the right; there's just not (yet, it's coming up now a little with Obama) one personality on the left with that kind of profile I guess. Even kooks I guess just cant get worked up enough about, say, Nancy Pelosi.
But now we're comparing which side has what kind of derangement among its kooks, which isnt really very revealing. All I'm saying is there is a kind of derangement about liberals, as a group, out there, and it's fed or focused by this constant spewing of hate about them that you see, not just on talk radio but on websites etc too, to the point where I'm really not surprised that someone ended up doing what this guy did.
And no, I dont mean to say, curb the freedom of speech, shut down those shows. I dont really know what should or could be done about it. Just saying it's out there, and it's bad.
The irony is that the OK City bombing was initially blamed on Islamic extremists.
ebrown_p wrote:The irony is that the OK City bombing was initially blamed on Islamic extremists.
Even more ironic is the fact that Timothy McVeigh has acknowledged that he was an adherent of the philosophy of and a sometimes participant in the activities of the Christian Patriot movement, whose extremist views and scriptural interpretations have attracted and been used by anti-federalist, anti-tax, anti-abortion and racist and white- and Christian-supremacist groups. This is something which almost never gets mentioned, and right-wing Christian hate groups, of which there are many, operate almost completely under the horizon of the news media. They are rarely a part of public discussions of right-wing extremism in the United States.
I think Clinton was on to something too.
I said before that I don't think talk radio is innocuous. Again, clearly this guy had his own issues outside of the paranoid conservative narrative, but that narrative is targeted towards this kind of guy. In Rwanda, talk radio played a big part in the daily massacres there in the 90s. And while that is clearly a much more extreme case than what we're talking about here, the theme was similar -- some other group of people is a threat to you and to blame for your problems, and they should be punished, and if you could just get rid of them everything would be fine. In this country that message has to compete with several other messages and loses some of its potency -- for that we should be grateful.
Setanta wrote:
Even more ironic is the fact that Timothy McVeigh has acknowledged that he was an adherent of the philosophy of and a sometimes participant in the activities of the Christian Patriot movement, whose extremist views and scriptural interpretations have attracted and been used by anti-federalist, anti-tax, anti-abortion and racist and white- and Christian-supremacist groups. This is something which almost never gets mentioned, and right-wing Christian hate groups, of which there are many, operate almost completely under the horizon of the news media. They are rarely a part of public discussions of right-wing extremism in the United States.
A copy of Owl Gore's book
Earth in the Balance was found in McVeigh's shack.
Did Owl Gore's words send McVeigh over the edge?
What do left wing nuts really have against America?
