Discussion Of Dead Census Worker Highlights Right-Wing Paranoia
The FBI is investigating the hanging death of a U.S. Census worker, 51-year-old Bill Sparkman, near a Kentucky cemetery. According to reports, the body of the part-time Census field worker had the word "fed" scrawled across the chest.
As details continue to emerge, investigators claim they are trying to determine whether the death was a killing or a suicide, and if a killing, whether the motive was related to his government job or to anti-government sentiment. Lucindia Scurry-Johnson, assistant director of the Census Bureau's southern office in Charlotte, N.C., said law enforcement officers have told the agency the matter is "an apparent homicide" but nothing else.
Setting aside the fact that this would be the mother of all bizarre suicides, Johnson seems oddly confident that this was not a political killing, considering the word "Fed" -- short for "Federal" -- is a loaded label that usually indicates anti-government sentiment. "Federal" means "Big Government," and the word has taken on a derogatory meaning in right-wing circles where fear and paranoia reign supreme. I agree with Johnson that this seems like an apparent homicide, but it's not "nothing else." By utilizing the branding "Fed," the killers were clearly trying to make a political statement, namely "Obama: Stay Out."
The word definitely packs an ideological punch, but not only is it anti-government, it's anti-Obama. Let's remember that most of the fringe now screaming about the dangers of Big Brother never made a peep during eight years of Bush's ballooning executive branch. Suddenly, big government is a big problem, and the "Feds" are to blame.
Today on Federal News Radio, news director Ted Werbin of WHAS-radio in Louisville reported that Sparkman had told others he had been warned by a retired state trooper to be careful in rural Clay County because some people there "aren't fond of anyone from the federal government." Such paranoia and anger isn't contained in the woods of Kentucky. The problem is systematic.
Rather than immediately condemn the killing, some right-wing commenters are now using the occasion of Sparkman's death to chat about their various conspiracy theories all involving the "feds." Over on the message boards of Conservative radio and TV host Sean Hannity, "mtbeaches," writes
Just this week I heard another story about the Daniel Boone Forest in Kentucky...odd coincidence, but someone was telling me they stumbled onto a Obama/seiu/acorn retraining camp they have out in the middle of nowhere there. Of course, there's a proper government name for it...but eyewitnesses that mistakenly took it for a welcome center said "there were obama posters plastered all over the walls, along with pro union propaganda about what your government can do for you". of course they didn't get to spend too much time looking around as they were told it was "for employee's only"
You don't say. Mtbeaches isn't alone in making this bizarre, conspiratorial link between the President, the Service Employees International Union, and ACORN, a group that helps poor people find housing and register to vote, and who just lost their federal funding partly because of smear campaigns run by right-wing messiah Glenn Beck. Together, the President, SEIU, and ACORN, gather in the Kentucky forest, and do...something. Mtbeaches isn't sure what, but it's probably something sinister.
Weirdly, in this government building, which of course has a "proper government name" (those crafty sons of bitches,) there are photos of the current sitting President. Communists! And then for some odd reason, when mtbeaches's friends busted into the government building, they got kicked out. He's not sure why.
By the way, the Obama/SEIU/ACORN retraining camp mtbeaches refers to is a Job Corps center, a no-cost education and vocational training program administered by the U.S. Department of Labor that helps young people ages 16 through 24 get a "better job, make more money, and take control of their lives," according to their official website. You and I may call this a banal example of a government program. Others, namely the type to kill a Census worker and string up his body as message to the government, may call it a retraining camp run by the "Feds."
This is the kind of violent event that emerges from a culture of paranoia and unsubstantiated attacks. Personalities like Glenn Beck have irresponsibly accused the government of running FEMA concentration camps, and constantly stoke the fear of "the Feds" taking over. For example, during this May interview conducted by Beck with Judge Andrew Napolitano, FOX News analyst and author of The Constitution in Exile, Napolitano continually uses "Feds" in a derogatory and fear-mongering way.
Napolitano explained that Montana's governor signed a law nullifying the federal regulation of firearms that are built, sold and used exclusively within the State of Montana, and "if the Feds don't like this, Montana will consider secession." Because, let's remember, the government wants to take away all the guns, another fear-mongering lie spread by right-wing fringe leaders.
Napolitano uses the term "Feds" again when Beck asks him if he's worried that we're losing the "essence of America" (seriously).
I'm terrified, Glenn, and I watch this stuff for a living as you know, that the congress will soon authorize the treasury secretary to interfere with private contracts and that, of course, will destroy commercial activity as we know it if the Feds can come in and say you charged too much, you didn't charge enough, you paid this person too much.Fear and anger: these are the only two gears Beck, Napolitano, and the merchants of miseducation use.
The "private contracts" legislation Napolitano refers to is The Pay for Performance Act of 2009, which prohibits the payment of "unreasonable or excessive" compensation, including bonuses that are not based on performance, by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the federal home loans banks, and firms that have received funds under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. The Act prevents executives from skipping town with a few billion dollars of tax payer money, and it does not "destroy commercial activity."
Except, the details don't matter in right-wing Crazyville. Rush Limbaugh actually summarized the Pay for Performance Act by saying, "When the leftists start talking about fairness, they are the slave masters." This is the level of insanity we're dealing with here. Regulating lavish bonuses is now akin to slavery in the right-wing fringe's diseased minds.
These kinds of transparent lies would be hilarious to dissect if so many people didn't really believe them. Beck, Hannity, O'Reilly, and Limbaugh not only stoke the fear and anger in the hearts and minds of their listeners, but then they also suggest their audience should then direct that anger at the flavor of the months (gays, feminists, poor people, abortion providers, or the "Feds"). And then they act surprised when a sick person acts on their fear by lashing out violently.
The surprise and indignation from the right-wing is insincere. Violent rhetoric begets violence, and no one should act surprised when a Sparkman-like killing happens again.
Cross-posted from Allison Kilkenny's blog. Also available on Facebook and Twitter.
Follow Allison Kilkenny on Twitter: www.twitter.com/allisonkilkenny
Simon Rosenberg: Waking Up To the Coming Battle Over the Census
Last night's reports of the murder of a US Census worker will bring national attention to the emerging politics of the Census count, something that we've long been worried about at NDN.
Landon Ross: Census Worker Hanging... What Pelosi Warned?
We don't have all the facts regarding Bill Sparkman's death. Yet the fact that, upon hearing of this incident, politically minded people wonder whether the death was a result of right wing invective is telling.
Gail McGowan Mellor: The Hanged Census Worker: Why Appalachia Hates Feds
The U.S. government began its life back in 1791 by shafting the Appalachian area. People have not forgotten it, perhaps because it has yet to stop happening.
Richard M. Benjamin: Sparkman: Casualty of Methland, USA? Or Victim of Anti-Government Bile?
Sparkman's workaday life and violent death -- whatever the cause and whoever the culprit -- highlight the precarious struggles of the white working class and the brewing storm surrounding the 2010 Census.
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AP sources: Suicide eyed in Ky. census worker case
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Shhh! Census Worker May Have Committed Suicide
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Hopefully, the FBI will launch a major manhunt for the people who murdered this poor man, along the lines of the murder of the three civil rights workers in Mississippi in the sixties.
I should have said "along the lines of the investigation of the murder of the three..."
???"whether the motive was related to his government job or to anti-government sentiment.
Folks are suspicious of strangers with Federal credentials, who "look like the law," asking questions of any sort, especially In America's "recreational herb farming" and liquor production areas . Census Bureau employees should wear Federal ID that says "CENSUS-TAKER," not "Department of Commerce." (What's that mean to a "woodsie?")
Further, most folks don't have a very good idea of what census is about and the heavy restrictions put on the use of information developed by census interviewers. Census should be explained in the 7th grade! People need to understand that the census provides data the government uses to distribute federal money, programs and services based on the numbers of people in a particular area requiring those services.
Um... are you suggesting the blame for Sparkman's death is that civics classes were removed from most public school curricula by right wingers who figured the only thing that matters is shop classes? Or that this very hate-crime-like probable murder is somehow excusable?
Besides, the whole thing about pot growers or meth-labbers making some kind of national bold statement? I'm fairly certain that if these modern day shiners want to get The Man's boot off their neck, they wouldn't do it with a big, bright, national-a
Sparkman would simply have disappeared into the deep(er) woods and nobody would have found him again. I believe the last thing druggers want is to draw attention to their farms or labs, not invite open warfare.
Are civics classes required of home schooled kids? These people aren't even from our culture anymore. I'm sure civics is the sort of "indoctrination" they're upset about.
Forty years ago my wife ran a group therapy program for schizophrenic teens. They practiced logically analyzing each others' symptoms in order to learn how to recognize their own paranoid delusions. After three months she had proven what had been demonstrated many times: logic and reason have no influence on paranoia. And so it is with the Republican propaganda machine. I imagine a skunkworks somewhere that used to crank out dirty jokes (where do they come from?) devoting itself to twisting the truth in service of their masters. They are good at it too. They start with paranoia and build and build...Th
Forty years ago my wife ran a group therapy program for schizophrenic teens.
So, did they get any better?
No. Thought disorders do not yield to logic and reason.
There ought to be an amendment to the Constutution that prohibits hate speech and deceptive speech in the airwaves. There is one thing to disagree with a political ideology, party or policy (that is factual and not someone's fabrication)--that is fine, and open discussions on such disagreements should be encouraged. However, there is absolutely no benefit to a society to allow hate filled speech and deceptive false "news" information to flood our airwaves. What these hatemongers are doing is usurping our democracy by preventing people from making informed decisions about their government and policies that affect them. There should be a law against that!
We are supposed to be a civilized society, yet our airwaves have been overtaken by people who have no concept of civility, morality or ethical conduct. Sure, people could complain and bitch at their elected officials, and they can even not like them, but what these imbeciles are doing is way beyond normal, it is despicable and harmful to our country.
I guess I'd start with Benjamin Franklin:
“They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.”
However, I believe there ARE already laws on the books regarding a) inciting to violence or even b) against sedition. The biggest problem, from my not-even-paralegal understanding, is that you maybe have to prove intent of the inciters. Can we prove these think-tankers who crank out talking points for their ideologue parrots to parrot intend for government workers or leaders to be assassinated or the government overthrown through insurrection? We would need to find super-secret emails that say "let's get them all saying "Nazi" or "socialist" or "kill grandma" so they can assassinate the president or Speaker of the House or poor street-level census workers" or whatever.
Frank Schaeffer (author of "Crazy For God" — and "co-author" of the religious Right movement in this country, now repentant) says there is zero doubt in his mind about the think-tankers' motives. He said (on Rachel Maddow) "They are placing a loaded gun on the table and are daring anybody to use it" with all this socialist, Nazi, birther code-talking.
Still: Just as with any other terrorists (since this is clearly what they are), the moment we curtail liberties to fight against their attacks, instead of using the strengths of free speech (shining the verbal klieg lights under their particular rocks) to fight back, that is the moment they win.
I agree with you and Benjamin Franklin - we should not curtail liberties for temporary security.
But still, it seems to me there is something going on here that goes above and beyond "free speech". As the original commenter pointed out - there are valid reasons to disagree with Obama, and reasonable ways to do so - many republicans do this. Mostly everything Sarah Palin says is complete drivel, but where she has attempted to disagree with Obama since his election, it has been in a relatively civil manner focused on actual issues like healthcare. She may have told a few porkers with the death panel business, but at least she's trying to connect it to actual legislation.
However, it's something above and beyond when you start plucking random peices, many of which happen to be pure fantastical fabrication, and putting them together to create a conspiratorial puzzle that amounts to Obama seeking to destroy "the American way" and "white culture", and having "secret training camps" out in the woods.
Granted, this is one random commenter - but what about Glenn Beck implying that Obama's supporters are raising a black army, just because he found some video of a stepdancing group? There has to be a point at which someone can say, STOP MAKING THINGS UP, and there have to be consequences beyond them shrugging and being like, "well, it COULD be true, I'm just SAYING the evidence might point to..."
When does this turn from deliberately misinformed speculation to
The Constitution only gives freedom of political speech. There are laws against "hate speech" and lies--most states have a terroristic threats or acts statute where you can't threaten violence against someone or harassing phone calls statues. You can't shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater when there is no fire. You can't libel or slander someone and if you do, you are subject to civil action. If you call someone derogatory names based on race, religion, or gender, you can be arrested for disorderly conduct.
I wish there was an amendment against stupidity, but then we would lose most of the nation.
While the event is most certainly a tragedy, I feel we need to leave out the one-sided rhetoric. There have been anti-fed groups for years now. Even during President Bush's administration these groups were out there waving their anti-government flags. The murder has nothing to do with President Obama. Further more, ACORN did not lose federal money because Glenn Beck and others ran a "smear campaign" against them. The group violated the contract that allowed them to receive federal funding. They are not the first, nor will they be the last to do so. Here is an idea. If you are going to put something on the Internet for all the world to see, make sure your facts are straight. Not all anti-government groups lean to the right of the political spectrum. Many also fly far left of center. Instead of focusing on what political party affiliation the murderer holds, focus on WHO the killer is.
I agree with what you say entirely - there are plenty of anti-government people on the left. But this is the first I've heard of someone being murdered with "Fed" scrawled on their chest. That's pretty grisly.
And this is an addition to what is becoming a laundry list of politically related violence: Poullion, Tiller, the holocaust museum shooting..
The census has been going on for years - and all of the sudden it's some communist intrusion? You don't think that's a LITTLE bit strange?
It is the far right that uses "the fed" as a bogey man. With Bachmann's words against the census, and the extremists who listen to her, it is no great leap to see that this could be the violence that the right wing media has been hoping for. Their response is quite telling - and why it was included in the article.
Certainly there hasn't been enough evidence in yet in this sad case to say it was some redneck who worships Glen Beck - but it doesn't take much imagination to see that it could be.
P.S. Glen Beck is claiming that he got ACORN defunded.
"P.S. Glen Beck is claiming that he got ACORN defunded."
The surprise here is... ? LOL
Beck probably believes he is the reason helium makes balloons float, yes?
Besides, I can't wait for the first court case challenging this "defund ACORN" bill wins because such bills are unconstitutional (that whole Congress shall pass no bills of attainder thing).
They can't create laws that discriminate against only one individual or organization.
If ACORN employees tried to help a prostitute cheat on taxes — that Repubs and libertarians hate anyway, Right? — and you ban them, then you have to also ban any other private contractor who breaks laws. You know, like Blackwater or KBR for committing murder, those private IT contractors who had employees poking through visa records of Obama, Clinton and McCain during the campaign, and on and on and on.
All those contractors are still employed by the government and not for the monetary peanuts being tossed at ACORN. Yeah: I want to see little Glennie squeal when that "law" gets squashed.
People of all types go on power trips. Very unfortunate for all of us.
This is just another example of how far we have come from the ideals of the Founding Fathers - "LIfe, liberty,and the pursuit of happiness". This man was denied his right to live and work as he chose.
The First Amendment protects all of our speech, of course, so long as it does not advocate wrong-doing.
See? There's the problem with that old speech thing (I believe it was Issac Asimov who acerbically suggested that humankind communicated perfectly well — until we invented speech...)
You say "toh-may-toh" I say "toh-mah-toh".
One person's "wrong doing" is another's "right doing." John Wilkes Boothe wrote in a diary entry after he assassinated Lincoln that he was just fulfilling the will of god, and was completely taken aback when he saw newspaper headlines calling him a criminal after the fact of murder. He thought they would cheer his action.
I believe the 1st Amendment actually pretty much says "anything goes" with speech. It was only later legal precedent (shouting "fire!" in a crowded theater thing) that suggested there ARE limits to what reasonable people can say or do. Ditto with the later laws against inciting mob violence or against sedition (actively calling for the violent overthrow of the government).
Thing is, I believe these screed screechers are treading on extremely thin legal ice with talk of secession and also believe strong arguments can be made that the theater is already very crowded and the Beck/Limba
This event is a tragedy by any account.
Yes. A created tragedy. Maybe even an intentionally created tragedy. Probably.
I understand being careful about leaping to any conclusions by investigators, but find it immensely difficult to find any deductive path to "accident" or "suicide."
I get how a person can duct tape their own eyes, mouth and ankles, and could even accept that scrawling "fed" on your own chest could be a suicide note if you are nuts enough to buy in to Michele Bachman's rants about the invasive evils of taking census data.
But how on earth do you duct tape your own wrists? Anybody?
Nope. This was done to Mr. Sparkman. And that whole bit about hanging with feet on the ground? Imagine having your throat tethered to a tree and left alone, naked, in the deep woods. What happens when you get tired? When you have to know you will eventually, unless discovered in time, pass out from fatigue and/or exposure?
This was torture. And clearly a hate crime (murder making a "statement" to a whole group of individuals — feds and those who support them).
I'm working in Shreveport, Louisiana right now and the kind of obtuse hostility that took this poor man's life is epidemic in these parts. People swear up and down, Obama is an Arab... he leads the occupation of the U.S. by foreign forces, etc... and trying to convince them otherwise is like trying to explain the nuances of Nabokov to a chair. It's so dishearten
In response to your word Arab (I think you meant Muslim) Mr. Obama did himself no favors in his speech to the UN - he set forth "4 Pillars" of his vision for the world.
Of course, there are "5 Pillars" of the Muslim faith.
I don't believe Mr. Obama used this parallel by accident. I think he used it as a tip of the cap to the followers of Islam.
WHAT? Are you serious? Because he used "pillars"? This is exactly the leaps in logic that start or aide conspiracy theories and hence undermine the exchange of sensible ideas. Maybe you were just making a "funny".
Um... just try the Google machine. Type "pillars" and "christianity" and you will find "the five pillars of Christianity," the "three pillars of Christianity," "two pillars of Christianity" and yada, yada.
Islam has no corner on the market of pillar lingo ("he is a pillar of the community" often as not in this dominant culture indicates a person's not just a good citizen, but a good Christian citizen to those same zealots who think Obama is an alien usurper socialist who wants to kill grandma).
He may have used religious lingo as a tip of the hat to Muslims, but could just as easily used that same phrase as a tip of the hat to the Christian world.
You are seriously out to lunch. Seriously.
Did you think you were being politically correct in correcting the Arab to Muslim? I think Chicago was just repeating what these paranoid ignorants say.
Presidents have referred to the "Holy Father" yet didn't establish the Inquisition. The point is those of us who still think need to take a deep breath and do just that--- think.
I was quoting what I hear on a daily basis. Locals refer to Obama as an Arab. And suggesting a boy with an American caucasian mother, and a Kenyan father, who is born in Hawaii is likely NOT an Arab, falls on deaf ears. They'll insist he was actually born in Kenya, and is therefore an Arab. Again, informing them Kenya is not an Arab nation is met with blank stares... as if I'M the crazy one...
I'm with you brother. Forget those who nitpick word choices: The heart of what you say is an ongoing American Tragedy. Visit Wiki and search "southern strategy" for a discussion of the apparently quite-real, quite conscious effort of neocons to use this strategy of division, dividing people along pre-existing fracture lines.
I believe we are foolish, or practicing dangerous denial, to believe this is not coordinated. That T-baggers from California to DC carry signs with exactly the same messages, and those messages fit hand-in-glove with virulent prejudices in SC or MS or LA or WV or MT is no super-sync
OK: All things are possible in this great, wide universe, but this level of "coincidence" bends the stats curve into deep improbability — there is just too much conformity of message going on here for it not to be coordinated.
Rachel Maddow said it best: "Hm. Obama pals around with terrorists. He's not even a citizen. In fact, he's like Hitler — and we know what Hitler deserved..
I'm witnessing the growth in hatred first hand at work.
I work with two females, #1, married/white, #2, involved/hispanic. Sharing discussions for the past 10 years, on business, politics, the economy, etc. we've managed to center our agreements, as a rule, binding our friendships.
This year, #1 has markedly increased her antii-government rhetoric, disguised as new contempt for federal spending, the health care debate, wishing someone would just '...drop a bomb on the Congress and the White House...'(
Her favorite TV network? Fox
Her favorite talking heads? Beck
#2 and I have had increasing discussions on our methods of 'handling' the rhetoric, such as, silence on her attempts to make points, moving on to other discussions, and just simply not endorsing her rhetoric.
I'm hoping that she'll catch the hints at some point and realize that she'll have to peddle her wares elsewhere. If not, our group will evolve from 3 and become 2 1/2.
She won't "get it," because she's not reality-based anymore -- if she ever was.
A guest on the Maddow show put it best: these people are the insane quarter of the country, immune to facts that contradict their elements of faith. They've been raised to distrust facts deeply, to put all their trust in faith. This has been hijacked by other slightly smarter people (Beck, O'Rielly) and now her "faith" includes things she's heard on TV -- but still were never run by any fact filters.
Boy, I know just what you're talking about. We live in a conservative area and my husband is a teacher. We are both Democrats, but he dare not broadcast that. He cannot, nor does he allow politics to be discussed in his class-room, but never-the-less, now and then a student (parroting their parents) will make comments that are just so startling, it makes my husband cringe. For example, he has heard such comments as "Obama should be shot!.....
And let us remember what took the twin towers down.....r
Just say "Bless your heart", ask her if she feels well, and offer her something fattening to eat. Concentrate on your work and just don't engage in political discussions anymore You're in a no-win situation with #1.
The scarey part is that all these people are arming themselves. Are they expecting a civil war??? Are they goingto start one???
Yes, erdoc53, around Jan. of this year I thought I'll check up on what our "friends" on the right are saying so I joined a wing-nut forum called, "The Tree of Liberty". It's my hope that these forums are visited by those sworn to protect our country from home grown terrorist because months ago they were discussing the census and saying things like "if they come onto my property they'll be meeting my gun" etc. So this news about the dead cnesus worker certainly came as no surprise to these people and I'm sure they are high-fiving each other about it. To them this is a victory and they are sure that no one will want the job of census worker in their part of the country.
I think when it becomes known who is responsible for the murder of this census worker that he/she should be held up as an example to all home-grown terrorists and have the book thrown at them.
" . . . no one will want the job of census taker in their part of the country." They do know the purpose of the census, right? Okay. So they don't. Let's not tell them. Let's not count them at all, if that's what they want. We will redistrict the Congress without them.
Frank Schaeffer (author of "Crazy For God" - a repentant founder of the religious right movement of the past 40 years) believes the inciting to violence is intentional.
"They are placing a loaded gun on the table" and are inviting those who hear this dog whistle language to use it, Schaeffer concluded. (Rachel Maddow interview still on my DVR.)
Arming up? Not just the underclass. I live in Michigan. There was a recent local news report talking about how there is a run on the gun shops — by corporate management types.
Hint 1: The most insidious African American stereotypes were created by plantation owners, whose goal was to manipulate common people into becoming de facto police for them, in case their slaves escaped. These owners openly discussed this strategy of division and co-opting public ignorance to shore up their profit center (and make it seem less evil, I'm sure).
Hint 2: While pre-Civil War abolitionists fought for change on moral grounds, the southern states seceded and started war for purely economic reasons: Their "corporate" (plantation) profits were being threatened and, to them, it was worth the 600,000+ American deaths that resulted to secure continuance of their inhumane profits. These plantation CEOs whipped-up the populace to a frenzy with dog-whistle language that, yes, led to war. And they were just fine with that, since their greed was more important than the lives of the great unwashed masses.
Well, the public has been made aware that Mr Sparkman was found with his hands (behind his back) and feet bound, and was also gagged. So the argument that it could have been suicide has been illiminated, according to those close to the case.
I don't know how much we can attribute the uptick of violence as a result of the "fake" right-wing disdain for census workers, but I will say that I have never felt so distant from my neighbors. At one point the very neighbors that I would at one point have friendly conversations with, I now just nod in acknowlegement, and rarely engage any of them in conversation since I overheard several conversations in support of the crap that Beck spews. Once I entered the room, the conversations discontinued and the once friendly neighbors left the room, without speaking.
I suspect a lot of people are running into similar issues. Those who truly love this country and its citizens would want to encourage civil discourse rather than unleash all this mistrust and hatred.
As long as those 1%ers have a strangle hold on us, they will use all means to keep the peons at odds with each other. If the 2 groups were to merge & create a backlash, they stand the chance of losing their primo lifestyles. It is not hard to find people who would do their dirty work if they thought it would mean that kind of a good life for them too.
I hear what you're saying and I relate to to the the creeping feeling of alienation. I lately feel estranged from people I've known for years. During the Bush era our differing political views were problematic. There were some tense moments in a few social gatherings, where my tennis team, my book club friends, etc., my old neighborhood cronies and I hit uncomfotable political" snags" you might say. That was nothing like what's happening now. I'm afraid amd creeped out by these same people. I tell myself they don't really mean what they're saying, what they're thinking. Because I love these people! They're my friends!
But can they really be my friends if we're so polarized" If I literally HATE their values, and they hate mine?
I happen to live in a place dominated by wingnut paranoia, and have found the same hushed tones with people I work with and neighbors, who by and large try to decant the same Beckian garbage as if its a news flash. Just the other day a very educated winger started to condemn New Orleans residents as having brought on the flood due to "lasciviousness and communism.
I have found a similar experience with my own family. They have always been Republican and I have always been Democratic and we used to be able to talk; however, now, we are are separate plains of existence. They think Obama is a foreign born usurper who is changing this country to a socialist state and I think he's doing a great job overall and I am proud that he is my President.
I think Fox News is the culprit for the most part. In my view, they are the greatest danger to liberty since Al-Qaeda. Don't get me wrong. Fox News propaganda is totally protected by the constitution. However, we need to combat their lies with truth.
Fox is only the megaphone. You can't fight a megaphone any more than you can fight a tactic (terrorism). You have to determine who is writing the scripts, the effluent from that megaphone.
Consider: There are maybe 5 large corporations that own ALL of the "mainstream" media. ThinkProgress tracked CNN, MSNBC, Faux News, et. al coverage during the stimulus debates last February showing all their coverage favoring Repug over Dem guests disproportionately (EXCEPT Faux News was only around 2-1 ratio, CNN was something like 6-1 and MSNBC was something lik 4 or 5-1). Meaning? They are not "mainstream"; they are Corporate Mass Media.
Consider: Almost all the vile rhetoric used to fight health care reform (which means "corporate" reform) comes from PR firms hired by large health corps, even though one of the biggest, FreedomWorks, severed its direct ties with United Health while still being led by Repug Dick Armey. This rhetoric includes the death panel, fascist, Hitler, kill grandma screeds: Language becoming recognized as dog whistle language inciting violence.
Consider: "Blue Dog" Democrats stand in the way of reform, not the numerically inferior Repugs. What's the unifying thread between the DINOs and Repugs? They are all HUGE beneficiaries of corporate lobbyist $$$$. They are corporate employees doing company business to protect company profits.
So whacha think? Who's behind that megaphone?
Nancy Pelosi was right. She may have already known about this when she made her plea for people to stop feeding paranoia because it will lead to death.
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"Beck, Hannity, O'Reilly, and Limbaugh not only stoke the fear and anger in the hearts and minds of their listeners, but then they also suggest their audience should then direct that anger at the flavor of the months (gays, feminists, poor people, abortion providers, or the "Feds")."
So, do you have any specific examples where any of these commentators made suggestions to their audiences to harm the groups you indicate in any specific way?
Have they advocated anything beyond exercising one's First Amendment rights?
I watch Mr. Beck regularly. He has on numerous occasions advocated strongly against violence of any kind to anyone.
Oh yeah a regular "Robin Hood" that Beck is. He advocates violence to his BECKIES like spurs in the side of a horse and and tugging on the horses mane, and once he gets off of the back of the horse, he brushes him down with chamomile and jasmine and feeds him apples and carrots.
So how is that strongly against violence? You call the president a "racist", but then say, well maybe he isn't, but he does have a strong hatred for white people". This man is not a well man, and those that lean on his every word, unfortunately are not either. He is inconsistent, inaccurate, he lies, embellishes and is a "inconvenient opportunist".
So, do you have any specific examples where any of these commentators made suggestions to their audiences to harm the groups you indicate in any specific way?
Yes dear, we have a First Amendment right in this country to hate any group of people we feel like hating, and a right to scream our disgust from the highest mountain if we so desire, or more directly, right into the faces of those we hate....Go
Actually, I don't think the First Amendment was designed for people like Rush, Hannity, Beck and O'Reilly. I'd say it was designed for sane Americans!
Actually, I think if the founding fathers had had to deal with people like them, they probably would have created an Amendment to kick them out of this country. Well.... I can dream, can't I?
So, do you have any specific examples where any of these commentators made suggestions to their audiences to harm the groups you indicate in any specific way?
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"Beck, Hannity, O'Reilly, and Limbaugh not only stoke the fear and anger in the hearts and minds of their listeners, but then they also suggest their audience should then direct that anger at the flavor of the months (gays, feminists, poor people, abortion providers, or the "Feds")."
So, do you have any specific examples where any of these commentators made suggestions to their audiences to harm the groups you indicate in any specific way?
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Did you actually read what you've written? If these so called patriots who are actually hatriots, in your words "stoke the fear and anger in the hearts and minds of their listeners" and "suggest their audience should direct that anger at the flavor of the months (gays, feminists, poor people, abortion providers, or the "Feds"), do you not know that they are giving winks and nods? So how are some of these peope directing their anger? A bunch of these people are uneducated jerks filled with hatred for anything "non-white".
You can't be "kind of pregnant", you either are or you're not.
I'm not sure I follow whom you're mad at. Could you clarify?
There probably aren't any instances where these rodeo clowns have said "go out and kill federal employees and anyone you think is out to take over the country". However, it is irresponsible, unethical, reckless and dangerous to continually say things like, "These people hate you and everything you stand for", "These people want to take over and ruin our way of life", "These people aren't like us...they'
No, we can't just shut them down (there's that First Amendment again), but those of us with a bit of sanity recognize that this is going to (or in the case of the above story, already has) lead to violence. Is that what we really want? A nation where anyone working for the government becomes a target of hatred, disdain, and violence?
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