Ann Coulter, the self-described "conservative Christian" right-wing talking head, is much on my mind as I contemplate the horrifying images that came out of Washington from the Holocaust Museum, where white supremacist James von Brunn opened fire in an attempted mass-murder of Jews. His killing spree was cut short by security guard Stephen Tyrone Jones who put himself in the line of fire and died so others might live.
I am remembering an October 2007 segment of the Donny Deutsch Show where Coulter asserted that America would be better off if everyone was Christian and that "the Jews" merely needed to be "perfected" through conversion.
Coulter has made her fortune by generating, fanning, and nurturing hatred and contempt for a variety of people, including liberals, Democrats, gays, foreign nationals, 9/11 widows, feminists, single mothers, Muslims, and any other group she could throw to her readership as shark bait in order to feed their feeling of disenfranchisement from a society they fear is spinning out of their control and leaving them behind.
To Coulter, referring to Jews as "imperfect" on a talk show hosted by an observant Jewish host must have seemed like just another day at the office. She shook her blonde hair and tittered, as though waiting to be found witty, charming, and adorably irascible. Oh Ann, you minx! You're just pushing everyone's buttons, aren't you? Shame on you, you dead-sexy fascist pin-up. Stop teasing. You don't really mean that. I mean, not really, right? Right?
Deutsch, clearly appalled, pointed out that the comment was not only patently absurd, but also hateful. Coulter giggled. A gold crucifix gleamed against her bony clavicle. "No," she said, "it's not hateful at all."
This week, nearly two years later, James von Brunn, driven by his own twisted version of Coulter's publicly-proclaimed perspectives regarding the "imperfection" of Jews, entered the Holocaust Museum in Washington and put them into action, with tragic and deadly consequences.
Much the same thing happened on May 31st when Scott Roeder entered the Reformation Lutheran Church during Sunday services and slaughtered abortion provider Dr. George Tiller. Media analysts continue to explore a possible continuum between Tiller's murder and FOX host Bill O'Reilly's well-documented on-air tirades against the doctor, whom he repeatedly called "Tiller the Baby Killer." O'Reilly broadcast his vendetta to millions and millions of FOX viewers already infected with evangelical superstitions and a horror of science, especially science as it applies to a woman's right to choose.
If O'Reilly had been a serious journalist or broadcaster instead of a sclerotic, chronically-aggravated right-wing rage pimp, he might have had the professional self-awareness or ethical sense to realize that he was putting George Tiller's life in danger over the more than 28 broadcasts in which he used Tiller's name. But O'Reilly, like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, and indeed Coulter herself (to name only the gratin of that particular food chain) is neither of those things.
As a group, they are the pop culture equivalent of necrotic carrion beetles, crawling with insectile determination from one infected open wound in the American psyche to another. The wounds include fear of race, fear of foreigners, fear of sexuality, fear of difference, hysterical religious fundamentalism, violent nationalism, and paranoia. They lay their eggs in the infected abrasion, then scuttle away. When the eggs hatch, disgorging rage and discontent, they start counting money.
When challenged on the inherently destructive nature of their enterprise, they invariably claim that their First Amendment right to free speech is being abrogated. Or, like Coulter defensively does in those instances, they cite their place on the New York Times bestseller list. Or the ratings. In other words, since people buy it, watch it, or listen to it in huge numbers, it must have merit, and it must be right.
The difference between John McCain and Sarah Palin became clearest to me in the middle of the campaign last summer.
At a town hall meeting, McCain was confronted by an elderly woman who told McCain that she was a supporter of his because Obama was "an Arab." McCain was clearly uncomfortable, and it was patently obvious why. It had nothing to do with McCain's feelings about Arabs. It had to do with an old-school Republican accidentally moving the rock of his party and coming face to face with what actually lived beneath it. He recognized that the woman was making an unambiguously racist statement about his opponent, and he was mortified to be asked to answer it. Even though McCain famously and horribly bungled his answer ("No ma'am, he isn't. He's a decent family man.") I knew when he meant. He was addressing the intended racial slur and disavowing it, however badly.
In that moment, I felt deeply for my Republican friends who, on some level, must also be experiencing the embarrassment and discontent of recognizing that their party had been hijacked by racists and religious fanatics who derided education and achievement as "elitist."
Sarah "Screw the Political Correctness" Palin, on the other hand, seemed right at home. She marched into those same crowds grinning and winking, and "Yoo betcha-ing" like she was onstage at the Miss Alaska pageant. While her supporters waved watermelon slices and stuffed monkeys, Palin talked about who the "real Americans" were, and who was "palling around with terrorists." She refused to address the blatant racism of her fans, or address the obvious exploitation of Obama's middle name, Hussein, and the implication she herself was making with her "terrorist" comments.
She was, after all, playing to the accurately-named Republican "base," the same crowd to whom George Bush had sold his second presidential term by pandering to their darkest, most cowardly aspect. This time out, it was fear of gay marriage and adoption, carefully tended fear of another 9/11, fear of more fallout from a war they still didn't believe he'd lied about.
One can almost appreciate the horrible honesty of the racists among the McCain-Palin supporters who were able to admit what the others obfuscated: that they didn't want a black man in the White House. Certain videos from their rallies are deeply disturbing. They showcase the seething racism of her most ardent followers.
History has already recorded their obsession with Obama's origins, his religious background, and his citizenship, which remains an obsession among them today.
Obama's citizenship was reportedly also something of an obsession for von Brunn, and likely very much on his mind when he walked into the museum and opened fire to make a statement about what "his" America ought to look like. I have no trouble imagining which radio stations he listened to, or which pundits best represented his baseline political ideology. And why. Even FOX's Shep Smith has said he's disturbed by the escalating virulence and menace of the anti-Obama emails the station is receiving.
There was a time when decency, even honor, was an essential part of the American dialogue in its most ideal form, and part of its very identity. There was a time when our culture would have recoiled in horror at the vituperation flowing unchecked from radios, televisions, and the Internet, instead of applauding it as "common sense," "free speech," or "mavericky," or "a spin-free zone."
There was a time when intellectual honesty was not considered unpatriotic; when compassion for, and understanding of, your fellow man was a sign of strength, not weakness. There was a time when the phrase Have you no shame? meant something, and the First Amendment was not used as toilet paper to wipe up the excremental verbal degradation of vulnerable segments of the American population. A time when it was expected that citizens would understand the difference between free speech and irresponsible speech. Somewhere along the line, a cancerous segment of American popular culture and media cunningly metastasized themselves to the long-standing, honorable American "cowboy" motif and mentality, and recast it in their own image. They grafted cruelty, divisiveness, and ignorance to it, making the two appear indistinguishable, and natural allies. And they are neither, or at least ought not to be.
There is no Environmental Protection Agency to measure hate pollution in national dialogue, and no mechanism in place to warn us when the poisonous rage spewed into the national consciousness by shock-jocks, poisonous television pundits, megachurch leaders, and oh-so-subtle politicians, has reached dangerously toxic levels.
No, there is only the result: widows, orphans, collective grief, and an absolute refusal on the part of our loudest, coarsest voices to take any responsibility for their part in the carnage.
Follow Michael Rowe on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rowemichael
When friends discovered I disbelieved in the divinity of Jesus (or divinity in general) I was told that my sinful soul could only be cleaned by the the Savior. Otherwise I’d roast in hell forever. I’ve just quizzed a few ministers, and though hell seems to be on the table nowadays, non-Christians certainly need saving. That’s what Christianity means, for Christ sake. It’s a proselytizing religion. This doctrine is not presented as just one of a bunch of neat featherbrained fantasies amongst which one can choose.
So what is this hoo-hah about Coulter saying that America would be better off if everyone were Christian? Of course she thinks non-Christians are flawed. But the fact that a lying fool like Coulter thinks so—and worse! says so--doesn’t make it an extremist position. It’s shared by hundreds (or two) million Americans-- Catholics, Congregationalists, Lutherans, Baptists, the lot--most of them not lying fools. Christian missionaries are not seen by Christians as hate-mongers spreading absurdity, which seems to be Deutsch's evaluation.
Not that that would help people like the shooter. I don't know if anything could have been done to prevent this tragedy. My thoughts and prayers are with the victim's family.
Principles means having a brain and thinking for yourself, not blindly following the whims of a "commander" in chief or anything else. Soldiers have no principles. Soldiers are drones "broken" in boot camp (this is the point of boot camp) and then re-programed to serve and kill for the "commander". To be a soldier is to be a slave, to have no principles, period.
... so knock off your hero worship. There is nothing honorable about being a brainwashed killer, willing to kill anyone simply because you were told to do so, because you were following orders. Remember Nuremberg?
... seriously I am sick and tired of the exaltation of the armed forces. All armies are murderers and armies exist because they are the STUPID MAN'S way of solving problems. It takes wisdom and TRUE STRENGTH to overcome the animal instinct to kill that all of us humans still have. Killing is easy, but creative resolving differences is much harder.
Amazing how tolerant the intolerant are!!!
This is perhaps the most accurate and scathing appraisal of the aforementioned Right Wing media whores, I have yet read or heard. These people and their followers are nothing so much as race-baiters, haters and evil satyrs who cater to the basest instincts of their "base". They and their fellow wing nuts have effectively hijacked the Republican Party leaving millions of voters with nowhere to go. For a liberal Dem like me, that's all well and good. But for the political health of our country it's a shame and worse, a danger to our representative democracy as it exists under the current two-party system.
The above mentioned personalities are the chief rabble rousers who continue to degrade and debase the American political process into the quagmire and morass it has become. Ultimately, this kind of "take-no-prisoner", "scorched earth" style of political commentary and foment forces our elected leaders into positions that frequently do not allow them to legislate or govern as they should. And therein, lies the biggest danger to the Republic.
The nostalgia of a “the time when…” never did and still does not exist uniformly across class, race or ethnicity. It is almost laughable (and quite disturbing) to read his reference to “a time when….” When what—
• When the founding fathers considered Black men to be 3/5 of white men for voting representation, and it was applauded?
• When Native Americans were genocidally persecuted and relocated, and it was OK?
• When Japanese Americans were interred during World War 2 for safety’s sake, but whose?
• When Latinas, especially Puerto Ricans and Mexicans, were forcibly sterilized as a result of American eugenics efforts and misinformation, was that OK?
• When people who come from 13% of the national population occupy 40% of the prison population—because what, that population breeds more dangerous folk?
• When industrial pollution is unconscionable unless it is in an area or country populated by people of color?
I am trying to pinpoint the dream time to which Rowe refers and am, as computer programs say, “still searching.” What happened was a tragedy, not a platform for reckless posturing.
Oustanding post, and I would like to add this: Vitriol and racial/sexual hatred and hegemony are at the heart of American history, For Mr. Rowe to suggest this as shocking and recent phenomena is quaint and naive at best. The United States was founded on such puritanical and fierce pugilistic xenophobia that extended the life of such barbaric murder and Human Rights assailants such as slavery, Jim Crowe Laws, Segregation, The Trail Of Tears, the disembowelment of Native Americans, Africans, Immigrants, and anyone not cocaine-white and Protestant.
It is important to address such hatred whenever it translates to the death and murder of those among us whom are attempting to live in tolerance, and is equally important to bring out those who use hatred as a vehicle under the cowardly guise of First Amendment privilege, using their celebrity to exact harm against those who they deem not 'pure' in thought, actions, or ethnicity.
But lets keep it honest: This IS America.. this violent history of hatred and intolerance is part of our legacy, and part of we are as a collective at present. To sentimentalize of what 'used to be' is ridiculous and without reasonable hindsight. I believe this article is well-intentioned, but indeed if these things are to be debated, it needs to be viewed with more honesty and without the protracted appearance of needless self-serving candor. America has racism, hate, paranoia, violence, and puritanical elitism as part of its social DNA.
Oh yeah I see the logic in that ,"shaking my head in disbelief ,".
When a country doesn't learn from its mistakes history repeats itself .So how many times does history have to repeat itself before you finally understand this must stop now ?
BTW this is coming from a metis whose ancestors were nearly wiped out because of hatred ,greed and racisim !
All of these people from Sarah Palin to Bill O'Riley , Ann Coulter, Beck , Rush Limbaugh , Right wing Christian preachers who spew hate and the Republican party themselves for ever picking Sarah Palin as a vice Presidential candidate with her known racist beliefs ,lack of education or world knowledge and her radical right wing Christain views then allowing her to incite violence and hatred on the campaign trail with those hateful radical beliefs . There are a number of people who silently stood by allowing these people to spew their hate and racism including the media that allowed aired this garbage all but given its permission to those people who would commit these violent sick acts . No you will never see them take responsibility until we stop watching programs like Fox Faux News. This is no comedy show its not funny when they are inciting people to kill !
Funny, I live in California where we would appreciate some support from Obama for same-sex marriage and repealing DADT and DOMA, and overturning Prohibition, but he won't because he prefers to pander to evangelicals in hopes of winning their vote. There's is substantially little difference between Dems & Repugs -- the Dems make lots of promises but refuse to enact needed changes.