A Murderer's Bookshelf: Hannity, O'Reilly, and Savage On Killer's Reading List
This morning I wrote (in "Monster") that Sean Hannity et al. might bear some share of moral responsibility for the killings in Knoxville. Sadly for everyone concerned, that may be true.
This evening we learn from the Knoxville News that officers entering the home of murder Jim Adkisson "found Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder by radio talk show host Michael Savage, Let Freedom Ring by talk show host Sean Hannity, and The O'Reilly Factor, by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly."
The presence of somebody's books in a mentally disturbed person's home does not make them accessories to a killing. But right-wing rhetoric toward liberals and humanists like those who attended the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church has been exceptionally violent for years. Liberal groups are often called "Nazi" or "Nazi-like" by O'Reilly (he even said that about our own Arianna Huffington). Savage says he'd "hang every lawyer" who tried to establish constitutional rights for Guantanamo prisoners, describes Obama as an "Afro-Leninist," and said the folks at Media Matters were "brownshirts." He describes Rep. Wexler as a "Nazi" and calls Nancy Pelosi a "Mussolini."
As for Hannity, he said that "there are things in life worth fighting and dying for and one of 'em is making sure Nancy Pelosi doesn't become the speaker (of the House)." Think about it: "worth fighting and dying for."
And that's just a sampler.
Ann Coulter says liberals should be beaten with baseball bats and tried for treason (she's not clear about the order in which these events are to take place.) Dick Morris says they're "traitors" who should be decapitated.
I had a friend at Clear Channel (yes, I have a broad group of friends) who described some of these people as "entertainers." Don't you get it, guys? You use inflammatory images that equates your fellow Americans with violent enemies of the nation. Then you act surprised when a mentally ill person believes you and kills. You use the language of war and then say you're not to blame when somebody enlists in your imaginary struggle.
Their next step will be outrage -- outrage! -- at the idea that they may be morally accountable for this action, the possible fruit of their rhetoric.
We all need to be thoughtful about the impact of our words. But the Right has made it their business to promote a particularly virulent brand of hatred. Would Jim Adkisson have killed without all that prompting from the vituperative chorus of the right? We'll never know. But it's looking less likely with every passing hour that he would ever have entered a church filled with children and started shooting.
If they found something I wrote in a killer's home, I'd stop what I was doing and begin some serious self-reflection. I'd write about it, consider my errors, and try to make amends. Wouldn't you? Not that censorship isn't the answer. Not every reprehensible act can be legislated away. Sometimes the most effective way to change people is to hold them accountable. That includes not only Fox News, in this case, but also CNN -- who recently gave the anchor chair to hate-speaker Glenn Beck.
Guys, it's not "entertainment" any more -- if it ever was. We need to hold those in the boardroom accountable, too. They make their money and serve their political agenda by telling hundreds of millions of people that liberal Americans are treacherous and mentally ill enemies of the state. And they use the public airwaves to do it.
If these right-wing pundits are as devout as they say they are they'll stop, think, and ask forgiveness. That goes for their corporate paymasters, too. I hope they do for their own sakes, though I don't expect it.
As for the rest of us, it's time to look at new strategies for containing the spread of hate speech in our media. The old ways aren't working.
RJ Eskow blogs at:
A Night Light
The Sentinel Effect: Healthcare Blog
Future-While-U-Wait
RJ Eskow at the Huffington Post
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So, from reading all these comments, I am guessing that most of ya'all are against "personal responsibi
Following your line of reasoning, McDonalds is responsible for all the fat people in the world (not to mention all the hot coffee).. And the people who make the choice are only the victims...
Is THAT the line of bull that you are trying to pass off???
Michale...
I'm for personal responsibility.
I'm also for corporate responsibility. And I'm for governmental responsibility, too, including being for legislative responsibility, for judicial branch responsibility, and for executive branch responsibility. And I'm for responsibility of the press.
Please don't tell me individuals are solely responsible for their community's astronomical obesity rate when:
an entire 5-10K person area of a city has no supermarkets, but two McDonald's, a Burger King, and a Kentucky Fried Chicken, and countless convenience stores and gas stations peddling beer and snack foods.
many of the residents are working people who don't have enough access to individual cars to regularly drive across town to shop for healthy food, but depend on an erratic, poorly funded, sparsely located public transportation system.
when schools peddle sugary soft drinks and candy, and cafeterias serve one high-fat, empty-carb fast-food meal after another to students.
Your line of reasoning is flawed, Michale, and your use of absolutes (all, only) does nothing to help you make your point, whatever it might have been.
Individuals are reponsible for being fat, obese. Yes they are. They alone have the power to change that. Fat people such as myself, are solely reponsible for their condition. no one forxes me to eat anywhere, or buy anything froma vending machine. Total factual mis-statements.
Oh, yeah, Michale, and lest we get DISTRACTED and forget what this blogpost is all about, I'm for broadcast responsibility.
News and information programs should be at the very least based in fact, and programs which are for entertainment value only should be prominently labeled and tagged thusly so as not to fool anyone tempted to act on the venom and lies spewing forth from their radios. And some should probably be banned, and their promulgators charged with crimes. Malicious mischief, inciting riot, terrorism, and possibly treason.
After all, mainstream media owes we the people something for getting to use our airwaves for profit.
You really can't be serious. MSM owes you or anyone else? In that case I guess the car companies owe you for the roads you drive one.
Opinion is based on facts. Yes ? how much you believe is up to you. If you have a problem with that, change the channel.
What about the companies that broadcast these words of hatred and division? What about the companies that pay people like O'Reilly, Savage, Limbaugh, Hannity, etc millions and millions to spread their vicious and vile words? Do they have any responsibility here? Don't these broadcasters, at a minimum, have a responsibility to give one minute of an opposing voice for every minute of right-wing "hate the liberals" time?
I think they do. We need to ask the companies who broadcast these people and pay them if they are willing to take minimum responsibility for any of this and give equal time to other voices.
A fairness doctrine acolyte. And the other side, equal time too at Air whatever?
Also--about equal time for conservatives at the Los ANgeles and New York Times.
Thank God for Freedom of Speech.
Liberalism IS a mental disorder.
You sound more like Dingoberry than a DingoLily.
good one
He's not saying there be laws against saying liberals should killed, so "freedom of speech" has nothing to do with it.
And do you condone the killing of "liberals" too?
Question:
Did the mental illness attract the books, or did the books attract the mental illness?
Who says either is related? They would have to be to answer your question. And at this poiint it appeard they are not. Assumption without facts,again.
I think this is a great editorial, I wish you could flesh it out even more. When I first heard that this was an attack against so-called liberals, I immediately thought the germ that the right-wing hate speech surely bears some responsibility. After all, you never hear of anyone who identifies themselves as a liberal or a Democrat, shooting up a conservative Evangelical church; or murdering a doctor who refuses to perform abortions; or bombing an abstinence-only research center. This seems like a case of the chicken coming home to roost; after sowing the seeds of hatred of fellow citizens, accusing liberals of treason, and of trying to destroy good people's "traditional" religion and values, how can anyone be surprised that some people take their words at face value?
Walter Ramsey
Radio Broadcasters and Print Media incited murder and were convicted in Rwanda.
In 1994 nearly a million were butchered by hand with machetes.
Words persuade and those who use them for evil MUST be held accountable!
In historical terms these are current events.
"Hassan Ngeze, the founder, editor and accountant for Kangura fled the country as the RPF took control. He was arrested in 1997 and charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda for his involvement with Kangura, as well as for his supervision of massacres in his home province of Gisenyi. His trial, grouped with that of RTLM co-founders Ferdinand Nahimana and Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, was the first to establish that media organizations could be held responsible for inciting genocide since the 1946 conviction of Nazi publisher Julius Streicher. In 2003, Ngeze was sentenced to life imprisonment; Nahimana and Barayagwiza were also convicted.
http://en.
http://en.
http://en.
the right wing talk radio monopoly exists to make excuses for everything republican and fascist and vilify everything progressive. this guy going off because his talk radio icons got him lathered up with hate every day is what they do- it just isn't always done like that. some of them use it to elect surrogates who satisfy their hatred by attacking other countries and killing thousands. but the talk radio monopoly is by far the most effective at this because the loudmouths are using the biggest soapboxes in the country and unlike the soapbox in the park, there's no one in their face. and they will keep doing their best to make any bipartisanship or real democracy impossible with their uncontested repetition to 50-70MIL Americans until Americans boycott and picket them on a regular and local level. and or get some kind of new Fairness Doctrine passed. until then a single local limbaugh wannabe reading chamber of commerce or GOP talking points will continue to be able to undo the work of thousands of citizen volunteers- the "special interests".
The ROVE REPUBLICAN rightwing NOISE MACHINE is KILLING AMERICA, every which way it can.
STOP republicans from more and more CORRUPTION, PROFITEERING AND KILLING.
Vote for Obama.
A thought occurred to me: Maybe we have placed the cart before the horse. It just may be that it isn't that Conservative hate mongers such as O'Reilly, Hannity and Savage so much incite mentally ill people to violence, but that sociopathic authoritarian personalities among us are drawn to their rhetoric of victimization at the hands of Liberals and minorities. Conservative ideology is after all, nothing but an appeal to authoritarian personalities with their delusions of grandeur, feelings of innate privilege and superiority and a desperate fear and loathing of failure and weakness.
People such as Jim Adkisson, Tim McVeigh, Erik Rudolf and others like them are instinctively drawn to Conservative ideology which reinforces and rationalizes their feelings of superiority and rage at those undeserving heathen minorities and women who, aided by Liberals, refuse to acknowledge and pay homage to their authority. When an authoritarian personality fails, it by its very nature, seeks to externalize the reasons for its failure. The targets of this rage inevitably are those who it perceives as inferior to itself and undeserving of the happiness and success that they have achieved.
Excellent thought/comment.
"which reinforces and rationalizes their feelings"
Who holds the greater responsibilty: those who plant the seed or those who nourish it?
Good point, I'll have to chew on that for a while.
I expect though, that the real responsibility lays with those of better judgment, social status and education who should know the effects that their words might have upon lesser intellects. I suspect that they do know, and don't care, so long as it maintains their status in the socio-economic hierarchy,
limbaugh's real genius is his ability to lay out a big menu of excuses, justifications, and rationalizations that everyone in his audience can pick and choose from to enable the hate and fear.
I listened this evening to Eskow's interview with Ron Kuby on Air America. I was shocked that Kuby disagreed with Eskow's assertion that Hannity/Li
}}}}}}}}}Kuby thought the killer alone had the responsibility.
WOW....
Personal responsibi
I am shocked that you find that "shocking"????
Michale...
One can only imagine what the fear mongers would have said had a Qur'an been found.
Making a person less than human makes it easier to kill that person. The endless din of these fear mongers does just that.
What's so funny 'bout peace love and understand
Most people don't realize this, but in each one of these books, just after the copyright there's a disclaimer that reads: "For Entertainment Purposes Only"
A radio cleric recently warned about the temptation to demonize ones enemies.
It eliminates the need for communication. , leading to "the inevitable next step--dest
Seems to be the MO in most conservative rhetoric from Savage,Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, et all to Bush & Cheney.
Anyone at say, Air America, the Daily Kos, etc? Those outlests of course are not demonizing anyone, right?
No, in fact, they're not. Countering lies is not demonization. You won't find any left wing equivalent to the speech listed above. The old excuse that the other side does it too is ridiculous.
Nice to see you've decided to abandon your PUMA charade and let us all know where you're really coming from. Didn't they teach you at troll camp never to drop your cover?
The fact is that the guy is a nut case. However if he was a Muslim, or somebody on the left who hated Christians
Some may balk at the idea that the likes of Hannity, O'Reilly, Savage, and even Limbaugh should shoulder some of the blame for this event. However, if it's fair to blame video games (e.g. GTA) and movies for school massacres then it's fair to blame the afore mentioned hate/fearmongers for this and other incidents. They are "entertainers", after all, and should be held to account just as we do when lambasting other forms of entertainment.
Let me get this straight. You are actually saying these three media announcers are responsible massacred amd other hideous crimes ?
How did you come to this conclusion?
ummm... did you even *read* my post?
How did you come to your conclusion Az? Look anywhere but at the cold hard truth, eh? The right has been actively fostering unreasonable animosity towards political enemies on the left. Find me a liberal that talks like the people above.
There are couple of open letters to Sean Hannity just posted on HuffPo that will explain it better then I can. Go to the Media page and look for "Open Letter to Sean Hannity" or :
http://www
Thank you for making an excellent point about the right wing's propensity to scapegoat, anything or anyone they feel may draw another crowd of cowards. I've seen these people gang up on women who have lost sons, husbands and/or their livelihoods. It seems this crowd always has an opinion, regardless if they have facts to back up their USUALLY negative opinion.
You can see by reading most of the comments by the wacko right wingers on here that not only are they quick to blame ANYTHING or ANYTHING, for the ills (real or imagined), of the world, they are loath to take responsibility for the problems their point of view is the ultimate cause.
When people like coulter makes the unethical call for full scale murder on a race of people simply because they hold religious beliefs different from hers, you don't see right wingers flock to repudiate her. In fact, her calls for murder to those on the right, falls under the right to free speech. However, when they hear a Democrat's reverend express his frustration with our government by saying GD America, these same protectors of free speech launch tirade after tirade of indignation at the Democrat for allegedly listening to the sermons of the same reverend.
Now we see what 20 years of demonization of "Liberals" has caused. And, almost as heinous as Adkisson's murder spree is the complete lack of concern the right-wingers continue to show for the reasons behind it.
Eskow complains about the labels being attached to Liberals seems to be the pot calling the kettle black, he needs to take a look at the Liberal posts on this blog and he would see, on the other hand I doubt he would admit that it is Christian Conservatives who are being villified and persecuted because of their religious beliefs, the details of which he hasn't a clue because he only has a secular view of their beliefs and practices. Eskow has no clue that three kooks shooting up churches and college campus' does not justify steroetyping all Christians as being the same as the kooks.
Eskow you should go attend the services of some of these Evangelical Christian churches and you would see that we are not violent lunatics like you want your minions to believe and your blog borders on hate speech that has been outlawed.
I suggest you actually read the affirmations of secular humanism.. nowhere do they include hate towards anyone. The affirmations insist on tolerance and compassion toward all people regardless of their social, religious, political or sexual preferences. You should get a clue.
Where are Christians in this country being persecuted? I would like to know. And who is doing it? It isn't liberals because we're tolerant of people that don't deserve it. When so called Christian Conservatives kill abortion doctors for a prodecure that is legal in this country, that doesn't make the Christian any better than the doctor. We don't live in Old Testament times. Supposedly you people live by faith and turning the other cheek is supposed the operative way of life but what you espouse and what you do are two totally different. If pointing that out is what you consider being persecuted then so be it because Jesus would be alot more harsh. His harshest words were used on religious people because of their hypocrisy and arrogance.
"It isn't liberals because we're tolerant of people that don't deserve it."
HAHAHAHAHA
Then why do I see so much hate for law abiding gun owners here on Huffington Post? The last time I checked the ENTIRE BILL OF RIGHTS NEEDS TO BE PROTECTED.
An evangelical christian I know recently started a conversation proclaiming that all wars are good. Another insisted we have to be tough on the arabs because they should not be allowed to disrupt god's grant of Israel to the Jews. So based on my own experiences I think you are wrong.
"...the details of which he hasn't a clue because he only has a secular view of their beliefs and practices.
The same would apply to your non-beliefs. You yourself are cherry picking passages form the bible that you use in any context to challenge believers. No Christian has ever told you that you must believe anything. That is your choice. And your choice not to.
Your descriptions of what believers are, fit your personal system, and are a minority in the community. I can challenge you most anyday to the meaning behind verses but it is a waste of time.
Don't respect the beliefs of anyonel They certainly respect your rights not to. Now respect their rights to believe without interference from you and others like you.
For so long I've listened to Christians whine that they are being persecuted for their beliefs, frankly, I find this a laughable complaint.
More times than I can remember, I've heard this nation referred to as "A Christian Nation" by still president bush, republican congressmen, and by every right wing talking head to whom I've ever listened. So, how in the world can the MAJORITY religion, with the greatest number of followers, be persecuted in this nation?????
You people have not been thrown to the lions since Roman times, but just a few years ago, a Black Man was dragged behind a pick-up truck because he was guilty of being born a different race than his persecutors. Oh yeah, a nice Christian man in Washington State a few years back shot and killed JEWISH women and kids at a Temple daycare. Why? Because they were Jewish.
You whimpering Christians think that because our nation is not a Christian version of Iran, you are being persecuted. You think that because we have a separation between church and the state, you are being persecuted. In fact, it is YOU who harms the rest of us by attempting to inflict your narrow views upon everyone else. You want to be religious, FINE!! Just leave the rest of us out of your madness.
Am I now persecuting you?
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