there is a definite connection between right wing extremism and anti-semitism but that is completely besides the point.
The DHS issued a warning several weeks back that was completely mocked as being a shabby political attempt to smear the white house's right wing media enemies but lo and behold in the past couple of weeks we have seen the extreme right rear its ugly head and there are reasons for this.
one of the reasons is that the poisonous speech going down in that world when taken together has a cumulative effect. if it isn;t creating it is contributing to an atmosphere of paranoia, fear and indignation that is helping to propel those on the margins to take desperate actions.
Right wing talk radio is working these assholes up. Expect more of this kind of shit.
this is the same logic that says raps music causes crime, heavy metal makes loner kids form suicide pacts, video games cause yadda yadda yadda, etc. It useless to try and prove that ANY media has some sort of sinister effect, because you cant stop it without censorship and no logical person would condone censorship. Its a dead end argument.
So if some lunatic goes out and kills the President we can blame Beck and others like him....fine....at least I can see some connection there.....I wouldn't agree, but I can at least see the point.
My point is there is NO connection that I am aware of between the dreaded "Right Wing Radio" and murdering 88 year old Anti-Jewish Holocaust deniers.
I'm not sure where I fall on the whole "right wing talk radio is making people go get their guns" because, to Eric's point, it does mirror the "rap makes people sell drugs" argument (or the "metal makes goth kids pick up AK47s" argument) which I do not believe in.
But honestly, you are not arguing in good faith here. The screeds trafficked by right wing talk radio share a lot of table space with much more ridiculous and sinister ideas like "Jews control the media", "Jews control the world"... and yes, lizard people. If you refuse to see the correlation between "Obama is a fascist", "Obama is a cancer", and "the Jews made Obama" then I don't know what to say, except that you're probably not a Jew.
It's one thing to differentiate the two... it's another to act like there's no crossover.
So if some lunatic goes out and kills the President we can blame Beck and others like him....fine....at least I can see some connection there.....I wouldn't agree, but I can at least see the point.
My point is there is NO connection that I am aware of between the dreaded "Right Wing Radio" and murdering 88 year old Anti-Jewish Holocaust deniers.
I'm not sure where I fall on the whole "right wing talk radio is making people go get their guns" because, to Eric's point, it does mirror the "rap makes people sell drugs" argument (or the "metal makes goth kids pick up AK47s" argument) which I do not believe in.
But honestly, you are not arguing in good faith here. The screeds trafficked by right wing talk radio share a lot of table space with much more ridiculous and sinister ideas like "Jews control the media", "Jews control the world"... and yes, lizard people. If you refuse to see the correlation between "Obama is a fascist", "Obama is a cancer", and "the Jews made Obama" then I don't know what to say, except that you're probably not a Jew.
It's one thing to differentiate the two... it's another to act like there's no crossover.
I've never heard a right wing radio host, and that would only include the well known, more notorious ones, say anything negative about Jews or claim the media is controlled by Jews.
If somehow you're bridging Anti-Obama hate speech to Anti-Jewish hate speech through the common thread of "hate" I'm afraid that is quite a stretch.
Please explain how to argue the "Right Wing radio makes people kill" or "Rap makes people sell drugs" argument in "good faith" as you've admitted the two arguments are both similar and something you don't agree with.
As Hook Up points out...they are both equally absurd.
Well, I think there's an argument to be made - in good faith - on that idea, just not one I necessarily agree with. However, there's a big difference between a talk radio host - who's ostensibly dealing with the news of the day, in a medium that's supposed to be prized for its honesty - and a musician, who despite any claims to being "CNN for the streets" or "just what the kids are thinking" is a performer who's being paid to entertain. Two different animals, I think.
What I thought was in bad faith was the idea that, simply because these people who are on the radio, people who are paid VERY well doing what they do and are actually getting their checks from big multimedia conglomerates, and have to be cognizant of the filters and the censors and the fines, that the rhetoric doesn't share a table with the very commonly held idea that Jews control a) the media, b) the government, c) some combination of the two.
Much of this ideology is coded. There are touchstones, codewords, hints, catchphrases, euphemisms... I think it's arguing in bad faith to say that someone like Glen Beck, who was arguing on the DAY of the inauguration (I saw it - I was in Brazil that day, and the only news channel we could get was Fox News) that Obama's election would heed the "end of America", the onset of socialism and fascism, etc etc etc, that he has nothing to do with the kind of vile antisemitic rhetoric that this shooter and many others embrace. These guys might not spout it themselves, or keep at an arm's length, but they know what company they keep.
Please explain how to argue the "Right Wing radio makes people kill" or "Rap makes people sell drugs" argument in "good faith"...they are both equally absurd.
unless one is under duress or mentally incapacitated, one is a free agent who is responsible for his or her actions. blaming this deranged man's actions or those of the abortion doctor killer solely on talk radio would indeed be absurd, but so would a complete denial of the impact that misinformed, hateful, paranoid and passionate speech can have on a population.
I think it's arguing in bad faith to say that someone like Glen Beck, who was arguing on the DAY of the inauguration (I saw it - I was in Brazil that day, and the only news channel we could get was Fox News) that Obama's election would heed the "end of America", the onset of socialism and fascism, etc
If you believe (as JP tells us Beck says he does) that Obama heeds the end of America, or that abortion is murder, then taking up arms and trying to save the country, or stop the murders, is not a totally insane act.
To preach the kind of hate that appeals to this segment of the population, these guys talk in code. Everyone knew who Regan was talking about when he said "welfare queens", and when these hosts spend hours everyday railing against the cancer of socialists, urban elites and the liberal media, its not a huge jump in my mind who it is these people think control everything. Jews and Blacks have both been smeared as communists for a long time, although these days it's clearly more socially acceptable to talk specifically about black people.
These hosts get their ratings by rationalizing hate and fomenting a sense of panic, and all kinds of people feel their prejudices validated as normal and mainstream when they hear Glen Beck and others. I agree with Jonny that I wouldn't want to censor them, but part of their fan base is extreme and dangerous, and should be monitored.
Agreed. I'll just add, my point is not that these hosts necessarily use code to hide their antisemitism. I think they use vague language about "liberals" because it stirs the pot and gets ratings, esp amongs bigots..
Very quick lesson for you guys. If you want to say right-wing radio is ugly, sick, idiotic ect, that is fine, it's an opinion. However, when you say that right wing radio is causing certain people to become more prone to violence you have gone beyond opinion into an empirical proposition.
It seems to me that if you are going to make an empirical proposition you should at least try and martial some empirical evidence to that end. ESPECIALLY if that proposition is that overheated rhetoric is leading to violence. I hope I don't have to sketch out why a failure to do that would make such statements inherently hypocritical.
When this kind of 'logic' was used to try and accuse O'reilly of being somehow complicit in the murder of George tiller, despite no evidence that the murderer had watched a second of O'reilly much less been influenced by him, I considered it a stupid and ugly politicisation of an outrage. But in that instance at least you could create a hypothetical where the influence upon the killer by O'reilly was at least somewhat plausible.
This is very different.
We know from his own writings that this guy hates neo-conservatives, jews, christians, O'reilly, Rupert murdoch; and the the latest evidence suggests that the weekly standard and a fox news office were also potential intended targets of his.
Given this we are asked to believe that this dude was driven to attack a holocaust memorial because people he despised have made overly brusque criticisms of Obama's economic policy? it is ludicrous on its face and most of you are guilty of a)hastily jumping to conclusions in the immediate aftermath of this and b)clinging to those conclusions out of pride even after its obvious that they were misplaced.
To preach the kind of hate that appeals to this segment of the population, these guys talk in code. Everyone knew who Regan was talking about when he said "welfare queens", and when these hosts spend hours everyday railing against the cancer of socialists, urban elites and the liberal media, its not a huge jump in my mind who it is these people think control everything. Jews and Blacks have both been smeared as communists for a long time, although these days it's clearly more socially acceptable to talk specifically about black people.
These hosts get their ratings by rationalizing hate and fomenting a sense of panic, and all kinds of people feel their prejudices validated as normal and mainstream when they hear Glen Beck and others. I agree with Jonny that I wouldn't want to censor them, but part of their fan base is extreme and dangerous, and should be monitored.
If you hear criticisms of welfare policy, immigration policy and so on and the first thing that pops into your mind is stuff like "dirty n1ggers, kikes, damn mexicans" then isn't it really you who has the racial problem? Its hardly rush limbaughs fault that you have all these unfortunate mental associations. I suggest some counselling to deal with all this racial anger you have
Oh and just to keep score: not only are right wing radio broadcasters responsible for every murder in america but they are also resonspible for what left wingers declare their words to mean based on their homemade right wing decoder rings rather than what they actually mean.
By the way, can anyone shed some light for me on the whole "White Man's Burden" syndrome? I got into a long discussion with a guy I work with about how he feels that White Men are being marginalized in American society.
Depends on what you mean by marginalized. For most of American history - including up to this current moment - White men have been endowed with far more economic and political privilege than any other group. However, that dominance has been steadily chipped away at over the decades as women and people of color have accrued economic and political power as well. I think it's completely laughable to suggest that White men are now marginalized. I imagine what your co-worker was really saying is, "I don't command as much power/privilege as I used to."
Few amongst the powerful ever 1) willfully surrender their privilege and 2) feel happy about it. That might help explain your co-worker's attitude.
By the way, can anyone shed some light for me on the whole "White Man's Burden" syndrome? I got into a long discussion with a guy I work with about how he feels that White Men are being marginalized in American society.
Depends on what you mean by marginalized. For most of American history - including up to this current moment - White men have been endowed with far more economic and political privilege than any other group. However, that dominance has been steadily chipped away at over the decades as women and people of color have accrued economic and political power as well. I think it's completely laughable to suggest that White men are now marginalized. I imagine what your co-worker was really saying is, "I don't command as much power/privilege as I used to."
Few amongst the powerful ever 1) willfully surrender their privilege and 2) feel happy about it. That might help explain your co-worker's attitude.
It's difficult for me to see how that could have been a long discussion. It usually goes like this for me:
Well, I think there's an argument to be made - in good faith - on that idea, just not one I necessarily agree with. However, there's a big difference between a talk radio host - who's ostensibly dealing with the news of the day, in a medium that's supposed to be prized for its honesty - and a musician, who despite any claims to being "CNN for the streets" or "just what the kids are thinking" is a performer who's being paid to entertain. Two different animals, I think.
What I thought was in bad faith was the idea that, simply because these people who are on the radio, people who are paid VERY well doing what they do and are actually getting their checks from big multimedia conglomerates, and have to be cognizant of the filters and the censors and the fines, that the rhetoric doesn't share a table with the very commonly held idea that Jews control a) the media, b) the government, c) some combination of the two.
Much of this ideology is coded. There are touchstones, codewords, hints, catchphrases, euphemisms... I think it's arguing in bad faith to say that someone like Glen Beck, who was arguing on the DAY of the inauguration (I saw it - I was in Brazil that day, and the only news channel we could get was Fox News) that Obama's election would heed the "end of America", the onset of socialism and fascism, etc etc etc, that he has nothing to do with the kind of vile antisemitic rhetoric that this shooter and many others embrace. These guys might not spout it themselves, or keep at an arm's length, but they know what company they keep.
Actually, these talk radio people are entertainment. That's it. My main concern is that people take them so seriously and use it as their news source. I honestly believe that few of these guys actually believe all of the crap they spew, but it is excellent for ratings. Since Beck became more and more unhinged, over the past few months (he's crying almost every night now), his ratings have soared. He also got called out on The View, of all places, recently for flat out making shit up. When Walters tried to call him on some journalistic integrity, he claimed he is analyst. (John Stewart does the same thing, but at least he flat out says that he is comedian.)
By the way, can anyone shed some light for me on the whole "White Man's Burden" syndrome? I got into a long discussion with a guy I work with about how he feels that White Men are being marginalized in American society.
Depends on what you mean by marginalized. For most of American history - including up to this current moment - White men have been endowed with far more economic and political privilege than any other group. However, that dominance has been steadily chipped away at over the decades as women and people of color have accrued economic and political power as well. I think it's completely laughable to suggest that White men are now marginalized. I imagine what your co-worker was really saying is, "I don't command as much power/privilege as I used to."
Few amongst the powerful ever 1) willfully surrender their privilege and 2) feel happy about it. That might help explain your co-worker's attitude.
It's difficult for me to see how that could have been a long discussion. It usually goes like this for me:
"White men are being marginalized"
"No they are not."
Long discussion = "no they aren't" v. "yes, they are." v. "you can't be serious" v. "I am completely serious." v. "Get outta here!"
I guess my question is ultimately, how do 2 people of the same general age, education, background who live in the same area come to completely different conclusions?
Well, I think there's an argument to be made - in good faith - on that idea, just not one I necessarily agree with. However, there's a big difference between a talk radio host - who's ostensibly dealing with the news of the day, in a medium that's supposed to be prized for its honesty - and a musician, who despite any claims to being "CNN for the streets" or "just what the kids are thinking" is a performer who's being paid to entertain. Two different animals, I think.
What I thought was in bad faith was the idea that, simply because these people who are on the radio, people who are paid VERY well doing what they do and are actually getting their checks from big multimedia conglomerates, and have to be cognizant of the filters and the censors and the fines, that the rhetoric doesn't share a table with the very commonly held idea that Jews control a) the media, b) the government, c) some combination of the two.
Much of this ideology is coded. There are touchstones, codewords, hints, catchphrases, euphemisms... I think it's arguing in bad faith to say that someone like Glen Beck, who was arguing on the DAY of the inauguration (I saw it - I was in Brazil that day, and the only news channel we could get was Fox News) that Obama's election would heed the "end of America", the onset of socialism and fascism, etc etc etc, that he has nothing to do with the kind of vile antisemitic rhetoric that this shooter and many others embrace. These guys might not spout it themselves, or keep at an arm's length, but they know what company they keep.
Actually, these talk radio people are entertainment. That's it. My main concern is that people take them so seriously and use it as their news source. I honestly believe that few of these guys actually believe all of the crap they spew, but it is excellent for ratings. Since Beck became more and more unhinged, over the past few months (he's crying almost every night now), his ratings have soared. He also got called out on The View, of all places, recently for flat out making shit up. When Walters tried to call him on some journalistic integrity, he claimed he is analyst. (John Stewart does the same thing, but at least he flat out says that he is comedian.)
You're way off on this whole convo homey. The kind of anti-neocon conspiracy our shooter at the museum believed is a weird mix of the paleo-con ron paul/Pat Buchanan right. These are not the voices of talk radio, who on matters of war and peace prefer the former. There has been in the last few years a de facto and ad hoc alliance between the anti-war left (who also believes the anti-neocon theory and narrative of the Iraq war) with a traditional anti-Semitic right. Am I saying that all the anti-war people hate the Jews? No I am not. But the two camps that gave purchase to a particular theory of the Iraq war--Jewish neocons manipulated intelligence, etc..., were the paleocon Buchanan right and the anti-war Juan Cole left. Talk radio people don't like taxes, immigrants and gays. But they love Jews and Israel.
Well, I think there's an argument to be made - in good faith - on that idea, just not one I necessarily agree with. However, there's a big difference between a talk radio host - who's ostensibly dealing with the news of the day, in a medium that's supposed to be prized for its honesty - and a musician, who despite any claims to being "CNN for the streets" or "just what the kids are thinking" is a performer who's being paid to entertain. Two different animals, I think.
What I thought was in bad faith was the idea that, simply because these people who are on the radio, people who are paid VERY well doing what they do and are actually getting their checks from big multimedia conglomerates, and have to be cognizant of the filters and the censors and the fines, that the rhetoric doesn't share a table with the very commonly held idea that Jews control a) the media, b) the government, c) some combination of the two.
Much of this ideology is coded. There are touchstones, codewords, hints, catchphrases, euphemisms... I think it's arguing in bad faith to say that someone like Glen Beck, who was arguing on the DAY of the inauguration (I saw it - I was in Brazil that day, and the only news channel we could get was Fox News) that Obama's election would heed the "end of America", the onset of socialism and fascism, etc etc etc, that he has nothing to do with the kind of vile antisemitic rhetoric that this shooter and many others embrace. These guys might not spout it themselves, or keep at an arm's length, but they know what company they keep.
Actually, these talk radio people are entertainment. That's it. My main concern is that people take them so seriously and use it as their news source. I honestly believe that few of these guys actually believe all of the crap they spew, but it is excellent for ratings. Since Beck became more and more unhinged, over the past few months (he's crying almost every night now), his ratings have soared. He also got called out on The View, of all places, recently for flat out making shit up. When Walters tried to call him on some journalistic integrity, he claimed he is analyst. (John Stewart does the same thing, but at least he flat out says that he is comedian.)
You're way off on this whole convo homey. The kind of anti-neocon conspiracy our shooter at the museum believed is a weird mix of the paleo-con ron paul/Pat Buchanan right. These are not the voices of talk radio, who on matters of war and peace prefer the former. There has been in the last few years a de facto and ad hoc alliance between the anti-war left (who also believes the anti-neocon theory and narrative of the Iraq war) with a traditional anti-Semitic right. Am I saying that all the anti-war people hate the Jews? No I am not. But the two camps that gave purchase to a particular theory of the Iraq war--Jewish neocons manipulated intelligence, etc..., were the paleocon Buchanan right and the anti-war Juan Cole left. Talk radio people don't like taxes, immigrants and gays. But they love Jews and Israel.
Look. I know you use this forum to practice your theories before you develop them for the fine publications that buy your essays. This shit is so ridiculous that you should seriously consider reading your stuff out loud to before you post. I hope you get your footing soon.
To preach the kind of hate that appeals to this segment of the population, these guys talk in code. Everyone knew who Regan was talking about when he said "welfare queens", and when these hosts spend hours everyday railing against the cancer of socialists, urban elites and the liberal media, its not a huge jump in my mind who it is these people think control everything. Jews and Blacks have both been smeared as communists for a long time, although these days it's clearly more socially acceptable to talk specifically about black people.
These hosts get their ratings by rationalizing hate and fomenting a sense of panic, and all kinds of people feel their prejudices validated as normal and mainstream when they hear Glen Beck and others. I agree with Jonny that I wouldn't want to censor them, but part of their fan base is extreme and dangerous, and should be monitored.
If you hear criticisms of welfare policy, immigration policy and so on and the first thing that pops into your mind is stuff like "dirty n1ggers, kikes, damn mexicans" then isn't it really you who has the racial problem? Its hardly rush limbaughs fault that you have all these unfortunate mental associations. I suggest some counselling to deal with all this racial anger you have
Oh and just to keep score: not only are right wing radio broadcasters responsible for every murder in america but they are also resonspible for what left wingers declare their words to mean based on their homemade right wing decoder rings rather than what they actually mean.
Wow, I like how you proved these guy don't rationalize hate by, uh, rationalizing htae. I particularly enjoyed where you put up the straw man of welfare policy, etc and then knocked it down by accusing me of racism. Nobody coulda seen that coming. I don't really have to point out the actual examples of racism do I, we all know what Savage and the others you jock have said, and what that makes you as a fan.
If your not an alias, your a toy, although it has been fun winding you up..
There has been in the last few years a de facto and ad hoc alliance between the anti-war left (who also believes the anti-neocon theory and narrative of the Iraq war) with a traditional anti-Semitic right what a bizarre theory, what do you base that on?
There has been in the last few years a de facto and ad hoc alliance between the anti-war left (who also believes the anti-neocon theory and narrative of the Iraq war) with a traditional anti-Semitic right what a bizarre theory, what do you base that on? Several well-iced tumblers of insanity juice with a twist of self deception a day...
There has been in the last few years a de facto and ad hoc alliance between the anti-war left (who also believes the anti-neocon theory and narrative of the Iraq war) with a traditional anti-Semitic right what a bizarre theory, what do you base that on? Sadly not bizarre... Check out Stormfront for quite a lot of opposition to the Iraq war --a war fought, so these folks think, mostly for the benefit of Israel and the Jews.
There has been in the last few years a de facto and ad hoc alliance between the anti-war left (who also believes the anti-neocon theory and narrative of the Iraq war) with a traditional anti-Semitic right
what a bizarre theory, what do you base that on? Sadly not bizarre... Check out Stormfront for quite a lot of opposition to the Iraq war --a war fought, so these folks think, mostly for the benefit of Israel and the Jews.
And equating those people with the mainstream left or as some kind of analog to the overpowering presence of the right in the media is insane.
There has been in the last few years a de facto and ad hoc alliance between the anti-war left (who also believes the anti-neocon theory and narrative of the Iraq war) with a traditional anti-Semitic right
what a bizarre theory, what do you base that on?
Sadly not bizarre... Check out Stormfront for quite a lot of opposition to the Iraq war --a war fought, so these folks think, mostly for the benefit of Israel and the Jews.
And equating those people with the mainstream left or as some kind of analog to the overpowering presence of the right in the media is insane. That's not at all what I'm saying... Unless I'm mistaken, that's not what the poster above was saying either. My point was simply that you can easily find on a (very prominent) website like Stormfront real opposition to the war in Iraq, and in fact a deep hatred of what they call Faux News (Fox...). The traditional anti-Semitic right tends to be isolationist. So in the case of the war they end up having views that in many ways coincide with the anti-war views of the left. This is what I took the poster to mean by "ad hoc and de facto".
I don't think any of you could argue with anything I wrote. There are two camps that believe the nonsense about neocon manipulation of pre-Iraq war intelligence--they would be the anti-war left and for lack of a better word, the anti-war right. Both camps have elements that are hostile to Jews and when they say, 'neocon,' they really mean Ashkenazi-American. Not all people who oppose the war think this way. But there is a species of argument that might start with the Likud party in Israel and end with saying that American troops are ghurka regiments for the Jewish state, that play on the kind of anti-semitic nutsiness of the shooter at the holocaust museum. There is a reason he also wanted to go to the Weekly Standard. It's because the fringes of the Ron Paul right have more in common with the fringes of the anti-war left.
There has been in the last few years a de facto and ad hoc alliance between the anti-war left (who also believes the anti-neocon theory and narrative of the Iraq war) with a traditional anti-Semitic right
what a bizarre theory, what do you base that on?
Sadly not bizarre... Check out Stormfront for quite a lot of opposition to the Iraq war --a war fought, so these folks think, mostly for the benefit of Israel and the Jews.
And equating those people with the mainstream left or as some kind of analog to the overpowering presence of the right in the media is insane. Just as equating loony 88 year old murderers with the mainstream Right is insane.
Fatback nailed it when he said that these right wing radio dudes are "entertainers" who are not obligated in any way to present facts and truths.
While Limbaugh and the likes are defined as "media" they are distinctly different than the "News Media" who's job it is to present facts without any partisanship or bias.
The Limbaughs, O'Reilly & Savages of the world have a listening audience of literally 10-20 million....blaming them for the actions of a couple of these listeners is beyond ridiculous.
And there is no question in my mind that Rush is popular for the same reason as Howard Stern which was portrayed in the Stern movie...
"The people who love Stern listen because they want to hear what he says next. The people who hate him listen even more. Why? To hear what he says next".
Comments
The DHS issued a warning several weeks back that was completely mocked as being a shabby political attempt to smear the white house's right wing media enemies but lo and behold in the past couple of weeks we have seen the extreme right rear its ugly head and there are reasons for this.
one of the reasons is that the poisonous speech going down in that world when taken together has a cumulative effect. if it isn;t creating it is contributing to an atmosphere of paranoia, fear and indignation that is helping to propel those on the margins to take desperate actions.
this is the same logic that says raps music causes crime, heavy metal makes loner kids form suicide pacts, video games cause yadda yadda yadda, etc. It useless to try and prove that ANY media has some sort of sinister effect, because you cant stop it without censorship and no logical person would condone censorship. Its a dead end argument.
Calling them out for EXACTLY what they do is what people are doing.
They are working these assholes up.
Calling them morons, and suggesting that they are harmless clowns is a mistake.
They are not morons.
I'm not sure where I fall on the whole "right wing talk radio is making people go get their guns" because, to Eric's point, it does mirror the "rap makes people sell drugs" argument (or the "metal makes goth kids pick up AK47s" argument) which I do not believe in.
But honestly, you are not arguing in good faith here. The screeds trafficked by right wing talk radio share a lot of table space with much more ridiculous and sinister ideas like "Jews control the media", "Jews control the world"... and yes, lizard people. If you refuse to see the correlation between "Obama is a fascist", "Obama is a cancer", and "the Jews made Obama" then I don't know what to say, except that you're probably not a Jew.
It's one thing to differentiate the two... it's another to act like there's no crossover.
I've never heard a right wing radio host, and that would only include the well known, more notorious ones, say anything negative about Jews or claim the media is controlled by Jews.
If somehow you're bridging Anti-Obama hate speech to Anti-Jewish hate speech through the common thread of "hate" I'm afraid that is quite a stretch.
Please explain how to argue the "Right Wing radio makes people kill" or "Rap makes people sell drugs" argument in "good faith" as you've admitted the two arguments are both similar and something you don't agree with.
As Hook Up points out...they are both equally absurd.
What I thought was in bad faith was the idea that, simply because these people who are on the radio, people who are paid VERY well doing what they do and are actually getting their checks from big multimedia conglomerates, and have to be cognizant of the filters and the censors and the fines, that the rhetoric doesn't share a table with the very commonly held idea that Jews control a) the media, b) the government, c) some combination of the two.
Much of this ideology is coded. There are touchstones, codewords, hints, catchphrases, euphemisms... I think it's arguing in bad faith to say that someone like Glen Beck, who was arguing on the DAY of the inauguration (I saw it - I was in Brazil that day, and the only news channel we could get was Fox News) that Obama's election would heed the "end of America", the onset of socialism and fascism, etc etc etc, that he has nothing to do with the kind of vile antisemitic rhetoric that this shooter and many others embrace. These guys might not spout it themselves, or keep at an arm's length, but they know what company they keep.
unless one is under duress or mentally incapacitated, one is a free agent who is responsible for his or her actions. blaming this deranged man's actions or those of the abortion doctor killer solely on talk radio would indeed be absurd, but so would a complete denial of the impact that misinformed, hateful, paranoid and passionate speech can have on a population.
If you believe (as JP tells us Beck says he does) that Obama heeds the end of America, or that abortion is murder, then taking up arms and trying to save the country, or stop the murders, is not a totally insane act.
These hosts get their ratings by rationalizing hate and fomenting a sense of panic, and all kinds of people feel their prejudices validated as normal and mainstream when they hear Glen Beck and others. I agree with Jonny that I wouldn't want to censor them, but part of their fan base is extreme and dangerous, and should be monitored.
It seems to me that if you are going to make an empirical proposition you should at least try and martial some empirical evidence to that end. ESPECIALLY if that proposition is that overheated rhetoric is leading to violence. I hope I don't have to sketch out why a failure to do that would make such statements inherently hypocritical.
When this kind of 'logic' was used to try and accuse O'reilly of being somehow complicit in the murder of George tiller, despite no evidence that the murderer had watched a second of O'reilly much less been influenced by him, I considered it a stupid and ugly politicisation of an outrage. But in that instance at least you could create a hypothetical where the influence upon the killer by O'reilly was at least somewhat plausible.
This is very different.
We know from his own writings that this guy hates neo-conservatives, jews, christians, O'reilly, Rupert murdoch; and the the latest evidence suggests that the weekly standard and a fox news office were also potential intended targets of his.
Given this we are asked to believe that this dude was driven to attack a holocaust memorial because people he despised have made overly brusque criticisms of Obama's economic policy? it is ludicrous on its face and most of you are guilty of a)hastily jumping to conclusions in the immediate aftermath of this and b)clinging to those conclusions out of pride even after its obvious that they were misplaced.
Plenty, plus no telling what the boy be doing with 2 hours of Micheal Savage in the system.
If you hear criticisms of welfare policy, immigration policy and so on and the first thing that pops into your mind is stuff like "dirty n1ggers, kikes, damn mexicans" then isn't it really you who has the racial problem? Its hardly rush limbaughs fault that you have all these unfortunate mental associations. I suggest some counselling to deal with all this racial anger you have
Oh and just to keep score: not only are right wing radio broadcasters responsible for every murder in america but they are also resonspible for what left wingers declare their words to mean based on their homemade right wing decoder rings rather than what they actually mean.
Depends on what you mean by marginalized. For most of American history - including up to this current moment - White men have been endowed with far more economic and political privilege than any other group. However, that dominance has been steadily chipped away at over the decades as women and people of color have accrued economic and political power as well. I think it's completely laughable to suggest that White men are now marginalized. I imagine what your co-worker was really saying is, "I don't command as much power/privilege as I used to."
Few amongst the powerful ever 1) willfully surrender their privilege and 2) feel happy about it. That might help explain your co-worker's attitude.
It's difficult for me to see how that could have been a long discussion. It usually goes like this for me:
"White men are being marginalized"
"No they are not."
Actually, these talk radio people are entertainment. That's it. My main concern is that people take them so seriously and use it as their news source. I honestly believe that few of these guys actually believe all of the crap they spew, but it is excellent for ratings. Since Beck became more and more unhinged, over the past few months (he's crying almost every night now), his ratings have soared. He also got called out on The View, of all places, recently for flat out making shit up. When Walters tried to call him on some journalistic integrity, he claimed he is analyst. (John Stewart does the same thing, but at least he flat out says that he is comedian.)
Long discussion = "no they aren't" v. "yes, they are." v. "you can't be serious" v. "I am completely serious." v. "Get outta here!"
I guess my question is ultimately, how do 2 people of the same general age, education, background who live in the same area come to completely different conclusions?
You're way off on this whole convo homey. The kind of anti-neocon conspiracy our shooter at the museum believed is a weird mix of the paleo-con ron paul/Pat Buchanan right. These are not the voices of talk radio, who on matters of war and peace prefer the former. There has been in the last few years a de facto and ad hoc alliance between the anti-war left (who also believes the anti-neocon theory and narrative of the Iraq war) with a traditional anti-Semitic right. Am I saying that all the anti-war people hate the Jews? No I am not. But the two camps that gave purchase to a particular theory of the Iraq war--Jewish neocons manipulated intelligence, etc..., were the paleocon Buchanan right and the anti-war Juan Cole left. Talk radio people don't like taxes, immigrants and gays. But they love Jews and Israel.
Look. I know you use this forum to practice your theories before you develop them for the fine publications that buy your essays. This shit is so ridiculous that you should seriously consider reading your stuff out loud to before you post. I hope you get your footing soon.
Wow, I like how you proved these guy don't rationalize hate by, uh, rationalizing htae. I particularly enjoyed where you put up the straw man of welfare policy, etc and then knocked it down by accusing me of racism. Nobody coulda seen that coming. I don't really have to point out the actual examples of racism do I, we all know what Savage and the others you jock have said, and what that makes you as a fan.
If your not an alias, your a toy, although it has been fun winding you up..
what a bizarre theory, what do you base that on?
what a bizarre theory, what do you base that on?
Several well-iced tumblers of insanity juice with a twist of self deception a day...
what a bizarre theory, what do you base that on?
Sadly not bizarre... Check out Stormfront for quite a lot of opposition to the Iraq war --a war fought, so these folks think, mostly for the benefit of Israel and the Jews.
what a bizarre theory, what do you base that on?
Sadly not bizarre... Check out Stormfront for quite a lot of opposition to the Iraq war --a war fought, so these folks think, mostly for the benefit of Israel and the Jews.
And equating those people with the mainstream left or as some kind of analog to the overpowering presence of the right in the media is insane.
Sadly not bizarre... Check out Stormfront for quite a lot of opposition to the Iraq war --a war fought, so these folks think, mostly for the benefit of Israel and the Jews.
And equating those people with the mainstream left or as some kind of analog to the overpowering presence of the right in the media is insane.
That's not at all what I'm saying... Unless I'm mistaken, that's not what the poster above was saying either. My point was simply that you can easily find on a (very prominent) website like Stormfront real opposition to the war in Iraq, and in fact a deep hatred of what they call Faux News (Fox...). The traditional anti-Semitic right tends to be isolationist. So in the case of the war they end up having views that in many ways coincide with the anti-war views of the left. This is what I took the poster to mean by "ad hoc and de facto".
Sadly not bizarre... Check out Stormfront for quite a lot of opposition to the Iraq war --a war fought, so these folks think, mostly for the benefit of Israel and the Jews.
And equating those people with the mainstream left or as some kind of analog to the overpowering presence of the right in the media is insane.
Just as equating loony 88 year old murderers with the mainstream Right is insane.
Fatback nailed it when he said that these right wing radio dudes are "entertainers" who are not obligated in any way to present facts and truths.
While Limbaugh and the likes are defined as "media" they are distinctly different than the "News Media" who's job it is to present facts without any partisanship or bias.
The Limbaughs, O'Reilly & Savages of the world have a listening audience of literally 10-20 million....blaming them for the actions of a couple of these listeners is beyond ridiculous.
And there is no question in my mind that Rush is popular for the same reason as Howard Stern which was portrayed in the Stern movie...
"The people who love Stern listen because they want to hear what he says next. The people who hate him listen even more. Why? To hear what he says next".