Gabrielle Giffords is the victim of a debased political culture

The Independent newspaper blames the US political culture as a whole and the overuse of hyperbole and fear mongering that is endemic of elections and political commentators there.

One could be shocked, but hardly surprised, by the news that on Saturday morning the Arizona congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, had been shot while meeting with her constituents outside a Safeway supermarket in suburban Tucson, and that the gunman had killed six of the people who were with her, including a federal judge and a nine-year-old girl. It was an event that seemed to grow out of America's present disturbed and angry climate, like a killer-tornado or hurricane: awful, yes, but part of the weather, and, in some sense, only to be expected.

Within a very few minutes of the shooting, bloggers and Tweeters were putting out links to an ad published last March by Sarah Palin's political action committee, which showed a map of the United States, dotted with 20 vulnerable Democratic seats in Congress, each identified by cross-hairs in a gunsight. Giffords's seat, in Arizona's 8th District, was one of these. The legend above the map read: "We've diagnosed the problem... Help us prescribe the solution."

It would be absurd now to claim that the proposed "solution" was death by assassination. The gunsights were intended as an eye-catching metaphor in the metaphor-stuffed rhetoric of the Tea Party movement, which loves to harp on a fanciful parallel between today's opposition to healthcare reform, the stimulus package and the bank bailouts, the case for providing amnesty to illegal immigrants, and all the rest, with the great patriotic war of the American Revolution in the 1770s. It's the sort of historical comparison designed to appeal deeply to people who are ignorant of history, and it generates a stream of metaphors for heroic resistance, involving muskets, funny trousers and tricorn hats.

But Gabrielle Giffords made great sense when, in March 2010, she discussed the Palin map with a TV interviewer, saying: "Sarah Palin has the cross-hairs of a gunsight over our district – and when people do that, they've got to realise there are consequences to that action." In the martial atmosphere of an election year (and in a country where four sitting presidents have been assassinated, and many more have survived serious attempts on their lives), extravagant figures of speech can all too easily become literal, and rhetorical guns turn into real ones.

In November last year, Giffords was narrowly re-elected against a Tea Party Republican named Jesse Kelly, who, as a 6ft 8in former sergeant in the US Marine Corps, found it natural to conduct his political campaign in the language of warfare. Kelly called Palin "too moderate", and one can catch the flavour of his candidacy in this unpunctuated announcement of an event held on 12 June 2010: "Get on Target for Victory in November Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automated M-16 with Jesse Kelly."

Kelly's campaign website closed down some time after noon on Saturday, and was replaced with a message of sympathy for Gabrielle Giffords and her family, along with the sentiment that "senseless acts of violence such as this have absolutely no place in American politics". Before the site closed, I caught his November thanks to the "thousands of warriors who fought with me in this campaign".

Given Kelly's background, one can see how voters became "warriors", fellow-infantrymen in the electoral battle, but the word also exactly reflects the Tea Party mindset: this is war. Or, as Sarah Palin put it in a Tweet last year: "Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: 'Don't retreat – instead RELOAD!' Pls see my Facebook page."

The Tucson shootings can't be blamed on Palin, Kelly, or the Tea Party: all three are more or less typical inhabitants of the debased, exaggerated and vitriolic language that now dominates American public discourse. Keith Olbermann, on the liberal left, speaks it as fluently as do Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck on the right.

The language was spawned on talk radio, where outrageous metaphors and wild logic flourish best, and where listeners, sitting alone in cars and trucks, can cheer on their favourite ranter, who is half improvisatory comedian, half Job the prophet. Every day of the week opens a new front in the war, as the loudmouth stars deliver their tirades, politicians copy them in both houses of Congress, and people at home grow used to the idea that political debates ought to be judged by the degree of overstatement and malignant rage deployed on both sides.

Before he took his Glock handgun to the Safeway parking lot on Saturday, Jared Loughner (b. 1988) had been setting himself up as a political commentator, posting videos on YouTube in which he displayed the texts of his homilies as white words on a black screen, printed in small blocks against a big background, as if they carried scriptural weight: "... I can't trust the current government because of the ratifications: The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar..."

Rich in malapropisms, barely literate, and impenetrably confused, Loughner's pensées convey a primitive, superstitious reverence for the printed word. That he doesn't appear in person on his videos suggests a mind enthralled by the power of language disembodied from any particular speaker, coming to us as if from an oracular cloud.

Loughner seems to be an uncomfortably familiar figure; one of those juvenile megalomaniacs with guns, who show up in the news at least once a year for having carried out a mass shooting at a US high school or college, nearly always remembered, as Loughner has been, as "quiet" and "shy". This time, though, the shooter entered the hyperbolic culture of American politics, where his action appears to fit almost seamlessly with the prevailing rhetoric of the day.

There is a chance, if rather a slim one, that the Tucson massacre will make both politicians and commentators draw back and reconsider their terms. Politics is not warfare. The Democratic party is not a colonialist tyranny. Obama is not George III. To live in a slew of overheated metaphors, in language vastly disproportionate to the occasion, is to invite and license the kind of atrocity that happened the day before yesterday.

By Jonathan Raban

Jonathan Raban's books include 'My Holy War: Dispatches from the Home Front', a collection of essays covering America in the George W Bush era; his most recent book, 'Driving Home: An American Scrapbook', was published last year by Picador

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/gabrielle-giffords-is-the-victim-of-a-debased-political-culture-2180268.html

Good article, Matt.

I can't disagree with any of it.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:The Independent newspaper blames the US political culture as a whole.

The gunsights were intended as an eye-catching metaphor in the metaphor-stuffed rhetoric of the Tea Party movement, which loves to harp on a fanciful parallel between today's opposition to healthcare reform, the stimulus package and the bank bailouts, the case for providing amnesty to illegal immigrants, and all the rest, with the great patriotic war of the American Revolution in the 1770s. It's the sort of historical comparison designed to appeal deeply to people who are ignorant of history, and it generates a stream of metaphors for heroic resistance, involving muskets, funny trousers and tricorn hats.

By Jonathan Raban
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/gabrielle-giffords-is-the-victim-of-a-debased-political-culture-2180268.html

No, no no.. Mr Raban.. "if ballots don't work bullets will", "be armed & dangerous", "blood should be spilled", "we may need to use 2nd amendment remedies" and the like can not be dismissed as being colorful metaphors.. [ I picked those couple of Tea Party quotes from the www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/11/arizona-shootings ]

Well, that link is dead. So, I did a search on that site. I found that comment attributed to a person making a comment on the article.

Then I did a search on Google and I can't find those words attributed to any individual. If you can, post those words attributed to an individual. Otherwise, it's all hearsay when one can't attribute any of those to an individual or an organization.

But then, I have these by some nice folks:

Keith Olbermann in 2009 referred to conservative Michelle Malkin as “a big mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it.”


Hardball’s Chris Matthews fantasized about the death of Rush Limbaugh: “Somebody’s going to jam a CO2 pellet into his head and he’s going to explode like a giant blimp."


“Poor taste or, as some say, thought-provoking?” MSNBC's Amy Robach wondered on September 1, 2006 in relation to the film “Death of a President.”


MSNBC's Ed Schultz wished for Dick Cheney’s death: “He is an enemy of the country, in my opinion, Dick Cheney is, he is an enemy of the country....Lord, take him to the Promised Land, will you?” In 2010, Schultz screamed that “Dick Cheney’s heart’s a political football. We ought to rip it out and kick it around and stuff it back in him!”


Radio host Mike Malloy (a onetime news writer for CNN) wished for Rush Limbaugh’s death on January 4, 2010, a few days after Limbaugh was hospitalized for chest pains: “I’m waiting for the day when I pick it up, pick up a newspaper or click on the Internet and find out he’s choked to death on his own throat fat or a great big wad of saliva or something, you know, whatever. Go away, Rush, you make me sick!”


In 2009, then-Air America radio host Montel Williams urged Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann to kill herself: “Slit your wrist! Go ahead! I mean, you know, why not? I mean, if you want to — or, you know, do us all a better thing. Move that knife up about two feet. I mean, start right at the collarbone.”

I have loads more and I also have audio to go with most of those I posted above.

My point here is that the right doesn't have a monopoly on saying some pretty nasty things. In fact, I have never ever heard a conservative radio host or a TV host say anything remotely close to any of the bullshit posted above.

If you think the right owns derogatory speech, think again. I have loads of stuff to counter it.

Personally, I would prefer you dropping all of this because it solves nothing. It's nothing but a game of gotcha.

I do not agree with the premise of this article at all.

As we learn more about Loughner, we find someone who was not motivated by the heated political discourse of the day, but rather by the delusions of a sick mind.

And the writer of this article has clearly not studied American political history as is apparent from this sentence:

The language was spawned on talk radio, where outrageous metaphors and wild logic flourish best...

The political campaign rhetoric of 19th century America was every bit as overblown and aggressively partisan as it is today, if not more so. Talk radio didn’t “spawn” this language whatsoever.

I also found the article clearly partisan itself. There was a single homage to political rhetoric on the left; it was this line: “Keith Olbermann, on the liberal left, speaks it as fluently as do Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck on the right.” Right after that line, the next paragraph starts with the sentence I cited above in bold red. It talks about talk radio (Olbermann is TV), and Rush and Beck are both radio pundits (though Beck is now on TV as well).

The article ends with this bit: There is a chance, if rather a slim one, that the Tucson massacre will make both politicians and commentators draw back and reconsider their terms. Politics is not warfare. The Democratic party is not a colonialist tyranny. Obama is not George III. To live in a slew of overheated metaphors, in language vastly disproportionate to the occasion, is to invite and license the kind of atrocity that happened the day before yesterday.”

Note that we do not find the Republican corollary – to wit: the Republican Party is not a [insert leftist rhetoric here].

I believe this display’s the author’s unspoken bias against the right in America.

More to the point, where were these sorts of articles when Bush was in office and the sort of naked hatred of the left was prominently on display, as in these signs which all call for or depict the death of Bush?



Where were articles like this when these sorts of comments were being made?

From National Public Radio legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg: [I]f there is retributive justice [Sen. Jesse Helms] will get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will get it.

From USA Today syndicated columnist Julianne Malveaux, on Clarence Thomas: I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like many black men do, of heart disease.

Washington Post syndicated columnist Richard Cohen: For hypocrisy, for sheer gall, [Newt] Gingrich should be hanged.

Talk show host Craig Kilborn [Caption under footage of George W. Bush]: Snipers Wanted

Members of the St. Petersburg Democratic Club: And then there’s Rumsfeld who said of Iraq “We have our good days and our bad days.” We should put this S.O.B. up against a wall and say “This is one of our bad days” and pull the trigger.

It’s just funny that it’s only conservative political rhetoric that (to borrow a word) spawns these sorts of articles.

dblboggie wrote:The political campaign rhetoric of 19th century America was every bit as overblown and aggressively partisan as it is today, if not more so. Talk radio didn’t “spawn” this language whatsoever.

I'm not really sure that issue is all that important. The point of the article is that media personalities on the left and right, so desperate to demonise and parody their opponents are creating an unhealthy obsession with seeing "enemies of America" everywhere. If we believed such personalities, the rest of the world would be of the opinion that each of your elections is a struggle between whether it is the Communist or the Theocrat Party who can tamper with the most ballot boxes to rig the election.

dblboggie wrote:I also found the article clearly partisan itself. There was a single homage to political rhetoric on the left; it was this line: “Keith Olbermann, on the liberal left, speaks it as fluently as do Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck on the right.” Right after that line, the next paragraph starts with the sentence I cited above in bold red. It talks about talk radio (Olbermann is TV), and Rush and Beck are both radio pundits (though Beck is now on TV as well).

I think you are reading too much into that. Though most British people will know these names and perhaps know a little of their rhetoric or whether they support the afforementioned Theocrat or Communist parties, they will not care for which media they choose to express themselves. That is not the issue.

dblboggie wrote:The article ends with this bit: There is a chance, if rather a slim one, that the Tucson massacre will make both politicians and commentators draw back and reconsider their terms. Politics is not warfare. The Democratic party is not a colonialist tyranny. Obama is not George III. To live in a slew of overheated metaphors, in language vastly disproportionate to the occasion, is to invite and license the kind of atrocity that happened the day before yesterday.”

Note that we do not find the Republican corollary – to wit: the Republican Party is not a [insert leftist rhetoric here].

Because you have a Democrat President. I think you are reading far too much into this too.

dblboggie wrote:I believe this display’s the author’s unspoken bias against the right in America.

I see no such bias, but an attempt to show that these personalities and their ridiculous scaremongering rhetoric is damaging to your society. I think you are just splitting hairs here.

dblboggie wrote:More to the point, where were these sorts of articles when Bush was in office and the sort of naked hatred of the left was prominently on display, as in these signs which all call for or depict the death of Bush?

When did such a public execution/assassination/spree take place against elected officials during Dubya's 8 years?

dblboggie wrote:Where were articles like this when these sorts of comments were being made?

These are comments, not shootings.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:The political campaign rhetoric of 19th century America was every bit as overblown and aggressively partisan as it is today, if not more so. Talk radio didn’t “spawn” this language whatsoever.

I'm not really sure that issue is all that important. The point of the article is that media personalities on the left and right, so desperate to demonise and parody their opponents are creating an unhealthy obsession with seeing "enemies of America" everywhere. If we believed such personalities, the rest of the world would be of the opinion that each of your elections is a struggle between whether it is the Communist or the Theocrat Party who can tamper with the most ballot boxes to rig the election.

Again, I respectfully disagree. The very headline of the article (which is the subject title of this thread) is blaming political rhetoric for Gifford’s shooting. And yet, nothing could be further from the truth. The perpetrator of this act, as we are now learning, was not politically motivated and did not listen to talk radio or follow politics on TV. These facts make the headline and the entire premise of the article a false one.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:I also found the article clearly partisan itself. There was a single homage to political rhetoric on the left; it was this line: “Keith Olbermann, on the liberal left, speaks it as fluently as do Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck on the right.” Right after that line, the next paragraph starts with the sentence I cited above in bold red. It talks about talk radio (Olbermann is TV), and Rush and Beck are both radio pundits (though Beck is now on TV as well).

I think you are reading too much into that. Though most British people will know these names and perhaps know a little of their rhetoric or whether they support the afforementioned Theocrat or Communist parties, they will not care for which media they choose to express themselves. That is not the issue.

The method of expres​sion(radio or TV) was not my point. My point was that while he gives a microscopic homage to leftist rhetoric by mentioning the completely unknown Olbermann, followed by two very well know right-wing radio talkers – Rush and Beck; and immediately after their names he then launches into this sentence ” The language was spawned on talk radio, where outrageous metaphors and wild logic flourish best.... Everyone reading this knows who to associate that sentence with, Rush and Beck!

But this is deep into the article. Let me go back a bit. The second paragraph talks about Sarah Palin and the SarahPac map – note no mention of the leftist DailyKOS target list with Giffords name on it as well.

The next, third, paragraph talks about the Tea Party in a demeaning way, but the author finds no parallel on the left.

The fourth paragraph goes back to Palin and the SarahPac map yet again. And again, the author no finds no parallel on the left.

The fifth paragraph covers the “Tea Party Republican” candidate Jesse Kelly, mentions that he found Sarah too “moderate” and talks about his campaign language couched in the language of warfare. Still no parallel on the left by the author.

The sixth paragraph is also about Kelly.

And then we finally come to the paragraph that mentions, ever so briefly, a single relatively unknown cable TV talker on the left, Olbermann. That is the last mention we see of left-wing rhetoric.

So... I think it’s fair to say that this exposes at least some bias on the part of the author.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:The article ends with this bit: There is a chance, if rather a slim one, that the Tucson massacre will make both politicians and commentators draw back and reconsider their terms. Politics is not warfare. The Democratic party is not a colonialist tyranny. Obama is not George III. To live in a slew of overheated metaphors, in language vastly disproportionate to the occasion, is to invite and license the kind of atrocity that happened the day before yesterday.”

Note that we do not find the Republican corollary – to wit: the Republican Party is not a [insert leftist rhetoric here].

Because you have a Democrat President. I think you are reading far too much into this too.

See above, save for a single mention of Olbermann, the entire article focuses on the rhetoric of persons on the right.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:I believe this display’s the author’s unspoken bias against the right in America.

I see no such bias, but an attempt to show that these personalities and their ridiculous scaremongering rhetoric is damaging to your society. I think you are just splitting hairs here.

I don’t believe I am splitting hairs at all. There is just a single, tiny, mention of a leftist – the entire balance of the article focuses on the rhetoric of right wing persons, Palin, Kelly, Rush, Beck and the Tea Party.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:More to the point, where were these sorts of articles when Bush was in office and the sort of naked hatred of the left was prominently on display, as in these signs which all call for or depict the death of Bush?

When did such a public execution/assassination/spree take place against elected officials during Dubya's 8 years?

To call this a spree is incorrect. It is a single incident involving a single shooter who shot multiple people. And every time there is a shooting like this, whether it involves politicians or just civilians, it is always blamed on the right. Always.

In point of fact, there have only been 2 sitting congressmen who have been assassinated in our history. Once in 1838 (and that was a duel), and 1978. There have been maybe a total of 9 who survived attempted assassinations – and that covers the entire history of the Republic. These are extremely rare incidents.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:Where were articles like this when these sorts of comments were being made?

These are comments, not shootings.

And yet the shooting is being blamed on the political rhetoric of the right. No one says a thing about the political rhetoric on the left – which has been much more vicious. Someone even made a freaking movie about the assassination of a sitting President, Bush. A movie about it!!! Find ANYONE on the right who made a movie about the assassination of a sitting Democratic President!

All I’m saying is that we have a double standard. There was a shooting last Saturday, within a few mere hours the mainstream media was awash with people pointing the finger at right-wing rhetoric with nary a peep about the vicious rhetoric from the left. It would be nice to see someone actually write an article with some balance in it, that’s all.

dblboggie wrote:

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:The political campaign rhetoric of 19th century America was every bit as overblown and aggressively partisan as it is today, if not more so. Talk radio didn’t “spawn” this language whatsoever.

I'm not really sure that issue is all that important. The point of the article is that media personalities on the left and right, so desperate to demonise and parody their opponents are creating an unhealthy obsession with seeing "enemies of America" everywhere. If we believed such personalities, the rest of the world would be of the opinion that each of your elections is a struggle between whether it is the Communist or the Theocrat Party who can tamper with the most ballot boxes to rig the election.

Again, I respectfully disagree. The very headline of the article (which is the subject title of this thread) is blaming political rhetoric for Gifford’s shooting. And yet, nothing could be further from the truth. The perpetrator of this act, as we are now learning, was not politically motivated and did not listen to talk radio or follow politics on TV. These facts make the headline and the entire premise of the article a false one.

I agree that the author has probably jumped the gun. We should wait for a psych evaluation before we either dismiss or blame political rhetoric. By what standards do we decide, in lieu of psychological qualification ourselves, whether political rhetoric is to blame?

You see, this is the issue again that people who are dismissing or clinging to the argument of political rhetoric are just letting their own prejudices guide them.

dblboggie wrote:Everyone reading this knows who to associate that sentence with, Rush and Beck!

You forget the audience. No, we are not. Nobody over here listens to Rush, Beck or Olberman. It will probably shatter a lot of American egos but most people here only have a passing interest in your politics. Those of us who are familiar with them do not know enough about them to know their primary media or whether one is any more or less famous than the others.

The fact that Beck and Limbaugh are considered more well known on your side of the Atlantic is irrelevant on this side because those people are not broadcast on our radios or televisions. Therefore we will accept it at face value that these figures are public political mouthpieces and make the value judgement that they are in many ways equivalent.

This is why I think you are seeing an assault on the right that doesn't exist.

dblboggie wrote:But this is deep into the article. Let me go back a bit. The second paragraph talks about Sarah Palin and the SarahPac map – note no mention of the leftist DailyKOS target list with Giffords name on it as well.

Specifically which map?

dblboggie wrote:The next, third, paragraph talks about the Tea Party in a demeaning way, but the author finds no parallel on the left.

Is there one? Is there a need for one bearing in mind their extreme language standing against an unpopular President?

dblboggie wrote:The fifth paragraph covers the “Tea Party Republican” candidate Jesse Kelly, mentions that he found Sarah too “moderate” and talks about his campaign language couched in the language of warfare. Still no parallel on the left by the author.

Again, is there one?

dblboggie wrote:And then we finally come to the paragraph that mentions, ever so briefly, a single relatively unknown cable TV talker on the left, Olbermann. That is the last mention we see of left-wing rhetoric.

See above. The fact that he is "relatively unknown" on your side on the Atlantic is irrelevant. Most people here are not familiar with any of them and will accept that a parallel exists. Even those of us who are familiar with them are not familiar enough to make a relative value judgement about who is more famous than the others.

dblboggie wrote:See above, save for a single mention of Olbermann, the entire article focuses on the rhetoric of persons on the right.

If you can suggest an left wing equivalent of The Tea Party I'm all ears...

dblboggie wrote:To call this a spree is incorrect. It is a single incident involving a single shooter who shot multiple people.

That is the very definition of a spree killing.

dblboggie wrote:And every time there is a shooting like this, whether it involves politicians or just civilians, it is always blamed on the right. Always.

Lee Harvey Oswald?

dblboggie wrote:In point of fact, there have only been 2 sitting congressmen who have been assassinated in our history. Once in 1838 (and that was a duel), and 1978. There have been maybe a total of 9 who survived attempted assassinations – and that covers the entire history of the Republic. These are extremely rare incidents.

And four Presidents.

dblboggie wrote:All I’m saying is that we have a double standard. There was a shooting last Saturday, within a few mere hours the mainstream media was awash with people pointing the finger at right-wing rhetoric with nary a peep about the vicious rhetoric from the left. It would be nice to see someone actually write an article with some balance in it, that’s all.

That's your opinion, you are entitled to it but I think you are reading too much into it by forgetting the intended audience and the audience is largely unfamiliar with the polemicists, their media or how famous each is relative to the others.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:The political campaign rhetoric of 19th century America was every bit as overblown and aggressively partisan as it is today, if not more so. Talk radio didn’t “spawn” this language whatsoever.

I'm not really sure that issue is all that important. The point of the article is that media personalities on the left and right, so desperate to demonise and parody their opponents are creating an unhealthy obsession with seeing "enemies of America" everywhere. If we believed such personalities, the rest of the world would be of the opinion that each of your elections is a struggle between whether it is the Communist or the Theocrat Party who can tamper with the most ballot boxes to rig the election.

Again, I respectfully disagree. The very headline of the article (which is the subject title of this thread) is blaming political rhetoric for Gifford’s shooting. And yet, nothing could be further from the truth. The perpetrator of this act, as we are now learning, was not politically motivated and did not listen to talk radio or follow politics on TV. These facts make the headline and the entire premise of the article a false one.

I agree that the author has probably jumped the gun. We should wait for a psych evaluation before we either dismiss or blame political rhetoric. By what standards do we decide, in lieu of psychological qualification ourselves, whether political rhetoric is to blame?

You see, this is the issue again that people who are dismissing or clinging to the argument of political rhetoric are just letting their own prejudices guide them.

Indeed, the mainstream media should have waited for the actual facts to come out before racing to blame the political rhetoric of Palin, the Tea Party, and conservatives in general for this crime.

As for what standards we use in deciding whether political rhetoric is to blame, I say we wait until law enforcement and the experts have had time enough to actually determine motive. And everything we have learned over the past week points more and more in the direction that this guy was just plain nuts, and now we are learning that he was a far left nut – not a far right nut. And despite this, the media and those on the left are continuing to point to the right and their rhetoric. Those are the people “clinging” to the argument of political rhetoric.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:Everyone reading this knows who to associate that sentence with, Rush and Beck!

You forget the audience. No, we are not. Nobody over here listens to Rush, Beck or Olberman. It will probably shatter a lot of American egos but most people here only have a passing interest in your politics. Those of us who are familiar with them do not know enough about them to know their primary media or whether one is any more or less famous than the others.

The fact that Beck and Limbaugh are considered more well known on your side of the Atlantic is irrelevant on this side because those people are not broadcast on our radios or televisions. Therefore we will accept it at face value that these figures are public political mouthpieces and make the value judgement that they are in many ways equivalent.

This is why I think you are seeing an assault on the right that doesn't exist.

Well I can hardly be blamed. The author is writing this before all the facts are in, and he is blaming “political rhetoric” and his headline “Gabriel Giffords is the victim of a debased political culture” makes that clear. But there is but a single, tiny, insignificant and easily missed reference to rhetoric from the left – after six solid paragraphs of the political rhetoric of the right, we get six tiny words about the left. Out of a 1000 word article, six words were devoted to naming one person on the left; the rest of the article only covers the right.

Any way you cut it that is an unbalanced article.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:But this is deep into the article. Let me go back a bit. The second paragraph talks about Sarah Palin and the SarahPac map – note no mention of the leftist DailyKOS target list with Giffords name on it as well.

Specifically which map?

My bad... the DailyKOS wasn’t a map, it was a text entry that used the words “target” and “bullseye.” See below:



I was thinking of the following maps used by the Democrats:





And actually these maps by the Democrats make my point better than if they’d been posted by the DailyKOS. Everyone knows that site is far-left. That the Democratic Party would create maps like the 2 above shows that they are no less “extreme” than SaraPAC or the Tea Party.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:The next, third, paragraph talks about the Tea Party in a demeaning way, but the author finds no parallel on the left.

Is there one? Is there a need for one bearing in mind their extreme language standing against an unpopular President?

Yes, the list of activist liberal organizations is extensive. Probably the reason you have not heard of them is because they do not get covered by the mainstream media. We could start with the SEIU that ran counter demonstrations at Tea Party demonstrations and even engaged in physical violence in a couple of instances, including actually beating a Tea Party protester in a wheel chair. Then there’s ACORN, a group that routinely held demonstrations outside the houses of bank executives that they deemed weren’t giving enough loans to poor people and also helped Obama get elected. And of course there’s the Worker’s World Party that routinely organizes things like anti-war protests and protests against various world political and economic bodies – G-8, the G-20, and so on. The list goes on and on and the rhetoric of the left is every bit as vicious as the rhetoric on the right is said to be. But this author only see’s fit to focus on one side of the equation that creates the “debased political culture” he seeks to expose. You don’t see that as biased, even a little bit?

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:The fifth paragraph covers the “Tea Party Republican” candidate Jesse Kelly, mentions that he found Sarah too “moderate” and talks about his campaign language couched in the language of warfare. Still no parallel on the left by the author.

Again, is there one?

Pick a Democratic candidate. Again, the article isn’t about one single point in time, it is supposed to be exploring the “debased political culture” of America, but out of 1000 words we only hear about the conservative side of this culture – save for the 6 measly words devoted to the left.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:And then we finally come to the paragraph that mentions, ever so briefly, a single relatively unknown cable TV talker on the left, Olbermann. That is the last mention we see of left-wing rhetoric.

See above. The fact that he is "relatively unknown" on your side on the Atlantic is irrelevant. Most people here are not familiar with any of them and will accept that a parallel exists. Even those of us who are familiar with them are not familiar enough to make a relative value judgement about who is more famous than the others.

Yes, you do have a point on that, but it really doesn’t matter whether they are known in the UK or Europe. The fact is, he names one liberal talker, two conservative talkers, a conservative organization, a conservative political figure and a conservative political candidate and only covers their speech and doesn’t mention a single thing a liberal has had to say that might have contributed to the “debased political culture.”

If I turned in a press release like this, but had the left as the focus and the right as the single mention, I'd be laughed out of the press room for naked bias.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:See above, save for a single mention of Olbermann, the entire article focuses on the rhetoric of persons on the right.

If you can suggest an left wing equivalent of The Tea Party I'm all ears...

Take your pick of any of the political organizations I listed above or any of the countless others that are out there. The author should have been more than capable of coming up with any number of them if he were doing his research honestly.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:To call this a spree is incorrect. It is a single incident involving a single shooter who shot multiple people.

That is the very definition of a spree killing.

Actually it is not. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics defines a spree killing as "killings at two or more locations with almost no time break between murders."

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:And every time there is a shooting like this, whether it involves politicians or just civilians, it is always blamed on the right. Always.

Lee Harvey Oswald?

Actually, Kennedy’s assassination was blamed on the right for years. Some people still believe that conservatives within the CIA had arranged the assassination, had the mob do the job. Believe me, I’ve heard all kinds of crazy theories that conservatives for that tragedy.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:In point of fact, there have only been 2 sitting congressmen who have been assassinated in our history. Once in 1838 (and that was a duel), and 1978. There have been maybe a total of 9 who survived attempted assassinations – and that covers the entire history of the Republic. These are extremely rare incidents.

And four Presidents.

Yep.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:All I’m saying is that we have a double standard. There was a shooting last Saturday, within a few mere hours the mainstream media was awash with people pointing the finger at right-wing rhetoric with nary a peep about the vicious rhetoric from the left. It would be nice to see someone actually write an article with some balance in it, that’s all.

That's your opinion, you are entitled to it but I think you are reading too much into it by forgetting the intended audience and the audience is largely unfamiliar with the polemicists, their media or how famous each is relative to the others.

Even taking into account the unfamiliarity of the audience with American politics, this article is still clearly biased – for all the reasons I’ve covered above. It presents only one side of the political culture it purports to explore. One comes away from this article knowing only that this Olbermann guy is a leftie, but knowing nothing about the rhetoric of the left. But they are certainly clued in on the rhetoric, persons and organizations of the right. They have exactly one half of the political culture picture.

Matt, I hope you realize that I was not trying to be belligerent here, I was just being persistent. I really do see a one-sided slant to the article you posted here.

I'm not disputing that political rhetoric has reached ridiculous levels of incivility. But an article that focuses nearly a 1000 words on the rhetoric of the right, and a mere 6 words on the left, cannot be seen as anything but unbalanced, if not biased.

No, I fully understand. I accept your explanation but I disagree for the reasons I stated (the audience would be largely unfamiliar with the names quoted and their media of choice).

But I will seek to clarify one more thing. You say that Kennedy's assassination was "blamed on the right for years". Wasn't Lee Harvey Oswald a known Marxist activist from the moment he was identified as a suspect (i.e. about an hour after the assassination)?

As for the spree killing issue, well that is the US legal definition. I think we are just splitting hairs on that one because I'm not sure our legal definition would agree.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:No, I fully understand. I accept your explanation but I disagree for the reasons I stated (the audience would be largely unfamiliar with the names quoted and their media of choice).

Okay, thanks. However, you do understand that it doesn’t really matter if the audience is even completely ignorant of the names being quoted, right? That doesn’t change the fact that the article is unbalanced, and that that lack of balance is a clear indication of bias – whether the audience knows it or not. And are you sure that Sarah Palin and the Tea Party are relatively unknown in the U.K.? I would have thought that at least those two had gained some degree of penetration into the British audience.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:But I will seek to clarify one more thing. You say that Kennedy's assassination was "blamed on the right for years". Wasn't Lee Harvey Oswald a known Marxist activist from the moment he was identified as a suspect (i.e. about an hour after the assassination)?

I don’t know if it was within an hour, but yes, it was soon known that Oswald had defected and lived in the Soviet Union for a short while and was a communist sympathizer.

However, there were a large number of very popular conspiracy theories blaming a wide variety of actors such as the CIA, the J. Edgar Hoover (FBI Director), the American mafia, the Israeli government, the Federal Reserve, anti-Castro Cuban exile groups, among many others. Some of these persist to this day, and many of the figures said to be involved were Republican’s and/or conservatives.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:As for the spree killing issue, well that is the US legal definition. I think we are just splitting hairs on that one because I'm not sure our legal definition would agree.

Perhaps, but this is the only definition I’ve known for a spree shooting. I’m not sure why there is that distinction between a mass shooting as occurred in Arizona and a spree shooting which moves from place to place in a short period of time, but there is; not this matters to the victims of either one.

dblboggie wrote:

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:No, I fully understand. I accept your explanation but I disagree for the reasons I stated (the audience would be largely unfamiliar with the names quoted and their media of choice).

Okay, thanks. However, you do understand that it doesn’t really matter if the audience is even completely ignorant of the names being quoted, right? That doesn’t change the fact that the article is unbalanced, and that that lack of balance is a clear indication of bias – whether the audience knows it or not.

Perhaps, but for an audience that is unfamiliar with those names, that apparent bias to another audience is irrelevant.

dblboggie wrote: And are you sure that Sarah Palin and the Tea Party are relatively unknown in the U.K.? I would have thought that at least those two had gained some degree of penetration into the British audience.

Who brought up Palin or the Tea Party? This was about comparing the radio and TV personalities. You didn't like that because you deemed that the conservative personalities are more famous than the left wing personality. I pointed out that was irrelevant to the intended audience because we are unfamiliar with them and even those of us who are familiar with them, would compare them on equal grounds because we perceive, and in the article, they are being portrayed as being two sides of the same coin.

Not only are people here not familiar with the names, their respective media, whether one is any more famous than the other and even which side they bat for, we simply do not have that equivalent on our televisions. Firstly for the political neutrality rules and secondly we tend to turn away from that sort of foam at the mouth rhetoric that such people seem to think is an acceptable way for adults to behave.

dblboggie wrote:I don’t know if it was within an hour, but yes, it was soon known that Oswald had defected and lived in the Soviet Union for a short while and was a communist sympathizer.

Either way, it was a very short time and as I understand it he was arrested the same day. That is a very short space of time in which to blame all elements of right wing society before a communist sympathiser was arrested.

dblboggie wrote:However, there were a large number of very popular conspiracy theories blaming a wide variety of actors such as the CIA, the J. Edgar Hoover (FBI Director), the American mafia, the Israeli government, the Federal Reserve, anti-Castro Cuban exile groups, among many others. Some of these persist to this day, and many of the figures said to be involved were Republican’s and/or conservatives.

And the right wing has a number of conspiracy theories running at present. Not least of all my own target of for unspecified reasons, a global community of climate researchers has fabricated and maintained a decades long conspiracy that the planet is warming. And of course, the even greater conspiracy enacted by Darwin. That is the thing with extremists, they always have a conspiracy to rail against. For Al Qaeda it is the godless west; for western Christians it is secular society; for the American right wing it is a form of left wing philosophy; in communist North Korea it is the spread of Capitalism; In Scotland it is the English; in Northern Ireland the Protesants feel oppressed by Catholic influence and vice versa. In all of these cases, the conspiracy is largely a fantasy of the person or people imagining the conspiracy. So the left wing in your country is not alone in imagining conspiracies and oppression against them for their beliefs. The only tragic thing is that all of these groups are making the same mistake in assuming that those that stoke the fire of such conspiracy imagine that those on "their" side are being entirely honest and realistic.

dblboggie wrote:Perhaps, but this is the only definition I’ve known for a spree shooting. I’m not sure why there is that distinction between a mass shooting as occurred in Arizona and a spree shooting which moves from place to place in a short period of time, but there is; not this matters to the victims of either one.

We are talking legal definition here. In your country "legal drinking age" is 21. Over here, the same term is defined as 18. Mainland Europe it is 15 (for beer and wine anyway, 18 for spirits). Doesn't mean that any one definition is correct.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:No, I fully understand. I accept your explanation but I disagree for the reasons I stated (the audience would be largely unfamiliar with the names quoted and their media of choice).

Okay, thanks. However, you do understand that it doesn’t really matter if the audience is even completely ignorant of the names being quoted, right? That doesn’t change the fact that the article is unbalanced, and that that lack of balance is a clear indication of bias – whether the audience knows it or not.

Perhaps, but for an audience that is unfamiliar with those names, that apparent bias to another audience is irrelevant.

If you presume that the reason one reads a news article is to learn the truth, then that bias is relevant.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote: And are you sure that Sarah Palin and the Tea Party are relatively unknown in the U.K.? I would have thought that at least those two had gained some degree of penetration into the British audience.

Who brought up Palin or the Tea Party? This was about comparing the radio and TV personalities. You didn't like that because you deemed that the conservative personalities are more famous than the left wing personality. I pointed out that was irrelevant to the intended audience because we are unfamiliar with them and even those of us who are familiar with them, would compare them on equal grounds because we perceive, and in the article, they are being portrayed as being two sides of the same coin.

Not only are people here not familiar with the names, their respective media, whether one is any more famous than the other and even which side they bat for, we simply do not have that equivalent on our televisions. Firstly for the political neutrality rules and secondly we tend to turn away from that sort of foam at the mouth rhetoric that such people seem to think is an acceptable way for adults to behave.

This is actually missing my point. The author names a number of actors in the political culture he says is debased and identifies them with the right – Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and “Tea Party Republican” Jesse Kelly. He spends almost no time discussing Limbaugh, Beck or his single homage to the left, Olbermann. Rather, he devotes the bulk of his attention to Palin, the Tea Party and Kelly. Reading his article, we learn about some of the “metaphor-stuffed rhetoric” of the right, but see NONE of the “metaphor-stuffed rhetoric” of the left – not a single word.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:I don’t know if it was within an hour, but yes, it was soon known that Oswald had defected and lived in the Soviet Union for a short while and was a communist sympathizer.

Either way, it was a very short time and as I understand it he was arrested the same day. That is a very short space of time in which to blame all elements of right wing society before a communist sympathiser was arrested.

These theories did not spring up on that day, but they did not take much longer than that to manifest themselves as the investigation moved forward after the assassination of Oswald two days after his arrest.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:However, there were a large number of very popular conspiracy theories blaming a wide variety of actors such as the CIA, the J. Edgar Hoover (FBI Director), the American mafia, the Israeli government, the Federal Reserve, anti-Castro Cuban exile groups, among many others. Some of these persist to this day, and many of the figures said to be involved were Republican’s and/or conservatives.

And the right wing has a number of conspiracy theories running at present. Not least of all my own target of for unspecified reasons, a global community of climate researchers has fabricated and maintained a decades long conspiracy that the planet is warming. And of course, the even greater conspiracy enacted by Darwin. That is the thing with extremists, they always have a conspiracy to rail against. For Al Qaeda it is the godless west; for western Christians it is secular society; for the American right wing it is a form of left wing philosophy; in communist North Korea it is the spread of Capitalism; In Scotland it is the English; in Northern Ireland the Protesants feel oppressed by Catholic influence and vice versa. In all of these cases, the conspiracy is largely a fantasy of the person or people imagining the conspiracy. So the left wing in your country is not alone in imagining conspiracies and oppression against them for their beliefs. The only tragic thing is that all of these groups are making the same mistake in assuming that those that stoke the fire of such conspiracy imagine that those on "their" side are being entirely honest and realistic.

I have never contended that the left-wing is alone in imagining conspiracies. I was merely making the point that even Kennedy’s assassination was blamed on the right.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:Perhaps, but this is the only definition I’ve known for a spree shooting. I’m not sure why there is that distinction between a mass shooting as occurred in Arizona and a spree shooting which moves from place to place in a short period of time, but there is; not this matters to the victims of either one.

We are talking legal definition here. In your country "legal drinking age" is 21. Over here, the same term is defined as 18. Mainland Europe it is 15 (for beer and wine anyway, 18 for spirits). Doesn't mean that any one definition is correct.

But it does mean that any one definition is correct. For instance, in your drinking age example; the thing we are defining is not at what age it is legal to drink, but rather the term “legal drinking age.” That term means the same in every country – it is the age at which a person is allowed to legally consume alcoholic beverages. The age may differ from place to place, but the definition remains the same.

Legal definitions are precise for a reason. If they were not, the rule of law would not even be possible as one could just arbitrarily set definitions to promote whatever outcome was wished.

Loughner would be defined as a mass murderer. Multiple killings in a single incident with no cooling off period – that is a mass killing. A serial killer kills multiple people over a long period of time. A spree killer kills multiple people over a short period of time at two or more locations. This is a legal definition for spree killer, as differentiated from the other types of mass killers and from the word “spree” which is defined as “engaging without restraint in an activity and indulging.” By this definition, Loughner could be said to have gone on a killing spree, but that is not the legal definition of his actions that day.

Hmmm.... I am sort of splitting hairs, aren’t I?

Sorry... it’s a “words mean things” thing for me. Not really important in this case.

dblboggie wrote:If you presume that the reason one reads a news article is to learn the truth

Not really. As you and Tex keep telling us, you read them to "get the other side". I have such little faith in newspapers that I rarely expect to find the truth in them.

dblboggie wrote:This is actually missing my point. The author names a number of actors in the political culture he says is debased and identifies them with the right – Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and “Tea Party Republican” Jesse Kelly. He spends almost no time discussing Limbaugh, Beck or his single homage to the left, Olbermann.

Nevertheless, we were discussing the media figures when you said:

I also found the article clearly partisan itself. There was a single homage to political rhetoric on the left; it was this line: “Keith Olbermann, on the liberal left, speaks it as fluently as do Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck on the right.” Right after that line, the next paragraph starts with the sentence I cited above in bold red. It talks about talk radio (Olbermann is TV), and Rush and Beck are both radio pundits (though Beck is now on TV as well).

That is what we were discussing.

dblboggie wrote:Rather, he devotes the bulk of his attention to Palin, the Tea Party and Kelly. Reading his article, we learn about some of the “metaphor-stuffed rhetoric” of the right, but see NONE of the “metaphor-stuffed rhetoric” of the left – not a single word.

I have also invited you to give me examples of the left making similar unfettered comments with such a wide audience. You
haven't done that yet still you persist in promising me that there is a left wing equivalent that is on a par with some of the lunacy expressed by some members of the Tea Party movement. Some old guy holding up a placard saying "Somebody assassinate Bush" doesn't cut it because people holding up placards at a rally are not given unfettered and unchallenged rhetoric on national radio and television every day of every week.

dblboggie wrote:I have never contended that the left-wing is alone in imagining conspiracies. I was merely making the point that even Kennedy’s assassination was blamed on the right.

And the right wing had a state sanctioned witch hunt in the 1950s that is generally named "McCarthyism". What is your point?

dblboggie wrote: Hmmm.... I am sort of splitting hairs, aren’t I?

Sorry... it’s a “words mean things” thing for me. Not really important in this case.

Never mind

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:If you presume that the reason one reads a news article is to learn the truth

Not really. As you and Tex keep telling us, you read them to "get the other side". I have such little faith in newspapers that I rarely expect to find the truth in them.

I have zero faith in any media. Nonetheless, this article is unbalanced and does not explore the rhetoric of the left in any way – even though he seems to suggest (if only momentarily) that their rhetoric is every bit as bad.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:This is actually missing my point. The author names a number of actors in the political culture he says is debased and identifies them with the right – Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and “Tea Party Republican” Jesse Kelly. He spends almost no time discussing Limbaugh, Beck or his single homage to the left, Olbermann.

Nevertheless, we were discussing the media figures when you said:

I also found the article clearly partisan itself. There was a single homage to political rhetoric on the left; it was this line: “Keith Olbermann, on the liberal left, speaks it as fluently as do Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck on the right.” Right after that line, the next paragraph starts with the sentence I cited above in bold red. It talks about talk radio (Olbermann is TV), and Rush and Beck are both radio pundits (though Beck is now on TV as well).

That is what we were discussing.

Well, that’s what you were attempting to discuss. I saw that as a distraction from my larger point; and that larger point is that the entire article was unbalanced, exposing the author’s bias.

The Limbaugh, Beck, Olbermann thing is a tiny part of the article. It’s one sentence in one small paragraph out of 1000 words and 13 paragraphs – all of which discuss the rhetoric of the right.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:Rather, he devotes the bulk of his attention to Palin, the Tea Party and Kelly. Reading his article, we learn about some of the “metaphor-stuffed rhetoric” of the right, but see NONE of the “metaphor-stuffed rhetoric” of the left – not a single word.

I have also invited you to give me examples of the left making similar unfettered comments with such a wide audience. You haven't done that yet still you persist in promising me that there is a left wing equivalent that is on a par with some of the lunacy expressed by some members of the Tea Party movement. Some old guy holding up a placard saying "Somebody assassinate Bush" doesn't cut it because people holding up placards at a rally are not given unfettered and unchallenged rhetoric on national radio and television every day of every week.

Okay... but remember, you asked for these:

Conservatives Want Terrorists to Succeed

Host Joe Scarborough: “Do you agree with the CIA Director that it’s almost as if Dick Cheney hopes Americans die so he gains a political advantage?”
Ed Schultz: “Absolutely. Absolutely.”
Scarborough: “So you believe Dick Cheney wants Americans to die?...You believe the former Vice President wants Americans to die in a terrorist attack so he can gain a political advantage?”
Schultz: “You got it, Joe. You got it. I think Dick Cheney’s all about power. I think Dick Cheney is all about seeing this country go conservative on a hard right-wing and I think he’ll do anything to get it there....”
Mike Barnicle: “I certainly don’t believe that the former Vice President of the United States is sitting there in McLean, Virginia saying, ‘You know, I hope today’s the day.’ Do you believe that?”
Schultz: “I really do, Mike, I do. I really believe, because I think it’s all about the conservatives grabbing the power and keeping it. These folks hate. Just my opinion. I mean, I don’t want to offend anybody.”
— Exchange on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, June 16, 2009. URL: http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/eyeblast.swf?v=ydaGZunzSU"

“Cheney is nothing but a selfish pig. And for him to do what he’s doing to the elected President of the United States goes ‘beyond the pale,’ to use one of his favorite sayings. It is official — Dick Cheney wants this country to get hit. He wants another terrorist attack for political gain. They want to bury liberals the same way they want to bury the terrorists. They want complete global control, is what they want. Control of oil, control of resources, control of the economy — the list goes on and on — the control of the school systems, everything! That’s what they want. And the only way that you can get any of that is if you have conflict. And since we’re not in a war, we have to set the table for a war.”
— Ed Schultz, The Ed Schultz Show, April 21, 2009.[MP3 Audio]

Republicans Orchestrated Christmas Jet Bombing

“There are forces at work in this country — and I believe this as surely as I believe I put on my right shoe before I put on my left — there are forces alive in this country, who are very active in this country, very wealthy in this country, who want to see Obama fail no matter what, and the idea of killing two or three hundred people on board a jetliner in order to make the point is nothing. It means nothing. We kill that many in a week in our adventures around the world, in places where we’re bombing where we shouldn’t even be....My gut feeling is that this was deliberate. This was deliberately done in order to put the Obama administration in such a vise grip, that it’s impossible to get anything done. To raise so much fear. This is what Republicans do, this is what they do.”
— Mike Malloy on the January 4, 2010 Mike Malloy Show, talking about al-Qaeda’s attempted Christmas Day bombing of a passenger jet. [MP3 audio]

Conservatives Hope You Die

“If in fact the GOP doesn’t like any form of, of health care reform, what do we do with those 40 to 60 million uninsured? So, from this point on, I’m telling ya, when they show up at the emergency room, just shoot ‘em! Kill them! Drag them off and throw them in a — what are we doing? I saw that in Kenya. I see people dying in the Kibera slums, and every morning somebody goes through and just retrieves the bodies. Now, if we really say, ‘We have nothing to do, we can’t help those 40 million people,’ do we have enough body bags? I don’t know.”
— Montel Williams on Montel Across America, July 21, 2009.[MP3 audio]

“The Republicans lie! They want to see you dead! They’d rather make money off your dead corpse! They kind of like it when that woman has cancer and they don’t have anything for her. That’s how the insurance companies make money: by denying the coverage. My God, Democrats! What’s wrong with you?! You can’t deal with these people! At all!”
— Ed Schultz on MSNBC’s The Ed Show, September 23, 2009. URL: http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/eyeblast.swf?v=GdkUkUnz6U

Conservatives Want to Kill Barack Obama

“Sometimes I think they want Obama to get shot. I do. I really think that there are conservative broadcasters in this country who would love to see Obama taken out. They fear socialism. They fear Marxism. They fear that the United States of America won’t be the United States of America anymore.”
— Ed Schultz, The Ed Schultz Show, August 11, 2009. [MP3 audio]

“Right Wing” Killed the Kennedy Brothers

“You know as well as I know that the death of Senator Ted Kennedy is the death of a man, absolutely, and everything he was to the people in his extended family, but we also understand it’s the death of an era. One of the remaining — if not the remaining — lynchpin of liberalism in this country is gone. And you know what the term ‘lynchpin’ means. So, with the death of Ted Kennedy last night, liberalism in this country has, has lost its champion, the person who, in the modern era, personified liberalism to a greater degree than anyone in Congress. I think his death heralds the beginning of a very, very, very dark period in this country. I remember feeling that way in 1963 and again in 1968, when his two brothers were murdered by the right wing in this country.”
— Mike Malloy, The Mike Malloy Show, August 26, 2009.[MP3 audio]

Blaming Fort Hood Murders on George W. Bush

“I think in his [Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan’s] particular case, it’s that he’s counseling these guys, hearing about the horrors of these wars that he’s now going to be sent into, you know. You add to it obviously the fact that he appeared to be — and again, we don’t have all the details yet — but appeared to be getting more radicalized, you know. But you know, and also add in that, look, George Bush made many people around the world feel like this was a war against Islam by using words like ‘crusade’ and all of that. So, and then you add to that the fact that he apparently was taunted for being Muslim because of the attitudes that had, that developed here. So — and that’s not to excuse him in any way. That’s what I keep hearing on the Right is, ‘Oh, you people on the Left are trying to excuse him. Oh, its politically correct,’ or whatever. No, nobody is saying that this is any kind of excuse at all. But, I mean, it’s just, I think you’ve got to get to the real reasons if you want to stop this from happening again.”
— Stephanie Miller on The Stephanie Miller Show, November 10, 2009.[MP3 audio]

Dick Cheney Eats Babies

“[Former Vice President Dick] Cheney, by the way looks very ruddy; I couldn’t get over that, like, he must have feasted on a Jewish baby, or a Muslim baby. He must have sent his people out to get one and bring it back so he could drink its blood, because that’s, you know, that’s what somebody like Cheney does to get that ruddy look....The weird part — there were no dribbles of blood down his tux, but it was very clear that he had been eating the blood of either a Jewish or a Muslim baby; he wouldn’t eat a Christian baby. If he ate the blood of a Christian baby, I — there’s something in the old writings that said that instantly the trap door to Hell opens and you disappear into the smoke.”
— Mike Malloy, The Mike Malloy Show, October 22, 2009.[MP3 audio]

Rush Limbaugh = Hitler

Host Ed Schultz: “It’s kind of like the way Rush brought it to CPAC over the weekend, about how, you know, how interesting he was.”
Clip of Rush Limbaugh at CPAC, accompanied by audio of Adolf Hitler and cheering Nazis: “I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to restructure and reform this country so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation. Why would I want that to succeed?”...
Schultz: “Now if you watch Limbaugh with the sound down, the drugster, he looks like Adolf Hitler! His animation is amazing! It’s, the parallel is so striking. And then, of course, Rush is now the angry American. The angry American. And that’s where they are. They are so out of touch, just like Hitler was out of touch. But he was mesmerizing. So, I think it was comical. I think there are parallels drawn by some of the things Hitler was saying and some of the things that were at the CPAC convention. They are not Americans. They don’t care about the greater good of society.”
— Ed Schultz, The Ed Schultz Show, March 2, 2009.[MP3 audio]

Wishing Conservatives Would Die

“He is an enemy of the country, in my opinion, Dick Cheney is, he is an enemy of the country. He’s making it harder for those who are in power right now to protect the country. He’s about the political divide. It just, I just think the guy’s such a freakin’ loser. You know, Lord, take him to the Promised Land, will you? See, I don’t even wish the guy goes to Hell, I just want to get him the hell out of here.”
— Ed Schultz, The Ed Schultz Show, May 11, 2009.[MP3 audio]

I could go on and on with this stuff, I have pages of it. The rhetoric on the left is beyond outrageous. It’s funny that a discussion of some of this rhetoric never made into this author’s article.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:I have never contended that the left-wing is alone in imagining conspiracies. I was merely making the point that even Kennedy’s assassination was blamed on the right.

And the right wing had a state sanctioned witch hunt in the 1950s that is generally named "McCarthyism". What is your point?

It was your posting of Lee Harvey Oswald’s name that prompted this point – remember?

I said:

dblboggie wrote: And every time there is a shooting like this, whether it involves politicians or just civilians, it is always blamed on the right. Always.

And you replied:

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:Lee Harvey Oswald?

I simply let you know that even that murder was blamed on the right by those on the left – despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. You can even see this claim being made in one of the excerpts I posted above.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote: Hmmm.... I am sort of splitting hairs, aren’t I?

Sorry... it’s a “words mean things” thing for me. Not really important in this case.

Never mind

Indeed.

dblboggie wrote:I have zero faith in any media. Nonetheless, this article is unbalanced and does not explore the rhetoric of the left in any way – even though he seems to suggest (if only momentarily) that their rhetoric is every bit as bad.

As I have said before, I accept your explanation but I do not agree. I think you are blowing up the complaints to seem bigger than they are.

dblboggie wrote:Well, that’s what you were attempting to discuss. I saw that as a distraction from my larger point; and that larger point is that the entire article was unbalanced, exposing the author’s bias.

The only larger point you were trying to make came afterwards so my "distraction" as you have just labelled it, is more like you attempting to move the goalpsts.

dblboggie wrote:The Limbaugh, Beck, Olbermann thing is a tiny part of the article. It’s one sentence in one small paragraph out of 1000 words and 13 paragraphs – all of which discuss the rhetoric of the right.

But it is the only point we were discussing in context of whom was being criticised for debased political rhetoric until two posts back when you decided to expand.

dblboggie wrote:I could go on and on with this stuff, I have pages of it. The rhetoric on the left is beyond outrageous. It’s funny that a discussion of some of this rhetoric never made into this author’s article.

While I am familiar with some of these statements, you still haven't given me any reason to believe that there is a semi-organised group at the centre of it akin to the right wing's "Tea Party". What we have is a collection of individual statements made by individuals against groups or other individuals. These people do not seem to be working together toward a common goal.

And those comments only emphasise the wider point that the political rhetoric in your country is debased on both sides.

dblboggie wrote:It was your posting of Lee Harvey Oswald’s name that prompted this point – remember?

That was aimed at your implication that imagining conspiracies is an exclusive preserve of the left by your emphasis of the word "Always" (blamed on the right). The fact that Oswald was arrested within hours of the shooting and was a Communist sympathiser, the fact that some conspiracy theorists think it was a CIA plot does not prove that such things are "Always" blamed on the right. Clearly, they are not and the movement of imagining Reds everywhere I don't see how it can be blamed on the leftists who were actually the targets of such a campaign.

Has anybody actually seen her?
There's constant updates on how great she is doing but there are not any pictures of her or any other types of proof she is still here.

TheNextPrez2012 wrote:Has anybody actually seen her?
There's constant updates on how great she is doing but there are not any pictures of her or any other types of proof she is still here.

I'm sure it's not a pleasant sight to see. Half of her skull was removed for the brain swelling. I don't know if it's been put back or not. Either way, she's probably wrapped pretty good in the head area.

Out of respect for her and her family, why do we need to see pictures of her?

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:I have zero faith in any media. Nonetheless, this article is unbalanced and does not explore the rhetoric of the left in any way – even though he seems to suggest (if only momentarily) that their rhetoric is every bit as bad.

As I have said before, I accept your explanation but I do not agree. I think you are blowing up the complaints to seem bigger than they are.

Actually, all I’m really doing is pointing out the bias. This is a normal thing with the media, I’ve dealt with it for all my professional life.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:Well, that’s what you were attempting to discuss. I saw that as a distraction from my larger point; and that larger point is that the entire article was unbalanced, exposing the author’s bias.

The only larger point you were trying to make came afterwards so my "distraction" as you have just labelled it, is more like you attempting to move the goalpsts.

First of all, I didn’t mean to imply that you were deliberately distracting; that was my mistake to focus on such a narrow and insignificant portion of the article – as the larger point was always that the article lacked balance and was, thus, biased.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:The Limbaugh, Beck, Olbermann thing is a tiny part of the article. It’s one sentence in one small paragraph out of 1000 words and 13 paragraphs – all of which discuss the rhetoric of the right.

But it is the only point we were discussing in context of whom was being criticised for debased political rhetoric until two posts back when you decided to expand.

I understand that, but the expansion of my analysis was merely a response to point you raised on that paragraph. That point, that the British audience wouldn’t know those personalities or their mediums was a valid one, but it did not counter my larger point of the author’s bias. So I expanded the analysis to make that point more apparent.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:I could go on and on with this stuff, I have pages of it. The rhetoric on the left is beyond outrageous. It’s funny that a discussion of some of this rhetoric never made into this author’s article.

While I am familiar with some of these statements, you still haven't given me any reason to believe that there is a semi-organised group at the centre of it akin to the right wing's "Tea Party". What we have is a collection of individual statements made by individuals against groups or other individuals. These people do not seem to be working together toward a common goal.

Well, first of all, the Democratic Party is a very organized group. Here are some examples of the rhetoric of the Democratic Party:

This is what Obama said on June 14, 2008 at a Philadelphia fundraiser “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun. Because from what I understand folks in Philly like a good brawl.”

Other heated rhetoric from Obama “Get in Their Faces!” On ACORN Mobs: “I don’t want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry! I’m angry!” “Hit Back Twice As Hard!” “We talk to these folks… so I know whose ass to kick.“ Obama to voters: Republican victory would mean “hand to hand combat” Obama to Latino supporters: “Punish your enemies.” Obama to Democrats: “I’m itching for a fight.”

Members of the St. Petersburg Democratic Club: And then there’s Rumsfeld who said of Iraq “We have our good days and our bad days.” We should put this S.O.B. up against a wall and say “This is one of our bad days” and pull the trigger.

Had that first line been said by a Republican, it would have been front page news. Had this been said by someone like Rush Limbaugh, the Democrats would be screaming for his head.

The mainstream media is also a very organized group. Here’s some of their rhetoric:

From National Public Radio legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg: [I]f there is retributive justice [Sen. Jesse Helms] will get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will get it.

From USA Today syndicated columnist Julianne Malveaux, on Clarence Thomas: I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like many black men do, of heart disease.

Washington Post syndicated columnist Richard Cohen: For hypocrisy, for sheer gall, [Newt] Gingrich should be hanged.

But more to the point, the author did not only focus on rhetoric from the Tea Party. He also mention Sarah Palin and Republican candidate (the guy didn’t even win his race) Jesse Kelly.

Not only that, but the title of the article “Gabrielle Giffords is the victim of a debased political culture” would suggest that the author was going to examine that political culture – both sides of it. He did not. He examined one side of it.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:And those comments only emphasise the wider point that the political rhetoric in your country is debased on both sides.

Yes, they do emphasize that wider point. So why were they not included in this guys article? Why is it that the only people quoted, the only rhetoric cited, is the rhetoric of the right?

I’m just saying, my point that the article is biased is a valid point based on his one-sided examination of the political culture.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:It was your posting of Lee Harvey Oswald’s name that prompted this point – remember?

That was aimed at your implication that imagining conspiracies is an exclusive preserve of the left by your emphasis of the word "Always" (blamed on the right). The fact that Oswald was arrested within hours of the shooting and was a Communist sympathiser, the fact that some conspiracy theorists think it was a CIA plot does not prove that such things are "Always" blamed on the right. Clearly, they are not and the movement of imagining Reds everywhere I don't see how it can be blamed on the leftists who were actually the targets of such a campaign.

I did not imply that imagining conspiracies is an exclusive preserve of the left. I have spoken out against far-right psycho conspiracy theorists like Jesse Ventura and Alex Jones. I was simply stating a fact that the Kennedy assassination was, in fact, blamed on right-wing elements in this country (and even outside it) – despite the fact that Oswald was a known Communist sympathizer.

Cable2 wrote:No, no no.. Mr Raban.. "if ballots don't work bullets will", "be armed & dangerous", "blood should be spilled", "we may need to use 2nd amendment remedies" and the like can not be dismissed as being colorful metaphors.. [ I picked those couple of Tea Party quotes from the www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/11/arizona-shootings ]

TexasBlue wrote:Well, that link is dead. So, I did a search on that site. I found that comment attributed to a person making a comment on the article.

Then I did a search on Google and I can't find those words attributed to any individual. If you can, post those words attributed to an individual. Otherwise, it's all hearsay when one can't attribute any of those to an individual or an organization.

Sorry I missed your reply Tex.. the so called colorful metaphors, I copied from the guardian came from the placards of tea-party demonstrates.. as our placards are not as bad as your placards, you can not hold us responsible for the meaning of those placards

dblboggie wrote:The political campaign rhetoric of 19th century America was every bit as overblown and aggressively partisan as it is today, if not more so. Talk radio didn’t “spawn” this language whatsoever.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:I'm not really sure that issue is all that important. The point of the article is that media personalities on the left and right, so desperate to demonise and parody their opponents are creating an unhealthy obsession with seeing "enemies of America" everywhere. If we believed such personalities, the rest of the world would be of the opinion that each of your elections is a struggle between whether it is the Communist or the Theocrat Party who can tamper with the most ballot boxes to rig the election.

dblboggie wrote:Again, I respectfully disagree. The very headline of the article (which is the subject title of this thread) is blaming political rhetoric for Gifford’s shooting. And yet, nothing could be further from the truth. The perpetrator of this act, as we are now learning, was not politically motivated and did not listen to talk radio or follow politics on TV. These facts make the headline and the entire premise of the article a false one.

dblboggie, I respectfully disagree.. the debate never was about the killer acting on the instructions of a political group.. the debate was on the effect of the hatred poured out by all sides of America's extreme politicos.. one only has to remember that the sheriff questioned to the right wing hate speech when he first spoke about the shooting.. one only has to remember the parents of the shoot woman saying they hated the tea-party when asked if they hated any one for the shooting.. it is with such a background of political hate, that all these debates held.. and as such the shootings and the political hate speech can and should be spoken of in the same breath.. but not as being the same thing.

"The political campaign rhetoric of 19th century America was every bit as overblown and aggressively partisan as it is today, if not more so."

and as such American historian dblboggie, I am sure you would be the first to admit that 19th century America political hate speech.. had murderous effect of many Amerians, even if few where instructed to carry out murders by any political group.

cable2 wrote:

dblboggie wrote:The political campaign rhetoric of 19th century America was every bit as overblown and aggressively partisan as it is today, if not more so. Talk radio didn’t “spawn” this language whatsoever.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:I'm not really sure that issue is all that important. The point of the article is that media personalities on the left and right, so desperate to demonise and parody their opponents are creating an unhealthy obsession with seeing "enemies of America" everywhere. If we believed such personalities, the rest of the world would be of the opinion that each of your elections is a struggle between whether it is the Communist or the Theocrat Party who can tamper with the most ballot boxes to rig the election.

dblboggie wrote:Again, I respectfully disagree. The very headline of the article (which is the subject title of this thread) is blaming political rhetoric for Gifford’s shooting. And yet, nothing could be further from the truth. The perpetrator of this act, as we are now learning, was not politically motivated and did not listen to talk radio or follow politics on TV. These facts make the headline and the entire premise of the article a false one.

dblboggie, I respectfully disagree.. the debate never was about the killer acting on the instructions of a political group.. the debate was on the effect of the hatred poured out by all sides of America's extreme politicos.. one only has to remember that the sheriff questioned to the right wing hate speech when he first spoke about the shooting.. one only has to remember the parents of the shoot woman saying they hated the tea-party when asked if they hated any one for the shooting.. it is with such a background of political hate, that all these debates held.. and as such the shootings and the political hate speech can and should be spoken of in the same breath.. but not as being the same thing.

While you are certainly free to disagree, you are wrong about the debate here. Our debate, the one Matt and I are having in this thread, is on the article titled: “Gabrielle Giffords is the victim of a debased political culture.” The title makes it quite clear that the political culture is at least culpable in Giffords’ shooting. If you are going to contribute to an ongoing debate, you might wish to review the entire thread to get ginned in on what is being debated. In this case, I posited that the author of the referenced article was biased and that the evidence for that was the fact that only conservative political speech was examined, even though the articles title and one small passing reference to a single leftist political talker imply that it is speech from both sides of the debate that contribute to the “debased political culture.”

However, addressing your disagreement above, I still say that your conclusion is wrong. The shooting of Giffords had nothing to do with the political rhetoric of the day as the killer was not a follower of political talk radio or TV and was, in fact, clearly insane. He had an undefined beef with Giffords going back to long before Palin was a known political figure or the existence of the Tea Party. Now, if you can think of another such murder that was, in fact, politically motivated, then you might have a case. Otherwise, your statement above is off the mark.

cable2 wrote:

"The political campaign rhetoric of 19th century America was every bit as overblown and aggressively partisan as it is today, if not more so."

and as such American historian dblboggie, I am sure you would be the first to admit that 19th century America political hate speech.. had murderous effect of many Amerians, even if few where instructed to carry out murders by any political group.

Oh really? And would you have specific examples of this?