First Comes Fear

Can "paranoid" political culture trigger violence in the unhinged?
I'm going to second Steve Benen's claim that this column by Harold Meyerson is an important addition to the debate over the shooting: The primary problem with the political discourse of the right in today's America isn't that it incites violence per se. It's that it implants and reinforces paranoid fears about the government and Conservatism's domestic adversaries. Much of the culture and thinking of the American right -- the mainstream as well as the fringe -- has descended into paranoid sup...

Right Wing Conservatives Going Nuts Over Seeing Themselves in Mirror
I don’t think I’ve ever seen this much panic among Right Wing commentators, but it’s not hard to understand what’s driving their fear. Their almost uniform response to any frame connecting Saturday’s shootings with their own conduct and statements has been couched in anger that the media, never mind liberals, would “Libel” them as somehow complicit in the Murders. Except almost no one is making that connection. The broadly accepted view across the media...

Now here’s an assassination to worry about
Just a suggestion, but can’t we lay off the Holocaust comparisons? I suspect I’m not the only one who thought Sarah Palin was ill-advised to accuse her critics of “blood Libel.” Sure, her motto is “Don’t retreat, reload.” But still. Likening your sufferings to those of two millenniums of persecuted Jews, who were accused of using the blood of Christian Children to make unleavened bread, does seem a wee bit over the top. On the other hand, she didn’...

Some Democrats seek to dial back overheated rhetoric on shootings
ANALYSIS: Some Democrats are calling for a cease-fire in a heated liberal campaign to pin blame for the Tucson, Ariz., massacre on conservative Speech and specifically on former Republican vice-presidential Candidate Sarah Palin. No evidence has surfaced that the shooting suspect, Jared Lee Loughner, was motivated by any Political Speech, left or right. News reports tell of a deeply troubled man who thinks the government orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, hates The Bible and was thrown out of coll...

Late Night: Try to Be Nice, And Look What It Gets You
It’s long been obvious that Conservatives conceive of “civility” solely in terms of point-scoring, because they are essentially sociopathic fuckwads. Oh, perhaps this is unfair. But as I was grouching about last night, “once you’ve gone ahead and, say, made excuses for state-sponsored Torture, if you want the benefit of the doubt, fuck you.” Honestly, one of the absolute minimum qualifications for entry into a Civil Discussion ought not to include an enthusi...

RFK Jr: You know, my uncle was also shot amid a climate of right-wing hate
Be sure to read the last post about Palin before you read Junior’s reminiscences or else you might not appreciate what a quintessential example this is of the left’s magical thinking about culpability. You want voodoo, you got it: Uncle Jack’s Speech in Dallas was to have been an explosive broadside against the Right Wing. He found Dallas’ streets packed five deep with Kennedy Democrats, but among them were the familiar ornaments of presidential hatred; high-flying conf...

Butch Assurance
Harold Meyerson had an interesting column in the Washington Post yesterday that examined the Right Wing's obsession with violence and paranoia.Last October, Glenn Beck was musing on his Radio Show about the prospect of the government seizing his Children if he didn't give them Flu Vaccines. "You want to take my kids because of that?" he said. "Meet Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson." Last April, Erick Erickson, the managing editor of the right-wing RedState blog and a CNN commentator, was questioning th...

Jared Loughner Terrified Everyone At His Old Community College
Email Sent! You have successfully emailed the post. Since the Arizona massacre on Saturday there have been some very pointless debates about the role of Rhetoric in American politics, and whether Sarah Palin used an inappropriate phrase in a video she posted on Vimeo. But the debate that will emerge have some actual impact is whether society ought to get even more aggressive about pro-actively protecting itself against psychos, which is exactly what everyone who came into contact with shooter J...

Michael Shaw: Reading the Pictures: James Bond Aside, Beck Has Been Swinging Free For Years
If yesterday's Screenshot of a pre-programmed, rotating background on the Beck home page proved anything, it's that the right has no monopoly on people who can get worked up over very little.  In the name of clarity, I created a slideshow at BagNewsNotes of backgrounds rotating on the Beck homepage, the first one being the screen shot above that set off many Left Wing heavy breathers, offering Beck seeming to play out a little James Bond fantasy.  (Although incendiary images have been disapp...

Inflammatory speech causing violence
Sarah Palin and her supporters along with the right-wing media are crying foul to suggestions that their inflammatory Rhetoric had any role in the horrendous assault in Arizona. Listening to the debate I could not help but think of the times I have stood by Eisenhower Lock on the Seaway and watched a ship go through with a load of Gasoline. Before the ship entered the lock, red lights came on and announcements were made to ensure that no one was smoking. In the presence of volatiles, the respo...

Never Forgive, Never Forget
I had a piece about half worked out in my head. It would have been a good piece, on inflammatory Rhetoric in politics. I was going to make a suggestion: that those most concerned with "calling out" those who use violent language start with their own sides first. I'd even set an example, by choosing some right-winger who I thought had gone too far and chewing them out -- then ask someone to point out a leftist going after one of their own. If they needed help, I'd point to any of a number of com...

NewsBusters Likens NY Times Krugman to Fred Phelps
NewsBusters Likens NY Times’ Krugman to Fred Phelps Topic: NewsBusters New York Times columnist Paul Krugman takes a lot of abuse from right-wingers for his liberal political views and his economic theories that contradict the right-wing way of doing things (never mind that Krugman did receive a Nobel Prize in economics). But did you know that Krugman is just like Fred Phelps, pastor of Kansas’ Westboro Baptist Church and best known for leading his tiny flock in odious Protests of fu...

Palin: Attacks over shooting are 'blood libel'
Sarah Palin today accused her opponents of Manufacturing a "blood Libel" by suggesting her Rhetoric and campaign tactics had anything to do with the Arizona shootings. Four days after an incident which left six people dead and critically injured the congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Palin released a video statement condemning the attack. She denied that a now infamous campaign map showing Giffords's electoral district in the cross hairs of a gun had influenced the shooter Jared Lee Loughner. In ...

Demonizing opponents for supposed "hate speech" is itself a form a hate speech
We pray for the families of those who were gunned down indiscriminately in Tucson last week. Some will survive their wounds and we are grateful for that. I am grateful for the heroes we've heard about as the story of what happened trickle out. Dorwan Stoddard protected his wife Mavy by throwing himself over her as the bullets flew. She survived. He did not. The intern Daniel Hernandez used his medical training to support Congresswoman Giffords in the crucial few minutes after she was shot an...

Closing the Gap
When Jared Loughner walked into the Sportsman’s Warehouse in Tucson, Arizona, to purchase a Glock 19 on November 30, 2010, he had every right to walk out the legal owner of the semi-automatic Handgun. In hindsight, after he used that weapon to kill six innocent people and wound more than a dozen during an attempted Assassination of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, it is easy to question that sale. Given current U.S. Gun Laws, however, there was no reason to prohibit the transacti...

Jared Loughners gun: The assassins weapon of choice
Glock helped create the modern U.S. gun market — and has become a preferred killing tool for criminals and the mentally disturbed. Gun-control advocates hope last weekend’s Arizona massacre will finally bring scrutiny to the secretive—and many say, sinister—Austrian company that made the semi-automatic pistol used to grievously wound Representative Gabrielle Giffords and leave six others dead. The family-run gunmaker, the Glock company, headquartered in a small Austrian v...

Officers stopped suspect on day of shooting...
TUCSON, Ariz. – A wildlife officer pulled over the suspect in the Assassination attempt against an Arizona congresswoman less than three hours before the deadly attack, authorities said Wednesday as they pieced together more details of a frenzied morning. Jared Lougher ran a red light but was let off with a warning at 7:30 a.m. Saturday, the Arizona Game and Fish Department said. The officer took Loughner's driver's license and vehicle registration information but found no outstanding warr...

Americans contemplate toning down their rhetoric
Angry and grief-stricken over the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords on Saturday, Alicia Berhow typed out a Facebook posting she'd later regret. As she recalls, it went something like, "Sarah Palin, you disgust me." This Story Americans contemplate toning down their Rhetoric Audio: Jared Loughner's 2007 court appearance Investigators Probe Loughner's gun purchase, examine finances Loughner family expresses sorrow for 'heinous' attack; doctors say Giffords making progress A Tucson Y...

My Name is Betsy. I'm a Killer
On the morning of January 8th, 2011, I intentionally entered a gathering held by Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, and shot her at near point blank range. I injured 14 others, killing six: among them a beautiful, curious, doe-eyed, nine-year-old girl. I didn't actually pull the trigger, but I'm as guilty as the psychopath who did. On occasion, I listen to Beck, Limbaugh, and Fox News. I've been known to pick up a book or two by conservative authors; Thomas Sowell, Andrew McCarthy, or the Foundi...

Alert Captain Renault
pic via Bruce_Fulton at flickr.com The usual right-wing suspects seem to really have strong objections to any memorial service involving someone who isn’t right-wing. From Paul Wellstone to Coretta Scott King to Ted Kennedy and so it shall be in regard to the service for the Victims of the violence of Jared Lee Loughner (three name rule for all assassins). Because THAT is the first thing you complain about after a service remembering victims…not the victims, but how the Memorial Se...

Dupnik Denounces 'Vitriolic Rhetoric' -- With Left-Wing Vitriolic Rhetoric (Larry Elder)
Creators Syndicate – Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik took time from gathering the facts about the Tucson, Ariz., shooting to denounce the "vitriolic Rhetoric" that he claims played a role in the carnage. He insisted, without any evidence, that Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' support for ObamaCare helped trigger the shooter's wrath, resulting in six dead and 13 wounded, including Rep. Giffords, who was shot point-blank in the head. "I think it's time as ...

Knesset To Investigate Funding of Left-Wing Israeli NGOs for Terror Ties
Amid growing fury on the Israeli right toward the country’s Human Rights groups, the Knesset has approved two motions aimed at examining whether there are skeletons in NGO closets. The separate but similar motions, submitted by the Yisrael Beiteinu and Likud parties, mandate a Knesset investigation of funding sources of left-leaning nongovernmental organizations. The motions, passed January 6 by large majorities, emerged from the Knesset’s two largest right-wing parties. The response in Am...

Art of War, Media Messages, and Conservative Terrorists
The debate rages on, and thanks to media spin and constant false equivalencies, at least one poll has 57% of its respondents rejecting any possibility of inflammatory Speech having any influence over Jared Lee Loughner's actions on Saturday morning. Welcome to the confluence of media echoes and denial. It was predictable, this la-la-la response. Kneejerk, even. No one wants to believe that words can influence, because that would require individuals to own their own words. God forbid. This is tru...

No More Mister Nice Blog
THE Conspiracy TO KEEP YOU PERPETUALLY ENRAGED (AND, INCIDENTALLY, PARANOID) Steve Benen and Atrios have both flagged this Harold Meyerson column in The Washington Post, and I thought I'd add my thoughts about why right-wing Rhetoric inevitab...

The Plum Line: The right-wing narrative about Clinton, the Oklahoma bombing, and Obama
President Obama is heading to Arizona to commemorate the Victims of Saturday's events in Tucson, and Conservatives are already expressing concern about a replay of Bill Clinton's 1995 Speech denouncing "purveyors of hatred and division" on the airwaves in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing. In a preemptive strike, Conservatives are already misrepresenting the history of that event, arguing that Clinton politicized the bombing for his own gain. At National Review, John J. Mil...