The fact that conservatives moved swiftly to marginalize and demonize him and his words, that was a tell.

My grandfather used to tell the story of a man whose pocket was picked in a crowded station. He immediately shouted, “The thief’s hat is burning!” and looked to see who grabbed for his hat. Or as we say in the US, “If the shoe fits….”

Permit me to “toss=in” a polemic here and to this thread.

First, I start on the premise for Honor, and which comes in three parts and thusly,

1. Honor Achieved.

2. Honor Recognized.

3. Honor Received.

Therfore, who among us has been on this “receiving” end of Honor?

Our Elected and Appointed Officials? I think not.

However, our Mililtary Veterans and the men and women currently wearing our nation’s uniform. And more specifically, I am speaking of the men and women and who comprise the Privates, the Corporals, and the Sergeants. Obviously, I am quaintly dismissing the Admirals and Generals since they turned their backs on these Privates, Corporals, and Sergeants, and in doing so, opted for their ass-savant careers during Bush’s War of Choice.

And with this “yardstick” as my measuring tool, I can easily notice that among all the “voices” in our public discourse, the most egregious voices of incivility comes from those persons and who have never worn our nation’s uniform, and yet this voice of their fealty to our national security and defense, as long as the taxpayer dollars continue to “trickle down” per the neo-cons on the right and the “trickle up” as per the neo-liberals on the left, will continue unabated.

In closing, I gently remind myself that the law enforcement authorities in the Tucson area, wanted to confiscate the school records of the elementary school kids, and done in order to “racially profile” more brown people for being undocumented immigrants. But this was all for naught when the “closed loop of information” was quietly shattered when the law enforcement authorities were criticized by military veterans for their wanting to “investigate the broken reflectors on these kids’ bikes.” So, when military veterans speak out and represent their Honor, anyone in opposition, will get tossed under the bus, and respectfully so. Now, if only more veterans would speak out, and done loudly, incivility would go the way of political crappola and and quickly tossed into the trash bin of history.

Jaango

We will need to have the mother of all posts from our most thoughtful contributors on the day when the right wing stops hopping.

To be redundant, if those on the right who willfully indulge themselves in hate speech advocating violence against politicians and citizens don’t wish to be associated with *that very thing when it happens,* then WHY do they spend their time on the airwaves willfully advocating for violence against politicians and citizens??? Why run away from it when it happens??? It’s what they advocated for and gave direct instructions to their listeners to do. So… ergo, why not embrace when it happens?

My questions are only partially rhetorical and no snark is intended.

The right-wing misdirection — “liberals say we pulled the trigger” — does two things: it hides the real issue, which is the use of hateful, violent language to build fear (and make a dollar); and, it protects the hateful offenders from a growing awareness that they are the problem.

Your focus here is just right, I think. And we are doing a good job of keeping the focus where it belongs.

Right now, the public isn’t ready to believe an argument that Jared Loughner was motivated by right-wing rhetoric.

The problem with these polls — and it is a huge problem — is that at least half the country hasn’t heard the vitriol spewing from right-wing radio, and the half that listens to it regularly is not going to admit any connection to any consequences.

My friends who are all high information voters have absolutely no idea how evil nor how pervasive this vitriol is. So asking them in a poll about it is useless. They mistakenly think the weak brew they have heard from the MSM is typical. It isn’t. It is MUCH worse.

It’s integral to the plan to ignite the inferno then run away from it.

Put more simply, the real vitriol — the stuff that will drive violence sooner or later — is way below most folks’ radar screen.

You make a good point. To be quite honest, I personnally know very little because my exposure is limited mostly to clips on shows like Keith Olbermann & Rachel Maddow. Once in a great while, I’ve some nasty diatribes on the radio but can only stand it in very small doses.

I think a large segment of society really doesn’t get just how toxic, viscious, nasty and incendiary the language and rank exhortations have gotten.

Those who listen regularly are often in complete denial about terribly toxic the language has become and/or they just don’t want to admit it.

So, no, a poll is not going tell us much of anything in this case.

Of course, but as has been discussed here today, I think that those are very real and very serious questions to ask conservatives who push back. IF you don’t “mean” what you’re saying/shouting, then WHY say it at all??

here’s another version: “Liberals told us we could.” “And it is our first amendment rights to say we wished they were dead!”

IF you don’t “mean” what you’re saying/shouting, then WHY say it at all??

To provoke a gut reaction among your own supporters and the opposite gut reaction on the other side.

Most words that pols & pundits say in the U.S. these days seems to be just propaganda and may or may not bear any relation to anything they may or may not really mean.

Kinda like congressional hearings, only with a lot more vitriol.

Tweety is on fire and just sextupled-down on palin and her denial of responsibility for the map imagery.
He is the only villager to refuse to carry the water of denial for the grifter. He acknowledged there wasn’t a DIRECT link but chose to believe his lyin’ eyes that there is implicit connection when a target is placed over the name of a person who ended up shot.
Later he had sheriff Dupnick on to reinforce the point which he did very thoughtfully.

Yes, and then they shout. “Look over there! There is a building on fire.” To quickly change the subject.

Why am I reminded of the anthrax killings?

the village witch doctors have scryed a 15 lb. heap of fresh steaming rush limbaugh poo and discerned that this not – random act of “senseless” violence (compared to completely sensible official violence) happened completely independently of, and without any influence from, any calls to armed insurrection that the fat man, or any other private or public figures have made. any other opinions are harmful, and may lead to violence (if we dont “watch our step”)

Nice.

Always good to merember the anthrax attacks. One of the several that ‘never’ occurred on W’s watch.

The main claim is that the toxic stew of noxious rhetoric, particularly in Loughner’s home district and home state of Arizona, creates an environment that amps up a lunatic fringe.

This is well put. But it is getting lost in the MSM discussion. The teachable moment here is that there IS a well organized, persistent, right-wing, violence-inducing megaphone running 24 hours a day across the country that IS designed to produce acts of intimidation, if not murder. The MSM with their so-called “balanced” and “he said/she said” approach to news has failed to inform Americans about it.

Sheesh! Then Congress doesn’t need to spend the money on their fancy bullet proof screen. There you go. It was nothing, look away now, it meant nothing./ s

failed to inform and or actively blamed the victims

Yep. Brought to you daily by Clear Channel on your local radio stations.

designed to produce acts of intimidation, if not murder.

Thanks for that. Called ‘chilling effect’ in polite company.

Concur.

Speaking of wingnuts…

I went back to read #15 for a third time. I laughed at first, then I got a response in my mind. Now, I’m just pissed.

Does Rush expect the good Congress woman and those people killed and wounded to tell the shooter they are sorry they were in his way? Cheney style?

I’m telling ya. They get crazier by the moment.

Who broke that vase? Two people in the room say… NOT ME!

‘Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) says political rhetoric doesn’t really incite violent behavior at all — but not before describing Arizona shooting suspect Jared Loughner as a “communist” and “the liberal of liberals.’

Librals are communist? Oh, the bigger picture is that we now have commie’s after us? See what I mean about mental instability in our leadership?

Here’s the obvious remedy: They can all STFU – beginning now.

Their false equivalency of “both sides do it” is bogus. No progressive has published a map with crosshairs on it stating to “reload” against Republicans any time in my recent recollection.

‘nuf said.

The GOP is hopping mad….they’re cornered, that’s why. The prima facie video evidence of GOP congressmen making gun analogies and calling for revolution and violence is enough without adding the likes of Pyro Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, O’Reilly. Hell Bachman should be censured by her colleagues for asking her constituents to be ‘armed & dangerous’.

It’s time to tell them that ‘words have consequences’ – violent imagery has consequences which is to quite Gabby Giffords while speaking about being target by Miss Demagogue Palin herself.

I think our laws need to be challenged on precisely who/what is considered to be ‘aiding and abetting’ in the incitement of violence.

Jared may have pulled the trigger but Palin lit that particular match.

WRT anthrax attacks, I wish that at every prez, DoJ, FBI presser, some one asks about it, and then in response to the non-A, sez “I’ll note for the record you did not A the Q.”

I also would like a pony.

How do we begin a movement for Congress to censure Bachman for her “armed & dangerous” comments to her constituents.

If sitting members of Congress participate in hate speech or incitement to violence, then it’s time to either have them expelled from office or censure them.

It’s time to put every politico, radio talkie, and Fox on notice that we will no longer tolerate violent imagery, violent speech, or any form of gun terminology in our body politic.

Absolutely! I want a pony too. Of course, I want a lot of things, but I’m definitely not buying or taking what the Chamber of Commerce is up to with the Prez.

It would also be nice (but a pipe dream, I realize) to have their intentional LIES trotted out as such and have them clarified for the american people.

The combination of twisting truth to outright lying in our faces and violent speech/imagery is all an unhinged individual needs to commit crimes.

We’ve got to nip this in the bud – at it’s genesis – at it’s root. That happens to be all of the Fox hate speakers for starters, members of congress who engage in gun rhetoric, and political pyromaniacs like Palin who throws her torches from afar and then, like a coward, runs from her wrongdoing.

rush infuriates me so much that i have to remind myself not to think about his fat ass. heres why: rush thinks he is a karl rove and roger ailes protege. rush is a man of medicore intellect, but great enthusiam. he thinks he is in on the “big picture” rovian strategy that history watched flame out and burn 2006-2008. but like fat, umpopular, slow thinking, but determined 13 year old, rush keeps flogging the dead horse. like a 13 year old rush thinks the force of his misdirected will can change the past. except for roger ailes, who is in a different league and class than rush,limbaugh is the worst and most dangerous of all the right wing talkers. fist of all his show is syndicated one podunk AM radio station at a time, not a huge netowrk like FOX but many small ones, which would make it hard to get him cancelled.Second, he really believes he is doing something great for rich people and, becuase hes never accomplished any good in his entire worthless life, this is very important to him and he takes it all as seriously as a heart attack. (unlike glen beck but that is a turd of a different color)

Where have you been? Did you not know that Obama is a Radical Liberal Communist Muslim from Keyna?

Start a letter writing campaign? I have no idea. I wrote letters to speaker Pelosi with no response and no consideration in legislation.

They really aren’t interested in what you have to say. The FCC which should monitor the airwaves doesn’t give a damn.

We’ve got to nip this in the bud

Far too late for that.

On edit: It was even too late after the O election & before the inauguration, when at least 3 of us here pointed out how wingnut O is. And that was 2 yearz ago.

He angers me as well. I don’t listen to him often but when I drive to the grocer I turn it on just to see what his rant is that day.

Poppy Bush gave Rush money and helped to set him up as the radiohead for conservatives.

Rep Foxx needs to relearn her history.

“Where have you been? Did you not know that Obama is a Radical Liberal Communist Muslim from Keyna?”

Oh I’ve heard the rumors. As far as, Libral and radical I just can’t get on that train. I think he is the best gift the GOP has had since Clinton.

Definitely! Relearn being the key word.

The frightening point is that their are citizens who return Foxx, Bachmann, et al. to Congress again and again.
How does one correct that? “What’s the Matter With Kansas” needs a rewrite to include the areas that keep sending the nutbags to run our country.

G2geek on Daily Kos has a very interesting diary, Stochaistic Terrorism: Triggering the shooters. He analyzes the cause and effects of the coy strategy the rightwing is carrying out as providing plausible deniability because it operates stochastically.

In this model, Giffords’ district in Arizona became a high probability location for this sort of violence exactly because of the inflammatory rhetoric that has engulfed Arizona beginning with GOP legislative efforts to forestall the demographic trend towards a blue state. It isn’t about immigration; it is about the folks who have already become legal citizens (or always were). But it could equally well have been an attack on another Democratic “moderate” member of Congress in an area with a different hyped up issue.

And it is not so long ago that some unnamed, no doubt “unstable” individual cut the propane line at Tom Perriello’s brother’s house because a blogger put out the address of the wrong Perriello. Now, the talk show host didn’t advocate violence but just asked his listeners to show up on Perriello’s doorstep and let him know (in classic “torches and pitchforks” political rhetoric what they thought about the healthcare bill then going through Congress.

And John Boehner’s response at the time:

Following the incident in which someone cut a gas line at his brother’s home — whose address had been posted online by tea partiers — Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA) says he isn’t satisfied with a statement from Minority Leader John Boehner on threats against Democrats.

Boehner’s statement said in part, “But, as I’ve said, violence and threats are unacceptable. That’s not the American way. We need to take that anger and channel it into positive change.”

It is a scripted piece. The only part that is random is which person will pop up to do the dirty work. Then the calls for calm by Congressional Republican leadership. And then the backlash by Limbaugh, Virginia Fox, Steve King, or whoever the self-appointed or designated defenders of the “One true way” are on the issue of the moment.

And given the lack of remorse on the part of the talkers, it will happen again.

Where’s EDIT when we need it????

Whatsamater? Black boxes and little to no media coverage of the truth.

I used to be stunned by the vitriole and venom dripping tone of Tony Snow when he substituted for Limbaugh [my late hubby believed in knowing one's adversaries]. Tony Snow, one of the penultimate insiders. But put a radio talk show microphone in front of him and the bile poured out. Wonder how many of his cocktail party cronies ever actually listened to what he said and how he said it?

Speaking of the three of you, I haven’t seen a comment from Hugh for months. Do you know the reason for his absence?

David Dayen is upstairs!
Concealed Carrying Bystander Nearly Killed Innocent Man During Tucson Shooting

Fascinating.

I have looked around the internet, and quickly found two websites, Townhall.com and BusinessInsider.com, that were carrying the TakeBack20 campaign rhetoric from Sarah Palin’s PAC, in order to see what the echoes in the right wing chamber were sounding like, and what kind of intent was being conveyed to their audience. The claim in much of the mainstream media, who are as a group known to be soft on hard right society in order to keep their corporate advertising stream intact and to avoid accusations of liberal bias, is that the rifle scope crosshairs image and accompanying rhetoric should be considered a common ambiguous metaphor, open to interpretation, and therefore not grounds for any accusation against its authors in the Giffords shooting.

What I found seems to be a matrix of language that would very easily, in sum, be interpreted by violently predisposed individuals as encouragement to attack. Politics is the sphere of activity where the energies of society are interpreted and directed into action. Therefore, highly charged political language carries a high impetus for action in the constituent audience. If such action goes awry, of course, it can precipitate culpability on the part of politicians, and thus we have the art of ambiguous language which the speakers hope will serve as sufficiently indirect incitement for people to vote but not to take direct action.

In this process, metaphorical images may lose their ambiguity when accompanied by additional specific descriptive terms. These additional descriptors serve to exclude some of the possible activities being referred to by the primary image of the metaphor. In this case, the crosshairs image ambiguously refers to at least shooting, surveying or use of scientific scopes. But the ambiguity of crosshairs becomes more specific from the accompanying language, including the words “reloading” and “knocking off Democrats” (Townhall.com), or “sniper” (BusinessInsider.com). Since one doesn’t reload or knock anyone off when engaged in surveying or scientific research, when these terms are added to the discussion that eliminates the other possible interpretations of the image besides shooting, and changes the metaphor into a description, or perhaps a subliminal imperative in the listening of an unstable person who might be uncomfortable in their lifestyle and looking for dramatic input to improve their personal experience.

I think we need to acknowledge where and when the the political rhetoric really got heated and who is responsible. How many of us praised these types of things in the past? Anyone remember the attitudes towards the Bush administration?

http://michellemalkin.com/2011/01/10/the-progressive-climate-of-hate-an-illustrated-primer-2000-2010/

Just one thing -

That these morons are doubling down on this shouldn’t surprise anybody.

Again I shouldn’t have to point out this country is -

1) Racist, still referring to Obama as Black, incorrect and the “one drop rule” is in full effect, including Vanessa Williams, Jennifer Beals, Tony Gonzalez, Vin Diesel and “The Rock” who all have Black parents and aren’t considered Black in some circles of society.

This is letting the Right control the debate and the Left buying into it cause its convenient.

2) Loves its gun culture, from Rambo to Call of Duty: Black Ops. Gun Shows? Are you kidding me?

3) The Right in totally unapologetic for anything it does and how they still get into office is our love of Guns, God and hatred of LBGT and anybody not White.

So NONE OF THIS SHOULD SURPRISE YOU. All this flapping of gums and keyboards on the Left makes me upset at the Left. That’s all where good at doing is TALKING.

@HeadWest

I never hated Bush, he’s a moron, how can you hate somebody that can’t put complete sentences together? You feel sorry for him at best.

Darth Vader ran this country, you and I both know that.