Conservative media feeds hate crime

[DarrinS]

or something


This is why the traditional liberal media and especially newspapers are dying.



http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/opinion/12krugman.html?_r=2







Back in April, there was a huge fuss over an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security warning that current conditions resemble those in the early 1990s — a time marked by an upsurge of right-wing extremism that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Conservatives were outraged. The chairman of the Republican National Committee denounced the report as an attempt to “segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration” and label them as terrorists.

But with the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic, closely followed by a shooting by a white supremacist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the analysis looks prescient.

There is, however, one important thing that the D.H.S. report didn’t say: Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.

Now, for the most part, the likes of Fox News and the R.N.C. haven’t directly incited violence, despite Bill O’Reilly’s declarations that “some” called Dr. Tiller “Tiller the Baby Killer,” that he had “blood on his hands,” and that he was a “guy operating a death mill.” But they have gone out of their way to provide a platform for conspiracy theories and apocalyptic rhetoric, just as they did the last time a Democrat held the White House.

And at this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream conservatism and the black-helicopter crowd seems to have been virtually erased.

Exhibit A for the mainstreaming of right-wing extremism is Fox News’s new star, Glenn Beck. Here we have a network where, like it or not, millions of Americans get their news — and it gives daily airtime to a commentator who, among other things, warned viewers that the Federal Emergency Management Agency might be building concentration camps as part of the Obama administration’s “totalitarian” agenda (although he eventually conceded that nothing of the kind was happening).

But let’s not neglect the print news media. In the Bush years, The Washington Times became an important media player because it was widely regarded as the Bush administration’s house organ. Earlier this week, the newspaper saw fit to run an opinion piece declaring that President Obama “not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself,” and that in any case he has “aligned himself” with the radical Muslim Brotherhood.

And then there’s Rush Limbaugh. His rants today aren’t very different from his rants in 1993. But he occupies a different position in the scheme of things. Remember, during the Bush years Mr. Limbaugh became very much a political insider. Indeed, according to a recent Gallup survey, 10 percent of Republicans now consider him the “main person who speaks for the Republican Party today,” putting him in a three-way tie with Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich. So when Mr. Limbaugh peddles conspiracy theories — suggesting, for example, that fears over swine flu were being hyped “to get people to respond to government orders” — that’s a case of the conservative media establishment joining hands with the lunatic fringe.

It’s not surprising, then, that politicians are doing the same thing. The R.N.C. says that “the Democratic Party is dedicated to restructuring American society along socialist ideals.” And when Jon Voight, the actor, told the audience at a Republican fund-raiser this week that the president is a “false prophet” and that “we and we alone are the right frame of mind to free this nation from this Obama oppression,” Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, thanked him, saying that he “really enjoyed” the remarks.

Credit where credit is due. Some figures in the conservative media have refused to go along with the big hate — people like Fox’s Shepard Smith and Catherine Herridge, who debunked the attacks on that Homeland Security report two months ago. But this doesn’t change the broad picture, which is that supposedly respectable news organizations and political figures are giving aid and comfort to dangerous extremism.

What will the consequences be? Nobody knows, of course, although the analysts at Homeland Security fretted that things may turn out even worse than in the 1990s — that thanks, in part, to the election of an African-American president, “the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years.”

And that’s a threat to take seriously. Yes, the worst terrorist attack in our history was perpetrated by a foreign conspiracy. But the second worst, the Oklahoma City bombing, was perpetrated by an all-American lunatic. Politicians and media organizations wind up such people at their, and our, peril.

[Winehole23]

And that’s a threat to take seriously. Yes, the worst terrorist attack in our history was perpetrated by a foreign conspiracy. But the second worst, the Oklahoma City bombing, was perpetrated by an all-American lunatic. Politicians and media organizations wind up such people at their, and our, peril.Is there a version of this point that you agree with? At least regarding hateful libs?

[Winehole23]

Your post on Von Brunn yesterday seems to back ^^^ up.

[DarrinS]

As a conservative, I think INDIVIDUALS are responsible for their own actions.

[Winehole23]

As a conservative, I think INDIVIDUALS are responsible for their own actions.I guess that's why you keep posting articles suggesting *liberal beliefs* are the cause of everything evil in the world, as well as making political hay of the bad guy du jour.

[FaithInOne]

You have some individuals that hear Beck and the rest of these guys and take it far enough in their minds to the point they carry out related actions.

What are you going to do? Limit free speech? Free Speech is protected by the founding fathers because they knew one day offensive speech would be the only truth left. There is no need to protect nice happy speech. Especially when it's state sponsored. :hat

[DarrinS]

I guess that's why you keep posting articles suggesting *liberal beliefs* are the cause of everything evil in the world, as well as making political hay of the bad guy du jour.

huh?


example?

[Winehole23]

Yesterday, von Brunn.

[Winehole23]

Short term memory problem?

[Winehole23]

It's like posting Rosanne Barr after castigating ST posters for their excessive focus on celebrities. Too funny.

[DarrinS]

Yesterday, von Brunn.


Pointing out hypocrisy.

[Winehole23]

The hypocrisy of what? The article you posted?

[DarrinS]

I guess that's why you keep posting articles suggesting *liberal beliefs* are the cause of everything evil in the world, as well as making political hay of the bad guy du jour.


It's interesting that you should use the word evil. One of the problems liberalism is that you don't believe in evil. That's why the liberal media's knee jerk reaction to the murder of Tiller and the guard at the Holocaust museum is to condemn talk radio and Bill O'Reilly. That's why we have a president that won't even say "terrorism" in his Cairo speech. That's why we have "insurgents" and "man-made disaster" and "overseas contingency operations". That's why we have a president that, in one sentence, mentions the Holocaust, and starts his next sentence with "On the other hand...". WTF?

Evidently, the only "evil" that liberals believe in is Dick Cheney.

[Winehole23]

It's interesting that you should use the word evil. One of the problems liberalism is that you don't believe in evil. That's why the liberal media's knee jerk reaction to the murder of Tiller and the guard at the Holocaust museum is to condemn talk radio and Bill O'Reilly. As compared with Glenn Beck's kneejerk attempt to characterize Von Brunn as a leftist.

[Winehole23]

I see what you mean.

[DarrinS]

A great example of how the liberal mind interprets "evil".

No mention of radical Islamists. No mention of 911. He actually turns it around and points the finger back at the US.

Nice.


jR6OCBF8fvo

[DarrinS]

As compared with Glenn Beck's kneejerk attempt to characterize Von Brunn as a leftist.


Equally vile.


EDIT> The difference is, I acknowledge it, you don't.

[Winehole23]

Equally vile.


EDIT> The difference is, I acknowledge it, you don't.Actually, I pointed it out and you took credit. Clever.

[DarrinS]

Actually, I pointed it out and you took credit. Clever.


von Brunn is as much a leftist is he is a right-winger.


Regardless, I don't blame MSNBC or Fox News for the acts of a madman .

[Winehole23]

A great example of how the liberal mind interprets "evil".

No mention of radical Islamists. No mention of 911. He actually turns it around and points the finger back at the US.

Nice.You're a tribalist.

The more conventional religious take on human nature and evil acknowledges it is everywhere, in everyone, without exception.

[DarrinS]

You're a tribalist.

The more conventional religious take on human nature and evil acknowledges it is everywhere, in everyone, without exception.


Do we ignore it? Do we negotiate with it? Do we contain it? Or do we defeat it?

[Winehole23]

Do we ignore it? Do we negotiate with it? Do we contain it? Or do we defeat it?In ourselves you mean?

[PixelPusher]

Do we ignore it? Do we negotiate with it? Do we contain it? Or do we defeat it?

Hubris and folly.

[Winehole23]

Hubris and folly.The tragic view of things used to inform conservatism. Now conservatives are are world-reforming Wilsonian idealists.

[DarrinS]

Hubris and folly.


Whatever you do, you don't insult it.


-BHO

[PixelPusher]

Whatever you do, you don't insult it.


-BHO

Deus Le Volt!

-GWB

[George Gervin's Afro]

or something


This is why the traditional liberal media and especially newspapers are dying.



http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/opinion/12krugman.html?_r=2

Or maybe the internet and other free sources of news are readily more available?

You know what gets me about 'conservatives'? This is a perfect example.
Darrins wants us to believe the 'real' reason that newspapers are dying is because they bash conservatives. There MANY reasons why this is happening yet conservatives are are so narrow in their thinking they have convinced themselves that this is becasue the paper is dissing them..:rolleyes


This notion that everyone is out to get conservatives is silly..

Paranoia will destroy ya..

[DarrinS]

Deus Le Volt!

-GWB



If that offends you, you really shouldn't read Dreams From My Father.

[DarrinS]

Or maybe the internet and other free sources of news are readily more available?

You know what gets me about 'conservatives'? This is a perfect example.
Darrins wants us to believe the 'real' reason that newspapers are dying is because they bash conservatives. There MANY reasons why this is happening yet conservatives are are so narrow in their thinking they have convinced themselves that this is becasue the paper is dissing them..:rolleyes


This notion that everyone is out to get conservatives is silly..

Paranoia will destroy ya..



No, I don't believe that. But there is a reason that CBS and MSNBC get their asses handed to them in ratings.


Newspapers? I agree with you that internet and alternative sources are killing them. Besides, their news is aged. The Daily Show did a really funny skit on The New York Times, although it was a little bit insulting, IMO.

[PixelPusher]

If that offends you, you really shouldn't read Dreams From My Father.
On the contrary, I thought it offered a nice contrast to the crusader diatribe of the last 8 years.

[DarrinS]

On the contrary, I thought it offered a nice contrast to the crusader diatribe of the last 8 years.

Then you didn't really read it.

[Winehole23]

:rollin

[PixelPusher]

Then you didn't really read it.

the quote or the book?

[Winehole23]

(redacted)

[George Gervin's Afro]

No, I don't believe that. But there is a reason that CBS and MSNBC get their asses handed to them in ratings.


Newspapers? I agree with you that internet and alternative sources are killing them. Besides, their news is aged. The Daily Show did a really funny skit on The New York Times, although it was a little bit insulting, IMO.

Again another un true asumption..maybe, just maybe Fox news does so well is because they cater their news to 45% of the country? The other 55% have hundreds of opitons to choose from so it makes sense their ratings are more watered down..

we have 10 blue channels to 1 red channel..


Of course if you like red then you go to the red channel and if you like blue then you have ten to choose from. naturally the red channel is going to have higher ratings because it is the only choice as opposed to the ten who share veiwers.

[LnGrrrR]

It's interesting that you should use the word evil. One of the problems liberalism is that you don't believe in evil. That's why the liberal media's knee jerk reaction to the murder of Tiller and the guard at the Holocaust museum is to condemn talk radio and Bill O'Reilly. That's why we have a president that won't even say "terrorism" in his Cairo speech. That's why we have "insurgents" and "man-made disaster" and "overseas contingency operations". That's why we have a president that, in one sentence, mentions the Holocaust, and starts his next sentence with "On the other hand...". WTF?

Evidently, the only "evil" that liberals believe in is Dick Cheney.

Strawman.

Liberals are willing to play the moral relativism game as well as conservatives. Remember, enhanced interrogation isn't evil because it saves American lives. Using a nuke in WWII wasn't evil because it saved American lives. Katrina was caused because of gays... etc etc :D

[DarrinS]

we have 10 blue channels to 1 red channel..





Very true. Nice to see someone admit it.

[DarrinS]

Remember, enhanced interrogation isn't evil because it saves American lives.


Yep



Using a nuke in WWII wasn't evil because it saved American lives.


Right again.

[Winehole23]

^^^Postmodern relativism. Darrin favors situational ethics over traditional morality and sacrifices his moral conscience to tribal expedience.

[DarrinS]

A nice response to the stupid ass article in the OP

Go to about 1:00

V8r4j4liQFU

[angrydude]

A nice response to the stupid ass article in the OP

Go to about 1:00

V8r4j4liQFU


This sort of thing really pisses me off. There are good legitimate reasons to dislike Paul Krugman, there are good legitimate arguments against all sorts of things Democrats stand for, but Republicans or at least the people shilling for Republicans would rather talk crazy talk and paranoia then keep a level head.

[DarrinS]

This sort of thing really pisses me off. There are good legitimate reasons to dislike Paul Krugman, there are good legitimate arguments against all sorts of things Democrats stand for, but Republicans or at least the people shilling for Republicans would rather talk crazy talk and paranoia then keep a level head.

I think the response was well deserved.

[ChumpDumper]

That wasn't a response at all. Beck actually fits the black helicopter mode to a T and he proved it at that 1:00 mark.

Beck said Krugman lumped him in with the conspiracy theorists because it is part of an anti-conservative conspiracy.

:lol

[Winehole23]

NRO's Andrew McCarthy doesn't read too good (http://mediamatters.org/blog/200906120004)

June 12, 2009 8:56 am ET by Eric Boehlert


Over at The Corner, McCarthy's busy bashing (http://mediamatters.org/rd?to=http%3A%2F%2Fcorner.nationalreview.com%2Fpos t%2F%3Fq%3DOThjY2RmMDU0NGI3NjA3ZGE5MWUyMzc4MjNkZTQ 4MjY%3D) the Department Homeland Security that warned about possible acts of anti-Semitic violence from lone wolf white supremacists, just like the one that struck the Holocaust Museum. Y'know, the report that also warned about right-wing domestic terrorists, like the one who is accused of assassinating abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, and the right-wing gun nut charged with killing Pittsburgh cops.



But McCarthy's angry because despite that obvious trend of far-right attacks, he's sure the DHS report, which warned about precisely that kind of violence, was somehow off the mark. Whatever you say Andrew.
But this passage was especially embarrassing [emphasis added]:

The DHS report was noxious because it smeared conservatives as bigots and claimed, in the absence of any evidence that “right-wing extremists may be gaining new recruits”
Number of times "conservative" was mentioned in the DHS report? Zero.


Why conservatives continue to see their own reflection in a report that's basically about skinheads and white supremacists remains one of the more troubling political questions of 2009.

[LnGrrrR]

Yep



Right again.


Thank you for proving my point. :) As long as the people we're doing it to are 'evil' (or if even some of them are.. I mean, I'm pretty sure there were some civilians nuked, but they were probably doing SOMETHING wrong)... then it's ok for us to stoop to their level, or kill them, maim them, etc etc.

That seems like moral relativism to me. *shrug*

[DarrinS]

BREITBART: Left cries 'racist' in crowded country (http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/15/the-left-cries-racist-in-a-crowded-country/?feat=home_headlines)





In its obvious zeal to create a one-party state, the Democrat-Media Complex (the natural coalition of the Democratic Party and the mainstream media) last week seized upon the horrific murder of a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington as an opportunity to ascribe blame to the American conservative movement and to further marginalize the Republican Party.

In record time, the media's blind partisans and their feral friends in the left-wing blogosphere used the alleged "lone wolf" act of James W. von Brunn - an 88-year old self-avowed racist and anti-Semite - to try to affirm the controversial Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report that posited " right-wing extremists have capitalized on the election of the first African American president" and are a becoming a growing domestic terror threat.

The networks, CNN, MSNBC and the New York Times - the usual obnoxious suspects - toed this specious ideological slander, even though it smacks of the kind of profiling that the left rejects. Even Shepard Smith of Fox News jumped to the same conclusion by offering a surge of nasty notes in his in-box as proof. (You should check my e-mail, Shep!) If a newsreader on Fox News thinks it's true, triumphal lefties crowed, then it must be!

While Mr. von Brunn is afforded the descriptor of "alleged" perpetrator before a court of law convicts him, the conservative movement is granted no such due process. In a country where the individual is "innocent until proven guilty," conservatives have been forced to actively disassociate themselves from an ideological lineage to white supremacists, anti-Semites and other racist miscreants. And these days there's less and less media space for them to fight this unfair accusation.

Rush Limbaugh, the bete noire of the Democrat-Media Complex, came under fire last week for disclaiming von Brunn from the mainstream political right. Mr. Limbaugh, no stranger to such high-level orchestrated slanders, righteously challenged President Clinton and his media abettors for connecting nonexistent dots between right-leaning AM talk radio and Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1994.

Fifteen years later, the glaring media double standard of putting only "right-wing" groups on public "guilt by association" trial is still on display for all who care to see.

"Why was it outrageous 'guilt by association' to connect Barack Obama to a domestic terrorist like Bill Ayers and an anti-Semite like [the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.], but it's perfectly mainstream to associate all conservatives with this nut job?" asked Jonah Goldberg, best-selling author of "Liberal Fascism" and a nationally syndicated columnist.

Or what about the countless terrorist attacks by unaffiliated Muslim groups or individual jihadists that the media explains away as isolated incidents? Somehow the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its media defenders win the day with their collective cry: "Don't rush to judgment!"

But, turnabout is fair play, right?

While Mr. von Brunn is currently being made out to be the poster child of the Republican Party, even a cursory look at his professed views shows he is the avowed enemy of the GOP in its current incarnation. Among many others, Mr. von Brunn hates Rupert Murdoch, Fox News (that means you, too, Shep!), George W. Bush and John McCain. And according to the FBI, Mr. von Brunn even had in his vehicle the address of the Weekly Standard, home base of the dreaded "neo-cons."

Seems Mr. von Brunn wasn't a big fan of the Iraq War and also believed that 9/11 was an "inside job." Given this political sketch, Mr. von Brunn would feel at home at Camp Casey, Cindy Sheehan's antiwar outpost in Crawford, Texas, and at the Daily Kos convention, rather than partaking in a National Review cruise with pro-Israeli war hawks Mark Steyn and Victor Davis Hanson.

It's not Charles Lindbergh's Republican Party any more. And it hasn't been for more than a half-century. But don't tell that to the facile minds at the DHS and CNN.

The inconvenient truth is that David Duke and James von Brunn currently share more in common with Markos Moulitsas and Arianna Huffington than with Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer. But the right wouldn't be so crass or foolish to try to blame the political left for the existence of - or motivation behind - haters like Mr. von Brunn.

No one is suggesting Mr. von Brunn was doing hip rolls at the Huffington Post pilates tent during the Democratic National Convention, but his underlying philosophy, when examined and detailed, shares eerie similarities to the dominant "multicultural" mind-set at the liberal American college campus and on prominent left-wing blogs.

Change the word "supremacy" to "studies" and you'll understand the separatist mold dominant in humanities departments across the land. Women's Studies, Queer Studies, African-American Studies and Chicano Studies all produce culturally acceptable separatist and supremacy mind-sets and countenance movements that resemble those of white supremacists.

La Raza, Mecha and the Black Panthers all have prominent places at the academic table. Professors like Michael Eric Dyson and Cornel West make a handsome living baiting people unfortunate enough to be born with white skin. President Obama's "wise Latina" choice to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter exemplifies how the post-structuralist, racialist lunatics have taken over the asylum.

Right now, the Democratic-Media Complex is using the single act of a lone lunatic far removed from the political mainstream to split this country on racial grounds in the pursuit of its own political advantage. With the listless Republican Party lacking in any vocal leadership, it will probably succeed.

[Viva Las Espuelas]

As compared with Glenn Beck's kneejerk attempt to characterize Von Brunn as a leftist.he called him a nutjob and probably an idol of the 911 truthers and that's about it.