or something
This is why the traditional liberal media and especially newspapers are dying.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/op...gman.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 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.
Is there a version of this point that you agree with? At least regarding hateful libs?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.
Your post on Von Brunn yesterday seems to back ^^^ up.
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.
Last edited by Winehole23; 06-12-2009 at 12:07 PM.
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.
huh?
example?
Yesterday, von Brunn.
Short term memory problem?
It's like posting Rosanne Barr after castigating ST posters for their excessive focus on celebrities. Too funny.
Pointing out hypocrisy.
The hypocrisy of what? The article you posted?
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 Cheney.
As compared with Glenn Beck's kneejerk attempt to characterize Von Brunn as a leftist.
I see what you mean.
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.
Equally vile.
EDIT> The difference is, I acknowledge it, you don't.
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 .
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?
In ourselves you mean?
Hubris and folly.
The tragic view of things used to inform conservatism. Now conservatives are are world-reforming Wilsonian idealists.
Whatever you do, you don't insult it.
-BHO
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