slidewinder
Banned
No, nothing beyond his being "uncooperative."
avatar299 said:Hyperbole aside, some of that is true. People like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin will be blamed by people on the left, despite whether or not that is accurate. We saw that already in this thread.
No, nothing beyond his being "uncooperative."
The nine-year-old girl has been named as Christina Taylor Greene. Born on September 11 2001, her parents described her as the "best daughter in the world".
She had a keen interest in politics, was on her school government, and had wanted to go to the Giffords event to learn more about the political process.
I'm not sure about that. I used those figures as an example because every one of them has publicly expressed outright bigotry and/or sexism. Olbermann doesnt have a reputation for disparaging immigrants, minorities, religious groups or feminists.Lost Fragment said:And yeah, all those dudes are crazy. The only person on the left I can think of that rivals any of them is Olbermann. Though if Obama loses the election next year the shift in political climate will cause more to pop up, I'm sure.
But as far as commentary from "every day" people goes, I'm exposed to far more left wingers saying crazy stuff than right wingers because of the nature of the boards I visit.
Of course, your results may vary.
The Tea Party types deserve heavy criticism because their rhetoric is classless, crass and completely inappropriate. But they should not be held in any way responsible for the attack on Giffords because it's becoming increasingly clear that they had nothing to do with it.Dr. Pangloss said:I don't think people on the left are blaming one individual's actions on the remarks of several of the rights commentators. I'm sure any reasonable person will admit that no one on the right actively called out for the murder of those that disagree with them. The problem the left has is how far the right has sunk in their political rhetoric and all the sub-context that one can take away from it. They want to make sure that those on the right are held accountable for their words and posters (Palin really deserves all that she gets). Words do matter. We quote people all the time. Go into any movie thread on gaf.
In the past two years it has become a series of brinkmanship in how far the right can go in describing what the other side is doing. I mean they started attributing both far right ideology (Nazism) and far left (Socialism) to the same party. The constant waving of the bloody shirt and claims of how un-American the other side is gets kind of old. Most of the left would like to see the right rise above and stop their temper tantrums for when things do not go their way. False equivalencies aside, do you not want the opinion leaders on your side to be more above the fray? Should you not be demanding that they provide legitimate arguments instead of stirring up fear and hatred (I know that this does happen, but there is far too much of the other type)? Those on the right must be held accountable for their words and deeds. I would expect no difference from the left (Just look at Van Jones).
Ans people like Obama, Hillary clinton, and even (lol) Keith Olberman are blamed just as often for thing far outside their control by wackos on the right. Point being?avatar299 said:Hyperbole aside, some of that is true. People like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin will be blamed by people on the left, despite whether or not that is accurate. We saw that already in this thread.
BobTheFork said:Ans people like Obama, Hillary clinton, and even (lol) Keith Olberman are blamed just as often for thing far outside their control by wackos on the right. Point being?
It's all pretty much the same
Further more, the idea of casting the 'left' as Satan because they would take advantage of this doesn't mean much after all the political advancement some politicians have gained from 911.
So? He's the president, he couldn't say that if he wanted to about a citizen. The other people are commentators. The point is that political bullshit is not limited to one political party. When BushJr was president we had commentators saying 'X is a nazi' 'X is a dictator' 'X should be killed' except back then X was the president. I'm a liberal and right now I'm fucking sick of Liberals who don't remember that we had 8 years of idoits holding 'Bush is a Nazi' signs. Now we have 'Obama is a Nazi' signs. It's all the same, people just tend to think it's always worse for them,.cartoon_soldier said:Only Barack Obama is not telling people that X is a Nazi, Y is a dictator and its time for a revolution and we should reload and not retreat.
My thoughts exactly. Nobody should point the finger at anyone just yet for this particular case. Sure what Palin did with the targets is pretty scummy, but the threats and hatred to the opposition can only lead to more incidents like this where innocents die. In an ideal world, an incident like this should teach EVERYONE to ratchet down the rhetoric that demonizes an opponent. Nobody, republican or democrat, deserves this.BobTheFork said:So? He's the president, he couldn't say that if he wanted to about a citizen. The other people are commentators. The point is that political bullshit is not limited to one political party. When BushJr was president we had commentators saying 'X is a nazi' 'X is a dictator' 'X should be killed' except back then X was the president. I'm a liberal and right now I'm fucking sick of Liberals who don't remember that we had 8 years of idoits holding 'Bush is a Nazi' signs. Now we have 'Obama is a Nazi' signs. It's all the same, people just tend to think it's always worse for them,.
BobTheFork said:So? He's the president, he couldn't say that if he wanted to about a citizen. The other people are commentators. The point is that political bullshit is not limited to one political party. When BushJr was president we had commentators saying 'X is a nazi' 'X is a dictator' 'X should be killed' except back then X was the president. I'm a liberal and right now I'm fucking sick of Liberals who don't remember that we had 8 years of idoits holding 'Bush is a Nazi' signs. Now we have 'Obama is a Nazi' signs. It's all the same, people just tend to think it's always worse for them,.
Really?YoungHav said:I signed onto facebook and none of my white friends are speaking up about this. How am I supposed to know that they're not extremists?
I understand both sides can be outrageous but there's nothing left or right about Bush Jr jumping the gun in Iraq. The U.N. Security Council had agreed to give Saddam 4 more months to get rid of his "weapons of mass destruction", Bush said fuck you to the SC and invaded. Those are facts. Obama was being called Hitler off the bat for the sake of being called Hitler (or because n-word isn't a politically correct sign these days). Had he been called out for his continued warmongering it'd be a different story.BobTheFork said:So? He's the president, he couldn't say that if he wanted to about a citizen. The other people are commentators. The point is that political bullshit is not limited to one political party. When BushJr was president we had commentators saying 'X is a nazi' 'X is a dictator' 'X should be killed' except back then X was the president. I'm a liberal and right now I'm fucking sick of Liberals who don't remember that we had 8 years of idoits holding 'Bush is a Nazi' signs. Now we have 'Obama is a Nazi' signs. It's all the same, people just tend to think it's always worse for them,.
BobTheFork said:So? He's the president, he couldn't say that if he wanted to about a citizen. The other people are commentators. The point is that political bullshit is not limited to one political party. When BushJr was president we had commentators saying 'X is a nazi' 'X is a dictator' 'X should be killed' except back then X was the president. I'm a liberal and right now I'm fucking sick of Liberals who don't remember that we had 8 years of idoits holding 'Bush is a Nazi' signs. Now we have 'Obama is a Nazi' signs. It's all the same, people just tend to think it's always worse for them,.
Not really the same, not at all.BobTheFork said:So? He's the president, he couldn't say that if he wanted to about a citizen. The other people are commentators. The point is that political bullshit is not limited to one political party. When BushJr was president we had commentators saying 'X is a nazi' 'X is a dictator' 'X should be killed' except back then X was the president. I'm a liberal and right now I'm fucking sick of Liberals who don't remember that we had 8 years of idoits holding 'Bush is a Nazi' signs. Now we have 'Obama is a Nazi' signs. It's all the same, people just tend to think it's always worse for them,.
You realize that was the point of the article?empty vessel said:The overwhelming majority of people in the world, both those who have mental illnesses and those who do not, will never commit any violent crimes.
Sanjuro Tsubaki said:So basically, this thread is telling me Sarah Palin doesn't have a good chance of becoming President now?
Fstop7 said:Assigning one particular ideology or motivation is pointless, the young man who did these crimes is obviously sick and delusional.
Zabka said:Not really the same, not at all.
Conservatives attack Obama for things like bailing out the auto industry, raising taxes on rich people and expanding healthcare coverage. Liberals attacked Bush for invading countries on false intelligence, holding people without trial and torture.
Now I'm not saying George Bush is a Nazi, but it's not hypocritical to see that there is a wide gulf between the two situations.
...and now you're just pulling shit out of your ass.Pristine_Condition said:Uh, people were making the Bush=Hitler stuff well BEFORE the invasion of Iraq. Nice revisionist history there.
Wait, Olbermann doesn't have a history of making sexist comments?theignoramus said:Olbermann doesnt have a reputation for disparaging immigrants, minorities, religious groups or feminists.
ElectricBlue187 said:I'm really relieved to see the culture of hate and bigotry spread by talking heads being implicated for this in some news outlets (CNN for one) The first step is admitting you have a problem
mamacint said:...and now you're just pulling shit out of your ass.
JayDubya said:I was actually quite disgusted with the CNN footage I've seen politicizing this and speculating about political motive and throwing blame by implication.
One obvious difference is that the amount of people on the left attacking Obama for his warmongering is about equal to the amount of people on the right who attacked Bush for his spending. Oh wait that's more of a similarity now that I think about it.Zabka said:Not really the same, not at all.
Conservatives attack Obama for things like bailing out the auto industry, raising taxes on rich people and expanding healthcare coverage. Liberals attacked Bush for invading countries on false intelligence, holding people without trial and torture.
Now I'm not saying George Bush is a Nazi, but it's not hypocritical to see that there is a wide gulf between the two situations.
I don't think so. Nice try.Pristine_Condition said:No I'm not. You are an idiot.
Gabrielle Giffords and the rightwing hate machine (on the bogus equivalency between right/left extremism)
January 9, 2011 by Peter · Leave a Comment
Reaction to the horrific Arizona shootings, where six people were slaughtered including a 9-year-old girl, quickly congealed along clear-cut lines:
a) The left blamed the right, pointing to violent imagery and language from Sarah Palin to the Tea Party.
b) The right furiously denied blame, with some trying to pin the shooting on the left.
c) Among public officials, pundits and press, the common impulse was to draw the typical false equivalency between rhetoric on the right and left.
At least one person was not buying that false equivalency:
When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry. Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik
Dupnik added:
We need to do some soul searching Its the vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business. People tend to pooh-pooh this business about the vitriol that inflames American public opinion by the people who make a living off of that. That may be free speech but its not without consequences.
We do not yet know whether the Arizona massacre was directly fueled by rightwing rhetoric. But we do know this: one of the most dangerous myths promulgated by the media and political establishment is that there is a comparable level of extremism among conservatives and liberals, that left and right are mirror images.
Even the most cursory perusal of rightwing radio, television, blogs and assorted punditry illustrates a profound distinction: in large measure, the rights overarching purpose is to stoke hatred of the left, of liberalism. The rights messaging infrastructure, meticulously constructed and refined over decades, promotes an image of liberals as traitors and America-haters, unworthy of their country and bent on destroying it. There is simply no comparable propaganda effort on the left.
The imbalance is stark: Democrats and liberals rail against the rights ideas; the right rails against the lefts very existence.
The result is an atmosphere where bigotry thrives, where science and reason are under assault, where progress (associated with progressivism) is frowned upon. And its an atmosphere where violence becomes more likely. Pretending this is not the case is to enable it.
The deeply-etched themes that run through American politics reflect the rights successful framing: Democrats and liberals are wimps, Republicans and conservatives are gun-toting patriots; Democrats and liberals despise their country, Republicans and conservatives are the only ones willing to protect it; Democrats and liberals want to intrude on your freedom, tax you and bankrupt the nation, Republicans and conservatives want to give you freedom, liberty and wealth. The current of eliminationism infusing the rights worldview is an inevitable outcome of such contorted impressions its a natural impulse to want to destroy that which is (supposedly) destroying you.
Those who foist the false right/left equivalency ignore this reality. Their definition of extremism is necessarily warped, since they have to stretch logic to fabricate a sense of balance. If you want single-payer health care, youre a liberal extremist, but if you deny global warming, youre simply a conservative skeptic. As the national discourse moves further and further right, only the most unhinged rightwingers are tagged as extreme, while all it takes for a liberal to be labeled an extremist is to espouse a policy position that is out of the mainstream. That is not to say there are not violent individuals and extremists on the left, but that it is absurd to argue that left and right are comparable in the language of violence and incitement.
When center becomes right and right becomes far right, conservatives can get away with wilder and weirder behavior. Exhortations from radio blatherers to bash liberals are dismissed as entertainment. Glenn Becks bizarre rantings barely get a yawn.
This has been a long time coming and culpability lies not just with the haters but with those in the media and Democratic establishment who refuse to confront the hate-mongering when they see it. Heres something I wrote about Ann Coulter in 2006. It sums up everything I want to say about the ongoing demonization of the left and the resulting potential for violence:
NBC, a major U.S. media outlet, has given Coulter extended play in recent days. They have knowingly given a public forum to a woman who slandered 9/11 widows and who is now on the record identifying John Murtha, a U.S. Congressman, a Marine, as an ideal target for murder. Anybody who watched Ann Coulters June 14th appearance on the Tonight Show had to realize that it was a watershed moment in the war between the establishment media and the progressive netroots. It was also a signal to Democrats that liberal ideology can be denigrated with impunity. Had the words Jew or Christian or Conservative been substituted for Liberal wed be waking up to a national scandal.
Never mind that Jay Leno and George Carlin sat like trembling lambs while Coulter spewed gutter-level invective at millions of Americans weve already seen the same obsequiousness from Larry King, Matt Lauer (who ended his faux-debate with Coulter by saying always fun to have you) and others. The larger issue here is that despite an uproar from the progressive netroots, NBC saw fit to give Coulter a platform to continue her liberal-scapegoating and to slander women who lost their husbands on 9/11.
Its hard to deny that Coulters words border on incitement. What she says is neither amusing nor smart nor humorous nor factual nor worthy of airing on a major media outlet. It treats a substantial segment of the population as sub-human, as creatures deserving of public scorn and worse (She said Jesus would say that we are called upon to do battle on liberalism). Careful not to violate Godwins Law, Ill refrain from the obvious comparisons, but what were dealing with here is a dangerous inflection point in American politics. When this kind of opprobrium is peddled by major media outlets, its high time that the Democratic establishment and the larger progressive community understand that this is a make-or-break showdown with the media.
Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and their ilk have made an industry out of liberal-bashing. Coulter fits in perfectly with those hate-traffickers. And contrary to the false Michael Moore comparisons made by Leno and others, there is no progressive counterpart to these people on the national stage. The basic thrust of the lefts critique is that George W. Bush and his administration are bad for America. It is in our tradition for citizens to defend the Constitution and to question the actions of their elected leaders. Rightwingers may characterize it as Bush Derangement Syndrome, but the progressive community, for the most part, is going after government corruption and lies, not vilifying an entire group of Americans as Bin Laden-loving traitors.
Nearly five years after I wrote that, only one thing has changed: the problem has gotten worse.
Zabka said:Not really the same, not at all.
Conservatives attack Obama for things like bailing out the auto industry, raising taxes on rich people and expanding healthcare coverage. Liberals attacked Bush for invading countries on false intelligence, holding people without trial and torture.
Now I'm not saying George Bush is a Nazi, but it's not hypocritical to see that there is a wide gulf between the two situations.
Yeah it's almost like it's my opinion on it.JoeBoy101 said:Sure there is, but that wide gulf is nothing but your justification of said rhetoric, not a repudiation of it ever happening. Plus your justification is spun to your political view of the matter, not those actually protesting the issue.
outunderthestars said:fuck fuck fucking fuck. What a sad world we live in when someone is willing to point a gun at a beautiful child like this. I have lost all faith in mankind.
Before I start I want it made clear that I do believe the rhetoric from the right is more militant, in that I agree with this article, there is simply no comparison between what the right say and what the left says, the right is way over the line.CoolTrick said:
mamacint said:I don't think so. Nice try.
daoster said:
Man, those guys on the left are so civilized.
If you mean before the actual day of the invasion, of course you are correct. However if you mean before the runup to the invasion, you are on more shaky ground. But also correct. People forget the protests of fringe groups like ANSWER who were making with the papier mache effigies right after the 9/11 attacks because they felt it important to defend the Taliban.Pristine_Condition said:Uh, people were making the Bush=Hitler stuff well BEFORE the invasion of Iraq. Nice revisionist history there.
Couldn't resist.DrForester said:Media release of the person the police are seaking. Will not say anything regarding his possible involvement.
Matthew Gallant said:You realize that was the point of the article?