it's no secret i cannot watch nor tolerate the shouting heads, like fox's o'reilly and hannity, free-agent coulter or radio maniacs like limbaugh and michael savage. (staggering that great britain won't let in the latter -- how's THAT for a big steaming cup of "shut the fuck up"?) no ethics, no morals, no hearts. only the fever chase for ratings, attention and dollars.
clips do pop up on-line, so it's not like i sail on the glassy waters of a nutter-free sea. i don't often watch, but when i do, it's further confirmation why i don't. but it's also an important reminder of how the "other half" thinks. not to tar all cons with that fetid brush, but these guys rile with what they got. somebody who can explain and defend their political stances in a rational way will get my ear; we can agree to disagree, shake hands and be on our respective and merry ways. but when the guys up-front are just ranting it doesn't make me want to listen. "new faces" like palin, jindal and cindy mccain seem verbally retarded. how the hell can i parse that gobbledy-gook when it's like listening to narnian? don't they have media coaches? hell, i know CHEFS who have taken classes to become more telegenic.
last year, james addkison opened fire in a knoxville unitarian church. 200 people were in attendance watching children perform a play. he killed a man and a woman. yeah, ok the guy went off the rails. his estranged wife was a congregant, which may have been a connector. in his house, investigators found "liberalism is a mental health disorder" (by savage), "let freedom ring" (by hannity), and "the o'reilly factor," (by o'reilly). they also found "100 people who are screwing up america" by bernie goldberg. granted, the goldberg book isn't a tome to incite, but very handy to have a list like that all printed and portable, eh?
addkison's lawyers quickly agreed to life with no possibility of parole. four days after he was sentenced, he released a "manifesto" -- which he had actually intended as a suicide note, having assumed that the cops would have gunned him down during his rampage.
some snips:
- Know this if nothing else: This was a hate crime.
- This was a symbolic killing. Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book.
- Someone had to get the ball rolling. I volunteered. I hope others do the same. It's the only way we can rid America of this cancerous pestilence.
- Kill them where they gather.
- I'd like to encourage other like minded people to do what I've done.
- Go Kill Liberals.
- This was an act of political protest.
this morning i woke to a clip of salon editor joan walsh being besieged by o'reilly. yup, she's a left-coast lefty and pro-choice. she's my today hero. she never raised her voice, never lost her cool and reduced o'reilly to
a foamy blathering street cur. wait for the near-end where all he can sputter is: "My constitutional rights say I can say what I say, you can say what you say, as vile as you say it, you can say it, and I would never condemn you for saying it. You are misguided, you have blood on your hands because you portrayed this man as a hero." how's that for rational discourse?
recent posts of mine have concerned the assassination of dr. tiller in kansas. also murdered in a church. o'reilly regularly referred to the doctor as "tiller the baby killer" and to his offices as an "abortion mill." almost all media accounts call the dead man an "abortion doctor" instead of what he really was, an ob-gyn, who owned and operated a woman's health clinic, where he performed safe and legal procedures for women from all over the country, regardless of their ability to pay.
on a forum where i have been debating this killing, an american poster called tiller's clinic a "tottenhausen" -- death house. that choice of the german phrase was creepy on too many levels. same forum, another poster: "this abortion doctor used incinerators to dispose of babies. think about that and take pause." incendiary much? when i posited that cremating an adult was exactly the same, he insisted that it was not, as if happy wriggling infants were being tossed into a fiery pit.
a white-supremacist anti-fed loony shot up the washington d.c. holocaust museum this past week, killing a guard. an african-american guard. he only stopped firing when he was shot.
when liberal leaning pols are in charge, right-wing violence upticks. demonstrably. but what happens when the cons are in charge? were the dark eight years of bush and cheney shredded by lefties killing lethal injection doctors or bombing nra offices? nope. has anybody that is anti-death penalty ever targeted or threatened a prison, guard or doctor who participates in executions? nope.
facts: the economy is in the tank. the ranks of unemployed continues to rise. the values of people's homes and saving are disintegrating before their very eyes.
fears: capitalist icons like general motors are collapsing. homos are getting married, getting babies and will be having public butt sex in front of your kids, which will destroy your opposite marriage. a black man with a strange name is in charge. he's secretly, but surely, a muslim and that's all kindsa bad. he pals around with terrorists and drug dealers. he's talking and stuff to guys we're supposed to hate, cuz they hate the real amurrica.
o'reilly and his cronies "do" hate speech. they distort or ignore the truth. sure, libs have their own shiny rainbow prisms, but air america has tanked in far more markets than succeeded. more americans get their news from fox than any other single source.
this is a rant. i'm conflicted.
i abhor censorship. but i fear what happens when too many people hear only one side, and that side is hostile and deceitful. they then find comfort and support for their fears. ask germans and rwandans what happened when hate spewed from the airwaves, and those large and in charge sought scapegoats. sheeple follow without reasoning.
it makes me sad and afraid.
it's sunny for the first time in days. i'm going to bathe my eyes in art, and my heart in friendship.
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