Limbaugh is blaming video games and Hollywood.

[sufrommich]

Please, for the love of God democrats, do NOT let them move the goal posts! They do this every time there is a massacre now,they blame everything but the guns. Every single western country in the world watches the same movies and plays the same video games as we do and yet they are relatively free from gun violence. Don't let them blame our "culture" for gun deaths,don't play along.

[Bluenorthwest]

1. As are some on DU.

nt

[KittyWampus]

31. Fact is, the problem goes much deeper than the need to eliminate guns. So many DU'ers are unable to

see that simple fact is very sad indeed.

We need to change our collective mindset.

We changed our collective attitudes towards smoking, seat belts, drunk driving, interracial marriage, gay marriage.

But to point out that we need to change our attitudes towards guns and VIOLENCE in general is somehow forbidden on a supposedly liberal website.

Yeah, enact effective gun control. But that still doesn't address the underlying problem.

[OneMoreDemocrat]

50. Exactly what I've thought and noticed in the last few days...

Clearly the gun or guns used to kill these kids should not have been accessible (or even in existence as far as I'm concerned), to this guy, but his actions didn't happen in a vacuum...our society, including video games, Hollywood and the glorification of violence in general plays a part in this tragedy; not just guns.

Even as Obama talked to the community last night about ending these types of awful situations, a drone was out there somewhere, taking aim on someone, and 9 times out of 10 there are innocent people killed...just because they aren't a blond-haired, blue-eyed six year old American girl in Connecticut doesn't mean that it isn't happening.

[nadinbrzezinski]

67. Yup

[earthside]

2. Limbaugh distracts, but I disagree about popular culture.

... liberals, progressives and Democrats should engage in a reasonable and responsible discussion and debate about guns and our culture of violence.

Politically, it seems to me, it is to our ultimate advantage to vigorously examine the glorification of guns and gun violence in American popular culture and entertainment.

[Coyotl]

3. And Hollywood is blaming Limbaugh.

The rest of the world is NOT listening to his vitriol. Case closed!

[Shivering Jemmy]

4. Frankly

I'd like to see Hollywood and many video games dial it down a notch.

Not sure how to encourage that.

[sufrommich]

5. Fine, just don't make it part of the discussion

about easy access to guns in this country.The right wing in this country will once again try to conflate the issues and I'm not OK with that.

[OneMoreDemocrat]

58. How can you not make it part of the discussion?

Just because it doesn't completely line up with your framing of the issue in no way means it isn't valid.

Who cares if you're not OK with that? Until the ENTIRE issue is looked at from ALL angles and changed, more people will die in these horrific situations.

This isn't a 'Right Wing' issue, dead kids should be everyone's issue.

[patrice]

6. Video games & "Hollywood" are accessed through PARENTS. Inappropriate developmental challenges

leave concrete effects. Appropriate developmental challenges contribute to strong stable personalities who can walk through a great deal of bad stuff and not lose their way.

Personally, I think children are being made social too early and by people who don't really know what they are doing and who think and whose parents think as long as you say "bless" and "prayP and talk about Jesus everything's going to be okay, when, in fact, they NEED to respect children's questions more and that goes most especially for adolescents.

And part of the problem with all of that is that we are in such dire straights that almost no one knows WHAT THEIR OWN QUESTIONS ARE. Yes, WE ARE THAT FUCKING LOST.

[wandy]

65. Congratulations, you correctly identified that PARENTS have something to do with how kids turn out!

You never here about the role parents play when people start ranting about the evils of Hollywood or video games.
What you hear mostly is how if we would only invite THEIR 'god' into our schools everything would be just wonderfull.
Well that and our over reliance on gubberment and how no one takes responsibility for themselvs.
Yes guns are a problem, but so are irresponsable parents.

[patrice]

68. That's because of all of the different positions on this Parenting is the most politically dangerous

[patrice]

72. And in Rushbo's case make that, "... the most ECONOMICALLY dangerous." nt

[patrice]

69. And you know what? Even mainline Republicans I have talked to here in Cupcake Land will say right to

anyone, including this old Democrat, "When it comes to all of these problems, the most common complaint I hear is 'the parents across the street'".

Kind of funny, isn't it, if it didn't add up to so much suffering and sadness. "Can't do anything about those other parents, so give your kids a pill, make them go to church, and 'hope' for the best."

No one actually talks to anyone else anymore, except in places like the DU and even then they prefer to do so under a pseudonym.

[patrice]

71. Make that, "... mainline Republican office holders I have talked to ... " nt

[reformist2]

7. This is not an either/or. And remember, we have to deal with a Repug House.

[upaloopa]

8. Could video games and violent movies have

different effects here than the do say in Germany?
We cheered a pre-emtive war in 2002. They didn't.
I think we are a much more violent culture than much of the world. We see violence as a means to safe guard our way of life. Americans kill more people around the world than any country I think. We develop the most efficient killing machines on earth. I think we need violent games and movies to keep our society primed for self defense whether real or imagined.

[Rex]

9. WOW! JUST LIKE SOME PEOPLE HERE!

What a coincidence!

[zappaman]

11. +1 Roger Ebert knows this is bullshit...

"Let me tell you a story. The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. "Wouldn't you say," she asked, "that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?" No, I said, I wouldn't say that. "But what about 'Basketball Diaries'?" she asked. "Doesn't that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun?"

"The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office (it grossed only $2.5 million), and it's unlikely the Columbine killers saw it.

"The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. "Events like this," I said, "if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn't have messed with me. I'll go out in a blaze of glory."

"In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of "explaining" them.......The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2012/12/the_newtown_killings.html

[Rex]

22. Wow, very good interview

might want to make this its own thread! Roger Ebert NAILS IT!

[zappaman]

29. It is it's own thread.

Will kick it...

[Rex]

30. Good idea.

People need to read that interview.

[Arkana]

32. Goddamn.

I always knew Ebert was smart, but...

[reformist2]

37. Ebert is wrong - nobody is glorfiying the killers. I dare say he veered into the stupid.

[KittyWampus]

41. Ebert is wonderful but wrong here. It's about a culture of violence. Violence is acceptable

Guns are the happy ending. Gangsta culture is cool.

It goes deeper to too-easy access to deadly weapons or tv news.

Ebert has made a career of reviewing movies many of which use guns for a happy ending. He is not impartial.

[sufrommich]

46. We can't legislate "culture",we can legislate

gun laws. Tut tut culture all you want, it's irrelevant as far as what can be done within a legal framework.

[KittyWampus]

54. Yeah, well we can legislate against drugs but it doesn't stop people from doing them.

And your use of the words "tut tut" indicates you really dont' give a shit about our glorification of violence in society and probably engage in it yourself to some degree.

[sufrommich]

59. What?? I've never played a video game,I'm one of those

people who can't watch violent movies or TV shows at all. My point is that I know I can't legislate them away,I can't make people choose not to watch or play violent movies or video games.What I can do is demand that weapons of mass destruction by outlawed regardless of culture.

[fujiyama]

79. They're called MOVIES

They're fictional. And there have been violent movies since film became a medium. Check out movies in other countries. They're often pretty violent too. The Holy Books are incredibly violent too.

As the other poster said, you can't legislate "culture", which typically reflects society and its values. If movies glorify guns, that's because people glorify guns. And that's very evident by the obsession in this country over them.

[sufrommich]

14. I get so sick of this crap,every time there is carnage

and death produced by a person with a gun we're told we need to focus on the cultural issues. No, we don't, focus on the cultural issues some other time, right now we need to do something about guns.

[Rex]

19. I just hate seeing DUrs fall into this trap the RWing

spews 24/7. It is like me blaming the wind for nuclear proliferation...just a distraction from the root cause. I am glad others notice it too.

[KittyWampus]

48. Well, the tactic of solely eliminating certain guns isn't going to work. Did the "War on Drugs"

stop people from doing drugs?

We changed attitudes towards many things since I've been on this planet: smoking, seat belts, drunk driving, gay marriage.

You can enact a total ban on guns tomorrow and it will be partially successful over time but there will still be gun violence.

In the end, this argument is similar to what was going on here a few weeks ago regarding Rape Culture. A lot of otherwise enlightened DU'ers make up excuses for behavior that is absolutely inappropriate.

[RomneyLies]

10. This is the classic NRA misdirect.

The NRA talking points have been issued and are making their way to the mainstream.

This will be the Faux talking point, too.

[sufrommich]

15. Yes it is. nt

[Initech]

27. But cars kill people too!!! Why don't we ban and regulate cars??

[unblock]

12. they're not "the" cause, but i don't think you can say they're not relevant.

frankly income disparity has something to do with it, as does our treatment (or lack thereof) of mental illness, and as does the huge overabundance of lethal weaponry.

it's all relevant, and i'm probably leaving out a few things as well. it's a complex issue.

sensational as they are, these mass murders are still rare in the sense that it's one in more than a million who snap in this fashion. perhaps our gun fetishism culture does have something to do with it, not that everyone snaps, but that it makes a very few of us snap.

someone in a peaceful nation, or a peaceful family life in the u.s., can perhaps watch a shoot-em-up movie or play a first-person shooter rampage video game and take it in merely as an action fantasy.

but perhaps someone brought up in a violent home or brainwashed with hate radio survivalist fear and righteous indignation and gun fetishism is just spending their whole life looking for that moment of glory when they can see themselves as the lone hero against a world of villains when our culture deems shooting people acceptable. and those movies and video games no doubt play a part in that brainwashing and training, along with rush limbaugh and so on.

of course our culture has something to do with it. limbaugh should look in the mirror every now and again, assuming they don't crack.

[Liberal Gramma]

13. Limbaugh himself is culpable

He spews hate and fear, and when some crazy picks up on that and acts, he throws up his hands and cries innocent. He is far from innocent, along with Fox news and all the other right-wing hate media.

[Initech]

35. ****ACTUAL QUOTE FROM LIMBAUGH TIME*****

"I tell people don't kill all the liberals. Leave two of them on every campus - living fossils, so we will never forget what these people stood for."

Who the fuck is he kidding??

[tridim]

60. I think that was Ann Coulter's quote. nt

[Initech]

61. Nope. Pure Rush.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,163548,00.html

[brooklynite]

16. The same movies and video games are available in Western Europe....

might be a a catalyst, but there's something in American culture that gravitates to violence in a way it doesn't elsewhere.

[sufrommich]

18. The "something" in American culture is

lax gun laws.

[brooklynite]

21. No it isn't

Gun laws only affect what you can buy; it doesn't influence what you WANT to buy.

[backscatter712]

25. Easy access to guns.

You want my opinion? It's time to ban hi-cap, high ROF firearms, and have a generous buy-back program that offers sweet, delicious CASH to current owners to entice them to part with at least some of the ones already in circulation.

Maybe when the carnage cannons are a little harder to come by, the massacres won't happen quite so often, or come with so many deaths.

[sufrommich]

28. What laws do you want to see enacted to stop

violence in movies and videos and what does that have to do with guns?

[brooklynite]

34. I said nothing about gun laws and enforcement...

...the OP was about causality, and my point was that the proposed cultural impacts were the same in other Countries but don't result in the same levels of violence (which go beyond just shootings).

[KittyWampus]

52. How did we change our collective mindset regarding smoking & gay marriage?

I have a strong suspicion the reason a lot of DU'ers do NOT want to talk about changing the culture of violence in the USA because they are themselves a part of it.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

That means embracing life affirming culture including music, video games, tv and not bothering with those that glorify violence.

Again, this is similar to the arguments a week or so ago over Rape Culture. Many refuse to see it because they are a minor part of it.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

17. The pig is partially right, but as usual, ignoring the REAL issue - a country riddled with guns nt

[fadedrose]

20. Other countries don't have the availability of guns to the degree in the US

Limbaugh is somewhat right . . . add the violence of entertainment to the guns people own and on the streets and you have what we have - madness.

Gun control is what keeps the crazies in other countries from shooting their kids to the degree we have here no matter how many movies they watch or games they play..

But more can be done to change the culture through media entertainment.

[Puzzledtraveller]

23. Yeah, too late, games=bad, movies=bad

A few of us have been trying rebuff this all day long.

[sufrommich]

26. Yep, and now it's being parroted by the talking heads

on the news.I think it's interesting that both video games and movies have legislated parental controls (which are routinely ignored) and yet we are hearing that "something has to be done" about them. What more can be done and what does that have to do with guns?

[Comrade_McKenzie]

24. Plenty of Limbaughites on DU saying the same thing. nt

[zappaman]

33. Who knew we had so many here at DU agreeing with Rush?

Huh...

[rbrnmw]

36. I blame bloviating talk show hosts

who created a culture of HATE in our country for all the guns available to kids who play video games

[99Forever]

38. Neither Hollywood or the video game industry...

.. gave access to the weapons the monster used. The scum that Limpbaugh pimps for did.


Just when you think the fat POS can't get any more slimy, he proves you wrong.

[sufrommich]

40. If only it was just Limbaugh spouting this crap

it wouldn't bother me, but this "it's our culture that's to blame" crap comes up and swallows any attempt for actual change and actual sane gun laws. The truth is ,culture can't be regulated,guns can.

[99Forever]

55. I'm right with you on that.

On another thread, some poster gave me grief bringing up this nightmare "on his thread" that he wanted "to keep on track." So the gun nuts and paid gun shills are already at it, trying to gloss over the results of their propaganda and corruption of our political system. I won't be silenced, today, tomorrow, or ever, until the day the insanity stops.

Enough is too much.

[DissidentVoice]

39. Ingrained culture

Violence is ingrained into our culture. This was a nation born out of armed conflict.

Unfortunately, too many seem to think it's still the Wild Wild West, a John Wayne movie, Serpico or Dirty Harry and that all that stuff was for real.

We've never moved on as a nation.

[Odin2005]

42. Moralistic pearl-clutching knows no political boundaries.

[zappaman]

43. Ain't that the truth! n/t

[No Compromise]

44. limbaugh is helpful. I use him to know what isn't the truth, I now know video games and movies

have nothing to do with it. Interesting.

I think it has more to do with the FANAPT that Adam was taking, which has some negative side effects that might lead a person to do this.

[HeavyMeta]

45. I dont know...

Did 1950's board games and movies have mass killings, removal of limbs, torture and sadism?

[zappaman]

47. No, but the Bible does.

Maybe that's to blame?

[cyberswede]

49. touche...

[Lint Head]

51. He's preaching to a lot of his older listeners who don't play video games and never go o movies.

[SummerSnow]

53. Limbaugh ...

Such phony outrage.But he is silent when conservatives go after non violent Sesame Street and PBS where it shows just educational and art .programs

[Ken Burch]

56. Has he found some way to blame same-sex marriage, abortion and welfare, too?

[jsr]

57. Oh, look! Shiny object!

So predictable.

[Warren Stupidity]

62. and intentionally or not many of us here are lock-stepping with the deflection

"anything but gun control"

those are the marching orders.

[WinkyDink]

63. Does he mean like Clint Eastwood movies?

[RomneyLies]

64. Then Limbaugh should DENOUNCE the United States Army!!!!!

The United States Army produces a free first person shooter game that millions of teens play:

http://aa3.americasarmy.com/

[JohnnyLib2]

66. Poor Rush is working with a big disadvantage--

the times call for wisdom and compassion and he ain't got either.

[white_wolf]

70. The worst part about this thread is that a lot of DUers agree with Limbaugh.

[KittyWampus]

73. Would you disagree with a stopped clock when it says the correct time twice a day?

[white_wolf]

74. Except the clock is completely wrong here.

Western Europe plays the same games and watches the same movies as the rest of us and they don't have problems like this. Video games and movies have nothing to do with this and I am beyond sick of these moral panics that ignore the real issue. Guns. If you want to keep events like this from happening then you should work on restricting access to gun and leave entertainment alone.

[Livluvgrow]

76. feeling a little

threatened that your little killing simulators might get a little less real over time are ya? So many of you have been working so hard all day to shout down anybody who dare say that maybe all the killing on our screens is having a negative effect on our collective psych ie.

[white_wolf]

77. No I'm getting a little threatened by all the calls for censorship.

It's amazing how so many so called liberals are willing to talk about censor freedom of expression. Like I said in another thread people like you are drinking into the right-wing kool-aid and ignoring the real issue of gun control. You're either willingly aiding the right-wing by attempting to divert the issue from guns or your helping them on accident.

Oh and just for the record I rarely play shooters. I mostly play RPGs.

[_ed_]

75. OK, let's talk video games and Hollywood

right after we seize your firearms.

[fujiyama]

78. Everyone is Joe Fucking Lieberman now

It's really tiring. Old deflections. The same old shit.

Over and over again. Fuck Limbaugh. And you know what, fuck those that agree with him. Between the likes of him and the gun hoarders in this country I want out.