"You are responsible for your wake."
"You are responsible for your wake."Who is responsible for the shootings in Colorado Springs?
When I was a kid, I saw a sign on a lake that made an incredible impression on me. To this day, I think about that sign: "You are responsible for your wake."
In boating, "wake" refers to the waves created as a boat travels across water. Smaller craft my be capsized and inexperienced swimmers may drown in the wake of larger boats. Boat operators are legally responsible for that damage.
The same rule should apply to politics and news organizations. If you use misleading propaganda to vilify a specific group or to raise funds for your campaign, then you are responsible for your wake. When your words encourage or support the ideology of groups or individuals associated with domestic terrorism, then you are responsible. When you imply or state outright that Second Amendment Solutions are appropriate, then you are responsible for the violence that occurs when people take your words to heart. When you intentionally empower people who hate, you are responsible for the actions that follow.
If you don't condemn it, then you condone it.
Yesterday was an act of terrorism. If you doubt that, then imagine how Fox News would have covered the event if the shooter had been a Muslim. Or an immigrant. Or, for that matter, if he had been Black.
The Right says that we shouldn't talk about guns in the aftermath of something like yesterday's terrorist attack. Fine, if you don't want to talk about guns, then let's talk about domestic terrorism and who is behind it. Let's talk about who incites these attacks.
Let's talk about being responsible for your wake.
https://www.facebook.com/bobseay
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RW hate speech was a driving force in his choice to commit violence against what he perceived to be a manifestation of the federal government, without concerning himself about "collateral damage" among the innocent--not even the babies and toddlers in the onsite daycare:
For a short (all too short!) time afterward, a few of the hateful public mouthpieces kept their heads down and tempered their ugly rhetoric. I doubt they felt any guilt or shame, but they knew others held them at least partly responsible, so they acted to protect themselves until the furor died down.
Now, though, they have no shame at all, no sense of their own responsibility, and no one seems willing to call them out about it--except, of course, for us totally dismissed and discounted "dirty f***ing hippies" on the left. When Dr. George Tiller was murdered, Bill O'Reilly never once conceded that repeatedly, incessantly, calling him "Tiller the baby killer" on his show might have provoked his murderer and prompted the man's decision to shoot Dr. Tiller.
Unless the M$M decides to connect the dots for the public, the RW hate speech purveyors will escape responsibility this time, too.
Unfortunately, though, I have no hope that the M$M will do the right thing.
Don't forget, though, that the radio broadcast of hate speech was what led the Hutus in Rwanda to attack and kill 800,000 Tsutsis and their few Hutu associates and supporters. Propaganda that demonizes and dehumanizes opponents as "other" makes it a short step for many people to start considering the possibility of eliminating the "vermin."
