Dividing America with Hate

[babylonsister]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/21339

Dividing America with Hate
by Bob Burnett | April 17, 2009

snip//

Since the inauguration, the tone of the anti-Obama discourse has become increasingly strident. Karl Rove described the President as a "fiscal radical" and suggested that Obama is a "divisive figure." Former Senator Rick Santorum berated the President's supposed, "disdain for American values." Leading this cacophony is Fox News where commentators rant that Obama has an "agenda" for gun confiscation and plans "a total police state." Recently Glenn Beck suggested the federal government is a "heroin pusher using smiley-aced fascism to grow the nanny state," concluding "{we have} come to a very dangerous point in our country's long, storied history."

This incendiary rhetoric is a throwback to the thirties, when conservative commentator Father Charles Coughlin used his national radio show to attack Franklin Roosevelt. A virulent Anti-Semite, Coughlin managed to derail initiatives such as support for Jews fleeing the Nazis.

Thirties hate-radio fomented white supremacy. Now, Fox News and conservative talk shows are again stirring up the lunatic right, who are more heavily armed than they were in the thirties. Writing in THE HUFFINGTON POST Eric Boehlert links several recent mass killings to hate-radio messages: Obama plans to take away your guns and kill all liberals.

At the least, Republican anger will delay Obama appointments and legislative initiatives, as GOP Senators use procedural gimmicks to block the President's intent. But judging from the experience of the thirties, it's likely that as the recession drags on, the conservative hate-media will inflame class, race, and ethnic tensions, as they blame specific minority groups, particularly undocumented immigrants, for social problems. A report from the Department of Homeland Security warns of the rise of right-wing extremism.

The most alarming trend is the increase in threats against the President. Since the election, the Secret Service has tightened security around Obama, responding to a disturbing number of warnings.

A recent Council on Foreign Relations report noted that in the last decade the vast majority of US terrorist attacks were carried out by domestic extremists. Now Republicans, through their media surrogates, are appealing to the hate that fuels domestic terrorism. During the Presidential campaign, Sarah Palin called Barack Obama a terrorist, stoking crowds who yelled threats. On March 29th, Republican Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, appearing on the Sean Hannity TV show, warned of dangers of tyranny under an Obama Administration and appealed for revolution.

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously wrote, "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic." Now Republicans and their toadies are stoking the anger of their constituents, shouting fire in the theatre of American politics.

The GOP has gone too far. Congress needs to reprimand legislators who make extreme statements. And the FCC should punish Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, and other purveyors of hate, whenever they abuse free speech and fan the fires of insurrection.

[AlinPA]

1. America is seriously divided. Talk shows, "Crossfire" style pundits on TV

and Fox "News", CNN, MSNBC have helped to split America. There is no middle ground. While the governor of Texas just mentioned seceding, it is not a stretch that several states could secede. I see passionate views on both sides of the "crossfire". It could get very ugly, very violent, very quickly with the huge increase in gun acquisition. I am 72 years old and have never seen anything like this.

[babylonsister]

2. If it's any consolation, that secession talk is just talk.

But I share your concern about the growing split which I blame solely on Fox and the rethugs that have nothing to offer other than trying to cause a rift. That's what's pathetic to me. If they're supposed to be the opposing party, they should act like one and come up with some competing ideas. What they're doing is dangerous.


http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/in_the_right/2009/04/note-to-the-governor-of-texas.html

Note to the Governor of Texas: You Couldn't Secede If You Wanted To

By Bill Pascoe | April 17, 2009 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)


snip//

But Perry is wrong in his belief that Texas has the right to secede.

Contrary to what some in Texas apparently believe, Texas was not given any special dispensation when it joined the Union.

And even if it had been, any special dispensation went out the window when Texas joined the Confederacy, took up arms against the United States, and then was defeated.

President Andrew Johnson's Proclamation declaring the end of hostilities between the United States and Texas made it abundantly clear:

"And whereas, the President of the United States, by further proclamation issued on the second day of April, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-six, did promulgate and declare, that there no longer existed any armed resistance of misguided citizens, or others, to the authority of the United States in any, or in all the States before mentioned, excepting only the State of Texas, and did further promulgate and declare that the laws could be sustained and enforced in the several States before mentioned, except Texas, by the proper civil authorities, State, or Federal, and that the people of the said States, except Texas, are well and loyally disposed, and have conformed or will conform in their legislation to the condition of affairs growing out of the amendment to the Constitution of the United States, prohibiting slavery within the limits and jurisdiction of the United States;

"And did further declare in the same proclamation that it is the manifest determination of the American people that no State, of its own will, has a right or power to go out of or separate itself from, or be separated from the American Union; and that, therefore, each State ought to remain and constitute an integral part of the United States ..."

That's what happens when you lose a war.

[AlinPA]

4. Thanks. The drooling morons who were following Palin were close to engaging in

violence and things seem to be getting worse. I hope it is all just talk but there are a lot more guns out there and the right wing hatred for Obama is growing.

[Igel]

7. I place the split much, much earlier.

The problem is that most people essentially just talk to themselves. They assume that everybody believes as they do, and always has, until they see something different. Then that "different" is new, is the cause of the schism.

We've always had subcommunities like that, but most Americans shared a common discourse, one that many disliked but everybody bought into or at least acknowledged. Research into post-Soviet communities shows that ethnic differences are minimal when the two communities have a shared history and, more importantly, a shared interpretation of that history; it's when the histories are perceived to be different, and the interpretations aren't shared, that they become weapons to use against each other.

Ensuring the lack of shared narratives and interpretations has been required in grad programs since the '50s, in undergrad programs since the late '60s, and in public schools since the '70s. No, that's not quite true. Ensuring that there's a newly revised shared narrative, one that incorporates many voices and disagreements, with appreciation for some and disgust for others (esp. the formerly mainstream narratives), has been required.

Between that and confirmation bias, you've got it covered.

[bemildred]

3. Frankly the drug "enterpreneurs" worry me a lot more.

They have serious weaponry, and money. The wingnuts just produce these futile little massacres, or pointless clueless atrocities like Oklahoma City. They still have pretensions about being the good guys. The Drug people are mean, rich, impulsive, completely lacking in morals or ethics, and very well armed.

[burning rain]

5. In the final analysis....

I think the tea-partiers and socialism-sniffers are most likely just setting themselves up for further reversals. In their embitteredness they've self-isolated and set up an echo chamber, and they're reinforcing and inflating each other's craziness. It's an inflationary process, because to have credibility within that tea party clique you have to one-up the others with anarcho-libertarian crazy. To those of us outside the echo chamber, they look like fools and wankers.

[Doctor_J]

6. Not unless we inflict reversals on them

We should have routed them after McVeigh, goaded by Hate Radio, slaughtered hundreds of innocents in OKC. We should have retaliated after Delay's storm troopers stopped the election in 2000. We should have clobbered the "vote challengers" who kept blacks from voting in 2002 and 2004. Now the limbeciles are committing murder on a weekly basis, and advocating armed revolution, and nothing happens. I am wondering what it will take for us to fight back. Hopefully we won't end up like Rwanda, where right-wing, totalitarian media sparked the genocide.

[classysassy]

8. The hatemongers

are going to destroy America if we let them continue their madness.Our so called enemies are watching very closely, and will take advantage of this split.WAKE UP AMERICA LET RID OURSELVES OF THOSE VILE HATEFULL MORONS.