Political Hate Speech

...let me just tell you what I'm thinking. I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out -- is this wrong?

Glenn Beck, May 17, 2005.

The well-springs of poison are about to open up...

Given the body count already of key Democrat politicians and American civil rights leaders and labor activists who have been assassinated in America, in the Americas and around the globe; given the levels of hostility and invective from the right this cycle already, I have a question:

Will Americans allow right-wing cranks to promulgate homicidal fantasies over the air-waves unpunished, as they have in the past?

What happens when, not if, Glenn Beck, Don Imus, Andrew Sullivan or some Fox crank 'hypothetically' discusses the assassination of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Hussein Obama or whoever the Dem candidate happens to be?

There was a diary titled: 'Breaking: .... Dead'. Few laughed. We know what the wing-nuts are thinking. And it's only January, the crap hasn't even started yet.

Turnout for Dems has been fantastic. Americans, hungry for change, are registering and voting in record numbers. The world is paying attention. I watched HRC win on TV on a rush-hour train in downtown Tokyo.

Yet, for the frightened, the idea that a woman, a person of color, a liberal, a Democrat, might actually win the election in November is both an anathema and a blessing. While the prospect fills the wingnut with horror and self-loathing, it also offers the long-awaited opportunity to indulge in the sickest of fantasies. The one where the good guys have to shoot down the bad. For real.

Because, for the misogynist, this election isn't about Hillary.  For the racist, 2008 isn't about Barack or his religion. For the authoritarian, this isn't about John. It's about fear and hate, plain and simple. The idea that someone supposed to be lower on the totem pole might actually grasp the golden ring fills these sad, sick souls with grief, impotence and rage. It's not like that's a secret.

So when you listen to Sullivan and Reynolds fan the flames of Hillary hatred; or listen to Fox speculate about whether Barack is secretly a Muslim, be clear: Reynolds and the other so-called 'responsible' media types are tip-toeing right up to the edge of the line, pandering knowingly both to the worst instincts in us all, but also to the sickest in society, hoping/fearing something just might happen as a result.

Appealing openly to the murderous appetites of the right is a form of terrorism; and it's a form of terrorism that works. A war was sold to America by playing on just such fears. And, lest we forget, that was no dream when Glenn Beck fantasized about murdering Michael Moore on the air two years ago.

...let me just tell you what I'm thinking. I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out...

That's a major media figure fantasizing about murder. Next time, he might not ask if it's wrong...

More at rattlesnakepoint...

•  I'm going

  to get a breath of fresh air.

  by kidneystones on Thu Jan 10, 2008 at 11:02:34 PM PDT

•  Out of the shadows

  Thank you for bringing this out of the shadows Kidneystones. Anyone here who can remember 1968 knows exactly what you are speaking of. We need to let it go out that they are protected in the 'fortress of the people'.

  by DaleA on Thu Jan 10, 2008 at 11:10:50 PM PDT

  •  Thanks, DaleA,

    It will be framed as a 'discussion' of 'whether America is ready' for candidate X.

    I doubt Romney faces the same risks, but who knows?

    by kidneystones on Thu Jan 10, 2008 at 11:34:39 PM PDT

•  Boycott Glenn Beck's advertisers.

  Send messages to the advertisers that the boycott will stop when they stop supporting hate speech.  Contact the stations.  Turn up the heat.

  by sunbro on Thu Jan 10, 2008 at 11:40:07 PM PDT

  •  Excellent idea, sunbro, but

    won't there be some frothing crank with deep-pockets willing to finance fresh spew, all in the name of free speach?

    Sully got 400,000 hits the other day.

    by kidneystones on Thu Jan 10, 2008 at 11:52:03 PM PDT

•  Great diary...

  But you left out two of our current biggest hate-mongers: Chris Matthews and Maureen Dowd.

  I'm just disgusted by their statements regarding Hillary Clinton. (For the record I support Obama.) I'm not sure if its misogyny or just the typical viral "Clinton-hatred". Even Bill O'Reilly is criticizing Tweety over his stupid statement that Hillary won a seat in the Senate simply because Bill Clinton "messed around".

  How low can you go when even Lech Loofah is to your left?

  by assyrian64 on Thu Jan 10, 2008 at 11:42:37 PM PDT

  •  Answer: Far, far lower.

    We ain't seen nothing, yet. I don't want to even think about what kind of 'nut-cracker' dolls they'll make.

    Consider the vile speculations about the Clintons' private life and we know the only direction these folks know is down.

    Thanks, assyrian64. You're correct, of course. It's like a national sport for these pricks.

    sunbro has the right idea, will folks stand up?

    by kidneystones on Thu Jan 10, 2008 at 11:50:03 PM PDT

    •  Asdf...

      It's like a national sport for these pricks.

      It certainly is. Politics involves life and death issues, i.e., health care, war, etc, but for these insulated, elitist pigs, politics is just a damn entertaining horse race.

      For the Tweety brigade American politics is about sweaters, hair, screams, cleavage, and clapping.

      by assyrian64 on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 12:10:40 AM PDT

      •  lol

        I shouldn't, but your last line nailed it.

        Perhaps handing out unlimited drugs and guiding them through free tutorials here might help.

        by kidneystones on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 12:15:07 AM PDT

•  It's an open secret

  that historically terrorism in the U.S. has been and remains, by tremendous majority, Right wing associated.  It's hard to come up with much of a list of Left wing associated ones by comparison.

  The general pattern since, oh, the 1940s has been that Democratic Administrations have seen and had to deal with outbreaks of domestic right wing terrorism.  

  There are the lynchings and such during the Roosevelt years, the Civil Rights era riots and arsons and bombings (though many took place under Eisenhower) in the Kennedy and LBJ years, the murder-suicide cultists (Manson, Jonestown) under LBJ and Carter.  There is the Puerto Rican independence terrorism, but it's not clear whether that tallies as Left.  And under Clinton we have the Branch Davidian story, the "militias", Aryan Nations, Tim McVey, Ted Kaczynski, Eric Rudolph, and the anti-abortion terrorists.  Also anti-Muslim domestic terrorism. (A lot of that is often groups emboldened- left minimally pursued and often unprosecuted- by previous Republican administrations.)

  Republican Administrations tend to result in outbreaks of terrorism by aggrieved foreigners in whose affairs they've meddled overseas.

  I'd account the inter-Cuban terrorism/violence in Miami and throughout the Caribbean countries as something Nixon licensed and led to.  Reagan and Bush Sr. got hit by Hezbollah and the PLO (the cruise ship thing) and the Libyans (Pan Am 103), and left Clinton with the Mogadishu problem and the first Al Qaeda attacks.  Bush Jr. has had Al Qaeda turn into a franchise operation against him.

  It's fairly predictable that if/when there's a Democratic Administration in 2009, they'll deal with Al Qaeda far more effectively (remove the political fuel aka Iraq, and get the cooperation to capture the principals).  But they'll inherit some nasty cuckoo eggs in the form of right wing domestic terrorist groups that the Bush DoJ ignored to the extent it could get away with.  There will be right wing Cubans who made Miami what it was, and like people in other immigrant groups.  There will be the anti-abortion extremists who like arson, guns, and bombs.  There will be the as yet unidentified folks who terrorized Muslim Americans in 2001 to 2004.  There will still be minor anti-black and anti-Semitic groups to collapse, and the are the "Minutemen" and such who have killed Latinos.  There will be fallout from the jailers and interrogators and torturers of the prisons at Bagram and Guantanamo Bay, as they seek new employment.  (Likewise, the 'detainees' are not going to all be gentle souls about the ordeal and injustices either.)

  And the likes of Glenn Reynolds will be in part responsible for the things that happen.

  by killjoy on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 12:48:28 AM PDT

•  I'm old enough to remember

  a time when speech like Beck's would have terminated not only his job but any access to the airwaves ever again.  I can grasp, at least on some level, the kind of hate and violence that can occur in people's minds, but I have real trouble understanding how it can be allowed to be sold on the public media. We often hear that free speech does not include yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater.  How is advocating or rhapsodizing about killing someone different from that?  

  I know that programs like that are playing in the homes of my students.  Those who wonder where the kids get the idea that hurting or killing someone is no big deal need only look/listen to such tripe.  Kids (and unbalanced adults) do not come up with this stuff in a vacuum...

  by luckylizard on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 03:58:49 AM PDT

  •  Puzzling, no?

    The good news is that most crime and most violence is down in many areas.

    The fringe, however, is another story.

    Well-said, luckylizard.

    by kidneystones on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 05:28:14 AM PDT

    •  Thanks! n/t

      by luckylizard on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 04:28:15 PM PDT