I think Jon Stewart performs a complete tour de force here where he exposes the "Violentizing" of thoughtful, peaceful rapper and poet Common.
Part 1
Part 2
Jon does a great job of first of all that Common isn't advocating violence - he's asking people to turn away from it after giving an example of it. He also draws the parallel of violent imagery such as the kind that Fox news complains about from Common - particularly when Sarah Palin said she was being "misconstrued" when she said "Don't Retreat, Reload".
Anyone remember how Fox News reacted after the shooting of Gabby Giffords and many reporters mentioned this particular piece of "artwork" by one Sarah Palin?
Palin argued then that Democrats have had "Bulleye" maps too - maybe so, but they targeted States (by the DNC for Presidential Primaries) - not PEOPLE.
Hannity: Gov Palin is here to respond to the political fingerpointing
Let's also recall what happened after Sarah's Target Map was released.
Vic Snyder (retired, Arkansas-2) received a death threat in the mail in March 2010.
Ann Kirkpatrick (Arizona-1) - her office was attacked in March 2010.
Harry Mitchell (Arizona-5) received several death threats in March 2010.
Betsy Markey (Colorado-4) received several death threats in March 2010.
Suzanne Kosmas (Florida-24) was threatened in March 2010.
Baron Hill (Indiana-9) received several telephone threats in March 2010.
Earl Pomeroy (North Dakota-AL) was threatened in March 2010.
John Boccieri (Ohio-16) received numerous telephone death threats in March 2010.
Kathy Dahlkemper (Pennsylvania-3) was threatened by mail in March 2010.
Tom Perriello (Virginia-5) was threatened in March 2010, including the infamous incident when the gas line was cut at his brother's house; the attacker erroneously thought it was Rep Perriello's house.
Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona) had the front window of her office shot out in March.
You can't argue that some DNC map targeting Iowa or Florida directed anyone to get on the phone and start threatening someone's life or vandalize an office because THAT DiDN'T HAPPEN. Yet, nearly half the representatives on Palin's HIT LIST either received death threats or had their offices vandalized, but somehow Sarah think's she's the real victim?
Yeah, right.
Now in his piece Jon Stewart briefly mentions Ice-T, but that isn't really fair or accurate. Ice T didn't do a violent song about killing cops - the Hard Core Rock Band Body Count did. Time and time again people ignore that this wasn't a RAP song, it was a ROCK Song by a group of black guys. Even fewer have actually bothered to listen to it and realize that it has a preamble that explains exactly what the song is really about. Ice T was in the band, but he wasn't the band. It's like talking the gross violence of Steven Tyler in "Janie's Got a Gun" - when in fact it was an Aerosmith song.
Ice T: This next record is dedicated to some personal friends of mine. The L.A.P.D. For every cop whose ever taken advantage of somebody, beat them down or hurt them, because they listened to the wrong kind of music, had long hair, wrong color, whatever their reason was to do it. For every one of those fucking police, I'd like to take a pig out here in this parking lot and shot them in their mutha-fucking face
The song is clearly about responding to police brutality and discrimination. Even if you don't agree with the solution suggested (or in this case - predicted) you have to admit the people have the right to self-protection. If you think what is said here is "Radical" maybe you need to also read something another wild-eyed crazy gun radical once said.
That the people and the States should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterupted succession of men ready to betray both; that the traitors should, throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment; that the governments and the people of the States should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to every one more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism. Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it. Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.
Yeah, this crazy anti-government gun nut radical would happen to be James Madison in Federalist #46.
Ice-T isn't anti-Cop, he's been playing cops on TV and the Movies for years. He's against Corrupt Police, as just about all of us should be.
Between the Bodycount song and this - which is the more violent suggestion?
And what happened when that song gain nation wide attention- there were Death and Bomb Threats Issued against the employees of Time/Warner which ultimately prompted Ice-T to pull the song from his album.
You wanna talk about real life Cop Killers? How about these guys?
Where an Acolyte of Glenn Beck launched an attack on the ACLU & Tides which wounded 2 CHP officers, where a fan of Bernie Goldberg killed 2 people. wounding 5 at a Unitarian Church in Knoxville Tennessee and where Bill O'Reilly unending attacks on George Tiller ended when he was Murdered by Right-Wing Fundamentlaist/Soverentist Scott Reoder, where James Von Brunn killed a guard at the Holocause Museum as part of an intended spree that included murdering Obama advisor David Axelrod, and where Richard Poplowski who bought into right-wing rhetoric that "Obama is going to take all our guns" and killed 3 Pittsburgh Police Officers before being taken down.
That's a real life Body Count of 7 Dead and 7 Wounded as a direct result of Right Wing Rhetoric - not Ice T or Common.
And do you think Ted Nugent received Death Threats for this?
Somehow I doubt it.
It seems that some people only get really riled up with they see a bunch of people with guns who look like this...
Not this.
Interesting how pliant some people's support for the First and Second Amendment can become when it's politically convenient - a point I made very clear in this video over a year ago.