This is a short diary but I think an important one. By now the cliche of republican cult double-think is so overplayed that we have a term, "IOKIYAR" to joke about how often they excuse behavior from the right that they condemn on the left.
But with the Giffords shooting, the double-think is reaching epic proportions.
And it comes down to a basic principle of republican hate speech on 95% of their issues, and one that they're pretending to ignore on this one: Words influence behavior.
The notion of the pernicious influence of mass media corrupting the innocent minds of youths is one that isn't just ancillary to the modern republican cult movement, it is a central tenet of its entire existence since the 1950s.
Lets count how many fields of mass culture the right wing shrieks is made up of dangerous words influencing the masses to engage in behavior they otherwise wouldn't:
#1: ACADEMIA:
Allan Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind," written in 1987, was an argument that the coded belief structures of American academic institutions were brainwashing and corrupting people into believing in a dominant liberalist/socialist framework that prevented true critical thought from taking place.
This is, of course, utter bullshit. But I'm not arguing with Bloom here on the merits, I'm pointing out how the formula: Coded words = influence on behavior, is central to the republican persecution complex in the academy.
No "lone thinker" philosophy here.
No "each individual acts on his own merits" here.
This is a structural blame. A blame on institutional amplification of powerful voices. The very same blame that is now so deservedly being heaped on the unhinged voices in the right wing hate media empire.
#2: HOLLYWOOD
Since Joe McCarthy and Sen. Jon Rankin unleashed a torrent of paranoia that Hollywood movies were putting "pro Communist" messages in their movies in the late 1940s and early 1950s, one of the most hysterical of republican claims is that of a liberally biased media and entertainment structure that is covertly teaching ideological lessons under guise of narratives and storytelling.
This paranoia fueled the McCarthy witch hunts, and continues to this day in the right wing blogosphere, convinced the masses were "brainwashed" by mass media to vote for Barack Obama.
Witness the hysteria over "GEORGE SOROS" or "MEDIA MATTERS" or even "ACORN," -- all right wing paranoid memes that key shadowy powerful figures were manipulating the language and imagery of the culture industry to brainwash and control the masses for nefarious and destructive purposes.
This is what led them to blame the massacre of Columbine on figures like Marilyn Manson, and the entire 1980s and 1990s campaigns against messages in rap music (Ice-T's "Cop Killer", for example) that they were convinced would teach kids how to act.
Again, this philosophy from the right is very clear: The messages in art and entertainment, while likely not able to negatively influence 99.99% of the human race, might send a few unhinged people over the top and into acts of murder.
This isn't just ancillary to the right wing cult movement. It is the entire and central philosophy of right wing belief systems for 50 years now.
#3: THE NEWS MEDIA
As with Hollywood, the right wing cult movement is a fever swamp of paranoia that coded and subliminal messages are implanted daily by Hollywood liberals to sway the masses to do the bidding of the "liberal elite."
In all of these cases, the right wing has never believed in the "lone nutcase" argument -- always they present a structural blame for a mass media of powerful influence.
And the truth is, at least in theory, they are right.
Mass media, today's 21st Century culture machine, is one of the most powerful and pervasive influences on society as we've seen in history.
Our phones, our TV, our internet, our movies, our magazines and our music stare at us from billboards and buses and laundromats and even on our airplanes now, shouting messages at us 24/7.
The thing is, liberals have never denied that media has an impact on society. NEVER. They have simply argued for freedom of speech, even if there are consequences to that speech.
It is republicans, as usual, who are engaging in a profound, hilarious and utterly ridiculous double-think in this case. Yes, we're used to it. Yes IOKIYAR, business as usual.
But still, the hypocrisy is breathtaking.
If media is so powerful, and Hollywood and colleges are so powerful at influencing minds and sending messages to the masses, how the FUCK is it possible for, after 18 months of right wing hatred steeped in the rhetoric of military revolution, to have had no influence on Jared Lee Loughner?
Even the most fervent right wing cultist can't deny the massive impact of right wing media, talk radio and the Fox News empire.
How is Jared Lee Loughner the first individual, in the history of right wing hysteria, to be untouched by all the mass media outlets that right wing cultists continue to claim maintain such a powerful and pervasive hold on the masses?
Worth thinking about as the cult of republicanism continues its mad march towards finally stating, with certainty, that 2+2=5.