Both Sides Do It - Not
In the wake of the Tucson, Arizona shootings, before the gun smoke had cleared, the right-wing hate machine was wound up and claiming the shooter was a liberal, that he was a pot-smoker, and he was a paranoid-schizophrenic.
Two out of three ain't bad. The last two.
The left-wing activists were shouting that he was a right-wing hate media fan, a pot-smoker and a paranoid-schizophrenic.
Two out of three ain't bad. The last two.
The simple fact of the matter is, at the time, no one knew the political orientation of the killer, no one seemed to know if he listened to radio, or only the voices in his head. No one knew if he watched television, or only the hallucinations from his fevered imagination. No one knew, yet everyone had someone else to blame.
It has come out since that he was a registered Repugnantcan, and he had read Mein Kampf. Not exactly a liberal tome.
All the media hand-wringers were talking about toning it down and backing off the hate and anger.
Faux came out with a statement that Roger Ailes had told his anchors to lower the rhetoric from boil to simmer, but nothing has changed. They are still telling horrendous lies and using violent rhetoric to whip up the brain-dead base. Rush Lintball is still out for blood, liberal blood, and false equivalencies fly hither and yon.
There are some angry left wing talkers, true. But the market is such that the right-wing out shouts the left by about 10 to one. The higher powered talk-radio stations are generally right-wing, and you can find three or more in any metropolitan area. If there is a liberal station in your area, try way down on the left side of the AM dial. They are stuffed into the 90's and low 100's.
Besides the difficulty in finding a liberal voice, the angry ones are few and far between. There are a few syndicated and carried by most of the stations that claim liberal views. But they are for the most part calm and informative: Thom Hartmann, Alan Colmes, Randi Rhodes; comedic, Stephanie Miller,
unapologetic anti-republican Mike Malloy. With the abrupt exit of Keith Olbemann from the television airwaves, there is yet another shutting out of the liberal voice.
The left has said, “Okay, we'll tone it down, we'll be civil.” But that won't work. Not the way they intend. Because the right has no intention of toning it down or being civil. They won't play along because they perceive it as weakness.
The few angry talkers on the left have to stay angry. There is plenty to be angry about. But these few reach only the audience they've built over the years and catch no new ears.
The right, however, is everywhere. It is not just a few off-hand comments, uttered in an unguarded moment, no. It is a constant drumbeat of hate and lies and fear mongering. It has served them well, and they will not abandon it.
The constant drumbeat of “Shoot them in the head!', “They are destroying America,” Liberals are the problem,” and on and on, demonizing half the population so a few crazies can get their guns out and assassinate Congress people and Judges and nine-year old girls.
The constant drumbeat of a right-wing “Take Back America” bumper-sticker mentality,
a Republican party allying itself with a Tea Party, birther, tenther, bircher, far right will lead to armed conflict. There may be a revolution coming. The right says the left is planning one. But we're not.
The right wants one. They want blood in the streets, insurrection, riots, dead Americans. That is their ultimate goal. If we're fighting each other, we won't have time to turn on them.
And the sickest part of all is, they do it for sport. It's all just a game for them. And if they lose a few pawns, that's okay, they're planning a killer endgame.
