Climate of Hate - By PAUL KRUGMAN

[kpete]

Op-Ed Columnist
Climate of Hate
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: January 9, 2011

When you heard the terrible news from Arizona, were you completely surprised? Or were you, at some level, expecting something like this atrocity to happen?

....Where's that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let's not make a false pretense of balance: it's coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It's hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be "armed and dangerous" without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P.

And there's a huge contrast in the media. Listen to Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, and you'll hear a lot of caustic remarks and mockery aimed at Republicans. But you won't hear jokes about shooting government officials or beheading a journalist at The Washington Post. Listen to Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly, and you will.


the rest:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/opinion/10krugman.html

[xchrom]

1. bears repeating:

'Or were you, at some level, expecting something like this atrocity to happen?'

deep down -- we knew it was coming again.

[emulatorloo]

2. Thanks for posting.

[Tippy]

3. K&R For my fear of just this sort of thing happening....

I can not believe all that has happened, many people have no respect..from the "You LIE" to people in the Congressional gallery screaming out...to a Representative have beening spat upon, on the steps of Congress. Have they all gone total mad, is it because we have a black man who was elected President..or does someone have a better explaniation.

[Moostache]

5. Taibbi covers a lot of this in Griftopia...

The entire thing - left-right, Dem-Rep, red-blue, apathy and ignorance - is as Taibbi states...its the circuses end of the proverbial bread and circuses:

"… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses."

Juvenal, Satire 10.77–81
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses).

Its all devolved into spectator sport...and MANY of the go-along, get-along "centrists" at DU, and other progressive sites, and organizations and especially the sell-out Democratic Party are guilty of living a lie. The lie is that they are self-identified "liberals" only in the sense that they are fans of them more so than the "other side". Its like people who watch the Super Bowl every year because its an "event", but they have no actual knowledge of the teams playing - no real rooting interest, just a popularity contest.

The "fans" of each side probably make up about 40-50% of their respective totals. Think about it...right after the 2008 elections, self-identified "Republicans" was down to about 20% of overall voters...no one likes a loser! When the Tea Party was ginned up by right wingers and generated an external enemy for the sheeple, well, we've all seen the videos, heard the clips and are living in the aftermath...

[truth2power]

4. Thanks, kpete, for posting this. Please, everyone, take note that Krugman

has hit upon a very important FRAME, and we need to use it whenever someone starts in about the "both sides" argument, which is a canard. On stilts.

Here's the frame: There's a difference between ridicule, mockery, or caustic remarks and eliminationist rhetoric. The RW uses eliminationist speech all the time and that's vastly different from anything you hear from Progressives.

"The point is that there’s room in a democracy for people who ridicule and denounce those who disagree with them; there isn’t any place for eliminationist rhetoric, for suggestions that those on the other side of a debate must be removed from that debate by whatever means necessary."

Use it. Every time.

[Stuart G]

6. Krugman's last line says it all....

"If Arizona promotes some real soul-searching, it could prove a turning point. If it doesn’t, Saturday’s atrocity will be just the beginning."

I believe that there will be some toning down, but not by Palin, Limbaugh and most others.
Very sadly, I think the last 7 words are what will happen.

I pray this isn't true, but I think it will be.

[JohnWxy]

7. thanks for post. Great article by Krugman.

...just in case some missed this, send it back to top.