The New Yorker: It Doesn't Matter Why He Did It

[Hissyspit]

January 9, 2011
IT DOESN’T MATTER WHY HE DID IT
Posted by George Packer

- snip -

...and maybe the gunman had no idea why he was aiming for Giffords either, maybe he didn't know how she voted on health care or what her position on Arizona’s draconian immigration law was. It would be a kind of relief if Loughner operated not out of any coherent political context but just his own fevered brain.

But even so, the tragedy wouldn't change this basic fact: for the past two years, many conservative leaders, activists, and media figures have made a habit of trying to delegitimize their political opponents. Not just arguing against their opponents, but doing everything possible to turn them into enemies of the country and cast them out beyond the pale. Instead of “soft on defense,” one routinely hears the words “treason” and “traitor.” The President isn't a big-government liberal—he's a socialist who wants to impose tyranny. He's also, according to a minority of Republicans, including elected officials, an impostor. Even the reading of the Constitution on the first day of the 112th Congress was conceived as an assault on the legitimacy of the Democratic Administration and Congress.

This relentlessly hostile rhetoric has become standard issue on the right. (On the left it appears in anonymous comment threads, not congressional speeches and national T.V. programs.) And it has gone almost entirely uncriticized by Republican leaders. Partisan media encourages it, while the mainstream media finds it titillating and airs it, often without comment, so that the gradual effect is to desensitize even people to whom the rhetoric is repellent. We’ve all grown so used to it over the past couple of years that it took the shock of an assassination attempt to show us the ugliness to which our politics has sunk.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/2011/01/judging-from-his-internet-postings.html#ixzz1AY8DdqQb

[KG]

1. mr packer knows what time it is.

[rfranklin]

2. Thanks George, for saying it more eloquently than I did...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x148986

[upi402]

3. "the gradual effect is to desensitize"

and then to incite to violence.

they know it works, or they wouldn't spend millions on ads. people are easy to fool.

[OneGrassRoot]

4. That's what I've been saying. In one sense, it doesn't matter...

why the shooter did what he did -- if there even WAS a reason.

I condemn him and his actions.

But I also condemn those who have actively contributed to (and gotten rich off of ) spewing violent political rhetoric, especially over the last two years.

Palin led the way.

They've contributed to a culture of violence and they need to be held accountable.

[justiceischeap]

7. Though I think Palin is culpable, I think it was the Bush admin

that paved the way and maybe earlier than that--when the ReThugs went after Clinton for any and everything they could think of--it was attack, attack, attack. Showing the American public that it's okay to be nefarious if you have the power to do so.

IMO, it became more direct with the whole "You're either with us or against us" rhetoric. Bush framed the fight against terrorism and the American way as an either or proposition and if you didn't believe his lies and propaganda then you were "against us," an "other" that didn't deserve the same privileges and rights as those that believed what he was selling.

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. The right wing have been doing this for decades

I posted a picture of a flyer they distributed that called JFK a traitor. 50 years ago.

[DCKit]

8. "Palin led the way." Hardly. She's never done anything original.

On the other hand, OxyRush has been spewing this crapola for decades (and he's not alone).

Cariboo Barbie simply jumped on the same bandwagon, with $ $ in her eyes.

Glenn, OxyRush, Ann Coulter and the rest would have destroyed her long ago but, by having her consistently reinforcing their message, each ones share only increases.

It's a growth industry and the Grifter simply saw the opportunity to profit.

[bettyellen]

10. for violent imagery and hate speech to be normalized at mainstream political gatherings-

yes, she paved that way. and it has to stop.

[OneGrassRoot]

13. Yes, that's what I meant. Palin and Beck are circling the drain...

(sorry, I keep typing that same phrase but it's what comes to mind so readily)

Limbaugh started it all and he needs to be off the airwaves very soon.

[tridim]

5. That's the precise point. Thanks New Yorker.

[Tansy_Gold]

6. Packer is correct, but he's also wrong

It DOES matter why this guy went on a rampage. It matters very much.

Because if he's just a nut case gone over the edge for no reason at all beyond whatever demons lurk in his "fevered brain," then there's nothing we can do. More important, there's nothing we NEED to do. Right wing hate didn't make him do it, so therefore right wing hate is not to blame and is in fact blameless.

Packer is wimping out, like too many have done before him.

Rodgers and Hammerstein DIDN'T wimp out. They knew. . .


You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!



"You've Got to Be Carefully Taught" (sometimes "You've Got to Be Taught" or "Carefully Taught") is a show tune from the 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific.

South Pacific received scrutiny for its commentary regarding relationships between different races and ethnic groups. In particular, "You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught" was subject to widespread criticism, judged by some to be too controversial or downright inappropriate for the musical stage.<1> Sung by the character Lieutenant Cable, the song is preceded by a lyric saying racism is "not born in you! It happens after you’re born..."

Rodgers and Hammerstein risked the entire South Pacific venture in light of legislative challenges to its decency or supposed Communist agenda. While the show was on a tour of the Southern United States, lawmakers in Georgia introduced a bill outlawing entertainment containing "an underlying philosophy inspired by Moscow." One legislator said that "a song justifying interracial marriage was implicitly a threat to the American way of life." Rodgers and Hammerstein defended their work strongly. James Michener, upon whose stories South Pacific was based, recalled, "The authors replied stubbornly that this number represented why they had wanted to do this play, and that even if it meant the failure of the production, it was going to stay in."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You've_Got_to_Be_Carefully_Taught


TG, TT

[DCKit]

9. Well Stated TG! nt

[stray cat]

11. Violent rhetoric should be condemned by all -regardless of the facts in this case

[Nostradammit]

12. How very subtle of you, "stray cat."

[Swamp Rat]

14. k&r