Rep. Giffords, Violence, and Moral Culpability

In the wake of the tragic shooting in Arizona, I believe another discussion of violent rhetoric is in order. 

First off: no one is saying that Sarah Palin, Jesse Kelly, or the Tea Party Movement pulled the trigger.  No one is demanding these people be found guilty of any legal wrongdoing.  We are not blaming the act, in its entirety, on anything said by Glenn Beck or another Fox News talking head.  Though, I'm sure the above people/organizations will find a way to spin it so that it sounds like we are accusing them of such, just like Bill O'Reilly falsely claimed that pro-choice groups said he was responsible for the assassination of Dr. George Tiller in 2009. They will claim that we are "exploiting the tragedy" for "political gain," that we are just looking for a new way to demonize the all-powerful Tea Party Movement, all the while excusing themselves 100% from believing that anything they have said or done could have helped to foster an environment where someone would commit such an act.

No, Sarah Palin did not necessarily say "go shoot someone" with her crosshairs map.  Jesse Kelly did not technically endorse gunning down Rep. Giffords when he said "Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office ... Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly."  Glenn Beck has not been endorsing actual gun violence with his continued rhetoric of "taking back the government by force."  Not a single one of these individuals ran up to Giffords and pulled the trigger, nor did they personally put Loughner up to the task.  But that doesn't mean they have not helped to cultivate an environment where something like this could happen.  Does it mean they are legally liable and should be charged as accessories to murder?  No.  Does it mean they should be taken to task for their role in fostering such an environment through continued violent and inflammatory rhetoric?  Absolutely.

We must be guarded when we use phrases like "isolated incident," as in truth there is no such thing.  Each and every individual, especially those who would go so far beyond the customary range of human behavior, acts in response to social cues.  Not one of us lives in a vacuum free from societal influence, and while we cannot (and will not) claim that Sarah Palin is legally liable for Sunday's shooting, we can (and must) discuss the concept of moral culpability.

It is indeed an "ultra-liberal" way of thinking, though I shutter to use the L word here.  Indeed, it is a manner of thinking that leads us to ask why the high school drop-out robbed the convenience store, why the single mother sold her body for cash, why the student drugged and raped his date, and of course, why the young man unloaded an automatic weapon at an Arizona constituents event.  The answers give us some insight into the wrongdoer's life, giving us a bit of sympathy for their situation, if only for a moment.

In turn, we are labeled "bleeding-heart" and "soft on crime."  However, nothing could be further from the truth: while we ask why, we don't do it to excuse the crime itself.  We ask these questions because we know that there is no such thing as an "isolated incident."  We ask because we know that there will be others in the same situation, and those others are going to be inclined to behave in a similar manner.  We ask because we know that we as a society can do better, because we're not prepared to believe that some people are "just bad eggs." 

To say that some are "just bad eggs" is like saying "girls just like pink," or "boys just like toy cars."  We know that's bullshit, that girls like pink and boys like cars because they're told to, and that their budding preferences are reinforced by parents, television, friends, etc.  The same goes for people like Loughner, people who might already be "unstable" and frustrated, and then just need to interpret an influential figure's words as the go-ahead for violence.  This is something the Palins of the world don't seem to have figured out, or at least don't want to admit: actions have consequences.

It is never okay to use violent rhetoric against another person, no matter how innocuous it may seem.  This is all very easily spun as "they think Palin caused the shooting," but whatever.  I would rather be a "bleeding-heart" who asks why than the kind of person who incites violence then turns the other way when something tragic happens.

Glenn Beck, survival kits, and vertical integration

Remember on last week's 30 Rock how Jack was defending a controversial method of vertical integration?  Example: a company that manufactures both snack chips and Pepto might be inclined to make their snack chips cause diarrhea. It's genius, really... and not at all fictional:

Glenn Beck Hawking Survivalist Disaster Kits

Here's how it works: first, Beck plants the seeds of sensationalist fear and paranoia into the minds of his many viewers/listeners.  Then he promotes (and makes money off of) a product that only the fearful and the paranoid will purchase.  Genius!

Beck used to suggest his viewers buy gold, and lots of it, in preparation for the coming economic apocalypse where the government will apparently confiscate our valuables.  But not just any gold: Beck, along with Mike Huckabee, played spokesperson in commercials for a company called Goldline International, a company that has recently come under investigation for allegedly ripping off consumers.

Now that we're apparently looking at the apocalypse apocalypse, where only the owners of freeze-dried foodstuffs will survive, Beck is all about this "food insurance" thing.  And in true paternalistic form, he grasps his target market by co-opting some tired old patriarch-as-provider jargon:

"I finished my food storage, and I couldn't believe how relieved I was.  I remember sitting down on the stairs of the basement and looking at it, and thinking 'I could lose my job, and my family will eat.' Sometimes guys don't realize how much pressure is on them."

{vomit sounds}

TPM reports that the "survival kits" range from $199.99 for a single "essentials" kit to a whopping $9,599.99 for one that can feed a five person family for up to 12 months.  Is it any wonder Beck made $32million last year?

Your fear and paranoia are commodities to Beck, and he's cashing in like mad.  It's genius.  Evil genius, but genius nonetheless.

"Everything I need to know about Islam..."

I find the New Left Media's in-the-field interviews with the Tea Party to be incredibly enlightening.  Now of course, I understand that there are factions of the group that aren't ignorant red-necks.  There are many well-educated capitalists who just plain ol' don't like Obama because they ain't up on their Marx and think he's worse than Stalin (funny, I haven't heard tell of any big socialist push). 

Then there's the rank-and-file, once again exhibited beautifully by NLM just letting people do the talking for themselves:



The most interesting thing, however, is the expose on anti-Islam sentiment.  It's frightening, really, that people can be so ignorant, so racist, so xenophobic... if this is truly the "voice of America," I'm sad for my country.  There is a moment at 9:38 where a man says, "I learned all I needed to know about Islam on 9/11."

The first thing that came to mind was an article that was published recently on The Onion:

Man Already Knows Everything He Needs To Know About Islam

It's one of those things that's both hilarious and tragic: hilarious because The Onion captured and lampooned the sentiment so brilliantly, tragic because they didn't have to go to any great lengths to make it ridiculous.

To respond to the gentleman (?) in the NLM video...

What if I were to say that I learned all I needed to know about Christianity on May, 31, 2009? Or March 10, 1993? Or July 27, 1996? Or January 16, 1997?  January 29, 1998? What if I then decided that, by virtue of your religious convictions, you must be an anti-abortion terrorist and should therefore be shunned by society? Or that you must be a member of the Westboro Baptist Church?

What if you heard an Iraqi saying he learned everything he needs to know about America between March 20, 2003 and the present?

What if a Native American said she learned everything she needed to know about white people in 1492?

A gay man saying he learned everything he needs to know about heterosexual men on October 12, 1998?

Just admit you're a crotchety old man that's completely unwilling to to accept that you're not the only human being on the planet.  Also a racist.

Glenn Beck's rally ignored by major media outlets (except for CNN, MSNBC, CBS News, ABC News, NPR, and Fox)

I've been to a lot of national rallies in DC over the past few years: anti-war, women's rights, LGBT rights, and others. These have ranged in size from 10,000 to over half a million attendees and have been organized by both mainstream and more radical organizations. However, I don't think I've ever been to one that was covered, live, from start to finish, by any major news network.

Must be nice.

I say this because Glenn Beck, host of today's "Restoring Honor" rally, likes to play pretend that he's a grassroots activist who is always ignored by the "liberal media." He began his rally today by joking, "I have just gotten word from the media that there are over 1,000 people here today."  I know this because CNN, MSNBC, CBS News, ABC News, and of course Fox are all streaming the entire day's events on their websites.

Okay, so corporate-sponsored Glenn Beck playing oppressed grassroots activist is not something that's particularly new.  But to take a jibe at the very hand that's feeding your ideology to millions of Americans via every major news outlet... now, that takes some cojones.  But I will agree with Beck on one thing: many large-scale demonstrations don't usually get the full, unspun media attention they deserve.  This hardly applies to anything Beck has ever endorsed or been a leader in himself, but if we have to agree on one thing, that's going to be it. 

What we might not agree on, however, is the role of Fox News in all this.  According to Glenn and his fellow talking heads, Fox News is "fair and balanced."  The people's network, if you will, but not in the icky socialist way.  And true, in the past 12 months Fox News has devoted much more air time to protests than other networks, though let's be fair... some of the only major demonstrations of the past 12 months have been organized by the Fox-supported Tea Party Movement.  But you gotta give it up to them for turning their cameras in the direction of the people, right?

Or do they?  I remember a rally I attended not so long ago: The National Equality March last October.  It was by far one of the largest and most inspiring rallies I've ever been to.  The single demand?  Equal protection under the law regardless of race, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, class, etc.  It was huge.  Police and organizers estimate over 200,000 in attendance, though mainstream media outlets (including Fox, ahem) reported numbers around 75,000. 

The mainstream media, however, was definitively absent from the day's events.  As Jon Stewart so wonderfully pointed out, Fox itself used only a small amount footage from the march, footage that was initially taped by ABC News, even though Fox has a Washington bureau that could have easily seen the large crowd from an office window.

The kicker, however, was what Fox chose to report on instead: the same day, a small sidewalk demonstration took place in front of a Burlington, NJ school that had taught students a song celebrating President Obama as part of a Black History Month presentation.  The demonstration attracted crowds in the double digits, and Fox saw fit to send a satellite van out to the site to later show viewers where the crowd had been earlier that day.  The final tally of time the network devoted to either protest?  National Equality March: 3 minutes, 42 seconds.  The anti-Obama sidewalk deal: 8 minutes, 16 seconds.

I'll let Glenn Beck go on and on about his so-called "grassroots movement" spearheaded by one of the largest media corporations in the world.  I'll even let him make a complete ass of himself by holding what is essentially a nouveau-white power rally on the anniversary of (and on the grounds of) MLK's historic "I Have a Dream" speech.  I won't, however, allow his poor oppressed white dude personae pretend he's being censored or just ignored by the media when he is the media and receives abundant coverage from not only his own network, but competitor networks as well.  Mr. Beck, you are either an idiot or an evil genius.  (I believe I know which, and it's frightening.)




P.S. Okay, I won't let him hold his offensive mock-MLK rally unchallenged. I just don't have the energy to go on about that particular issue right now.  There's just too much wrong with what GB does... you gotta choose your battles, right?  The hijacking of the Civil Rights Movement is offensive, and that's all I really have to say about it.