Day: 1/8/2011

Gabrielle Giffords: A Victim Of Violent Fox News/Tea Party Rhetoric?

Posted by on January 8, 2011 at 6:27 pm. 14 Comments :

There was a shooting today in Tuscon, Arizona that has taken several lives and has left a United States Congresswoman struggling to survive. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), is out of surgery and is clinging to life. Sadly, Judge John Roll and several others who have not been identified (including a ten year old girl) have already been pronounced dead.

Tea CrusadesWhile there are some disturbing components to this story (itemized below) it is way to soon to attribute motives in this particular case. However, it is not too soon to reiterate the predictable danger that results from irresponsible and violent language that has become far too common in recent years. Fox News has been at the forefront of this trend, permitting their top personalities to engage in dialogue that is overtly hostile, as well as promoting the most vile elements of the Tea Party.

Bill O’Reilly’s labeling of Dr. George Tiller as “Tiller the baby killer” may have played a part in Tiller’s murder. Glenn Beck’s relentless condemnation of George Soros and the Tides Foundation was cited as inspiration by a man who was apprehended after a police shootout while he was on his way to kill Tides and ACLU personnel. Sean Hannity refers to his audience as “Tim McVeigh wannabes” to thunderous applause. Liz Trotta joked about “knocking off” President Obama.

But the risk is not limited to direct threats as those listed above. The tone of many Fox News hosts and analysts is just as dangerous. They cavalierly describe their political adversaries as radicals, communists or fascists who are deliberately destroying America and blaspheming God. What do they expect people to do upon being terrorized by that sort of delusional peril?

I want to emphasize that the facts to follow are not necessarily connected to the gunman in today’s news. But they are notable nevertheless for how they illustrate potential risks due to the sort of anti-social behavior that is encouraged on Fox News.

Rep. Giffords was targeted by the Tea Party and their AstroTurf benefactors Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks.

Glenn Beck attacked Giffords with his co-host calling her a moron for her support of renewable energy in the military.

At a recent event held by Giffords in Arizona, police were called after an attendee dropped a gun.

Giffords’ office was vandalized just hours after she voted for the health care reform package.

Giffords’ opponent, GOP/Tea Party candidate Jesse Kelly, held an event where supporters were encouraged to “Get on Target for Victory in November Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.”

Also killed was Federal Judge John Roll, who had received numerous death threats after ruling to allow a case involving illegal immigrants to go forward.

Giffords was one of the politicians to whom Keith Olbermann made contributions, leading to his three day suspension from MSNBC.

Sarah Palin (“Don’t Retreat – Reload”) put Giffords on her Hit List.

Joyce Kaufman, talk show host and aide to Rep. Allen West told a Tea Party rally: “If ballots don’t work, bullets will.”

GOP/Tea Party Senate candidate Sharron Angle said: “If this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies.”

And perhaps most poignantly, Rep. Giffords father, Spencer Giffords, 75, wept when asked if his daughter had any enemies. “Yeah,” he told The New York Post. “The whole Tea Party.”

I repeat, these may have no connection to today’s shooting. But they are indicative of a problem in the media that must be addressed. There have been plenty of other acts of violence whose connection to this sort of rhetoric is well documented. And there have been credible warnings about just this type of tragic event.

To be clear, I am not calling for any kind of censorship. I am calling for responsibility on the part of the press, and absent that, accountability. The people who deliberately use incendiary language to fire up their followers cannot get off scot-free when the predictable consequences occur. It could not be said better than how Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik put it in a press conference addressing the shooting this afternoon:

“When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous,” the sheriff said. “And unfortunately, Arizona I think has become the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”

Bill O’Reilly Gives Platform To Bin Laden Supporting Crackpot

Posted by on January 8, 2011 at 10:17 am. 1 Comments :

Last night’s episode of the O’Reilly Factor featured a debate between Bill O’Reilly and Michael Scheuer, a former CIA agent whom O’Reilly described as knowing more about Osama Bin Laden than anyone the planet. Scheuer took the position that celebrities like George Clooney and Angelina Jolie are helping Bin Laden by bringing attention to the travesties being committed in the Sudan.

Scheuer never really explained how either celebrity involvement, or that of the United States, actually aided Bin Laden. In fact, his argument mostly pointed out that the actions on behalf of the persecuted Christians in the region would only annoy and frustrate Bin Laden. Perhaps Scheuer believes that antagonizing Bin Laden is helpful to him in some way.

Further more, Scheuer had a tough time staying on the subject. He repeatedly conflated celebrity efforts to publicize the atrocities and human suffering with official U.S. government activities, even going so far as to imply that if the Hollywood stars had any success in efforts to establish a safe haven for refugees in a new southern nation, that the U.S. would be obligated to defend it from Islamic adversaries. I’m pretty sure the State Department doesn’t have any treaty obligations with the Screen Actor’s Guild.

Scheuer also inexplicably diverted the discussion to abortion when asked by O’Reilly about whether the world should “stand on the sidelines when hundreds of thousands of people are murdered and raped?” Scheuer’s response:

“We absolutely stand on the sidelines, Bill. We live in a country where 50 million unborn Americans have been killed since 1973 with the support of Mr. Clooney and the rest of the Hollywood community and somehow we’re supposed to now risk our becoming involved in a place in the world where most Americans are not even familiar with the geography, including me.”

By raising abortion in this context, Scheuer reveals himself to be just another twisted right-wing extremist, obsessed with a psycho-biblical agenda. What does abortion have to do with the near genocidal civil war taking place in Sudan? And Scheuer’s phony compassion for the unborn is exposed by his stance that it is acceptable to stand on the sidelines when already born people are being slaughtered because of their religion. And, finally, if Scheuer’s criteria for involvement in foreign affairs is that the American people be “familiar with the geography” then how could he have been such an ardent backer of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where many more tens of thousands of people died despite the general lack of geographical knowledge on the part of U.S. citizens?

For the record, Scheuer himself expressed a sort of perverse support for Bin Laden when he appeared on Glenn Beck’s program and said that…

“…the only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States. […] Again, only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently, and with as much violence as necessary.”

Scheuer was openly rooting for another terrorist attack as a means to motivating Americans to protest terrorist attacks. Glenn Beck, by the way, concurred with that strategy. For his part, O’Reilly disagreed with Scheuer’s disjointed lunacy with respect to the celebrity involvement. But it is still difficult to give O’Reilly any credit for moderating the discussion because it’s O’Reilly’s fault that this jerkwad was on the air to begin with.

What’s more, O’Reilly was overtly hypocritical in his tepid support for Clooney and Jolie when he so frequently takes positions against artists expressing their views in public. He is a major proponent of the “Shut and Sing” idiocy that asserts that artists should be prohibited from contributing to a civic dialog in which all other citizens are permitted to engage. And specifically with regard to these two stars, O’Reilly has falsely accused Clooney of diverting funds from charity telethons away from the intended recipients, and he baselessly alleged that Jolie, in her role as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador, coordinated her trips to coincide with her movie openings.

Scheuer’s notion that Clooney et al were in any way supporting Bin Laden or Al Qaeda is 180 degrees backwards. It is Scheuer’s position that would most benefit Bin Laden by permitting the Islamic terrorists in Sudan to commit atrocities with impunity. Scheuer is actually arguing that Bin Laden’s allies in the region should be given a free hand to torture and murder innocent people in a quest to dominate a country that Bin Laden has used to launch his terror campaigns.

Why Fox News continues to give this demented sociopath a platform for his treasonous views is beyond comprehension. His extremism is so far removed from decency (or reality) that the only foreseeable result of helping to promote him is to incite additional lunacy from the already ill-informed and gullible Fox audience. O’Reilly’s disagreement notwithstanding, he also praised Scheuer and validated him as an expert whose opinion is worthy of consideration. In effect, O’Reilly gave permission to his viewers to adopt Scheuer’s dangerous ideas, and in that manner they are both helping Bin Laden.