Willravel

Not at all. I hereby condemn the few G20 protesters that destroyed property. What they did was wrong. What they did, however, has nothing to do with the topic at hand, and doesn't hold a candle to violence against people or murder. They're different. You recognize that.
You'd sentence a tagger the same as you'd sentence a murderer? I somehow doubt that.

dc_dux

So throwing a molotov cocktail into a health clinic is no worse than throwing a rock through a store window?

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

dogzilla

The Weathermen had some pretty violent discourse. Stokeley Carmicahel. Van Jones. If I wanted to spend the time I have no doubt I could find more.

Frankly, I can't get to excited about what some entertainers say. I don't even watch them. Especially since the lefties dismiss similar behavior from the left. If someone commits a violent act, it's not Rush's fault. It's not Stokeley Carmichael's fault. It's that person's fault and that person should be punished.

Some number greater than zero were arrested. I don't care whether anybody was killed. I don't believe violence that doesn't kill anyone is acceptable.

So it's ok to assault someone if you don't kill them. Got it.

---------- Post added at 07:30 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:26 AM ----------

The guy asked a simple question, just as Dan Rather did or the reporters on 60 minutes with a liberal agenda do. He did not force these people to make those statements.

dc_dux

So now you are comparing Breitbart and his colleague's edited video to 60 Minutes?

Nice.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Cynthetiq

It's an equal political statement now isn't it?

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I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

dc_dux

Not IMO.

One (throwing rock) is an act of petty vandalism, maybe premeditated or maybe not, with no real political message (other than perhaps "screw the capitalist") and no long term damage.....and the other (molotov cocktail) is a premeditated act of intimidation to instill fear and with the intent to destroy property to the extent that it would end a legal activity in the future.

---------- Post added at 12:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:59 AM ----------

You really dont see a difference between the two?

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

roachboy

again, this ridiculous context-free stuff. and red-baiting (my favorite retro-technique).

if you want to play the game of locate the violent-seeming phrase and act as though this makes some point you could make ghandi into a prophet of violence because he talks about violence a lot and does it in a way that is critical of violence and so is not only violent but also oppresses people who like violence.

that way you don't have to take any account of or responsibility for conservative media saturation with paranoid and violent rhetoric.

and true to form, conservatives are all about avoiding having to take account of or responsibility for their media apparatus unless for some reason people inside that apparatus were to start telling conservatives that the should take account of and responsibility for their media apparatus in which case they'd be all about both and all about those things in exactly the ways they are told to be all about them just as they're all about these decontextualized fake equivalence games and one-dimensional metaphysics that amounts to nothing more than "i know you are but what am i?" as if that were an argument that grown-ups would make.

to say "the weather underground wrote some violent things" is to make among the more no-shit points ever. but you aren't getting weather underground statements repeated in the major media. anywhere. so the equivalence is stupid. stokley charmichael? are you serious? where do you imagine the stockley charmichael network to be? i mean apart from your imagination: it clearly exists there.

__________________
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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Willravel

I rebuke all of them, and I find what they did long before I was born to be abhorrent and antithetical to their goals. Regardless, what they said has no bearing on the national discussion in 2011. That was really the point both DC and myself were trying to make. This discussion is about the United States in 2011. I can't believe that you would suggest that somehow what the Weathermen said decades ago, which was not popular on the left even when it was said, somehow informs national politics in the present.
I'm really glad you don't watch that stuff, dogzilla, I respect you for that, but a very large number of people do, and among those people are racists, xenophobes, and gun culture people. There are even emotionally unstable people who are perhaps more susceptible than your average person to the false reality that Fox News and conservative talk radio describe in which tyrannical liberals are trying to murder babies, give your job to brown people, or whatever bizarre fantasy about George Soros Beck has come up with this week.

Dr. Tiller, the abortion doctor, was shot in the head, murdered in cold blood by someone who was an avid Bill O'Reilly watcher. Bill, of course, lead a campaign against Tiller in the media, calling him a murderer, a baby-killer, someone who "destroys fetesus for just about any reason right up until the birth date for $5,000", etc. He said, and I quote, " He's guilty of Nazi stuff," and "This is the kind of stuff happened in Mao's China, Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union." Please tell me you're willing to entertain the possibility that there is a connection between the exaggerated, hte-filled rhetoric of BillO and Dr. Tiller's murderer.
I don't find it acceptable either, but I hope you understand that throwing a rock through a window is not as bad as physically attacking a person or killing them. Please, dogzilla, tell me you're at least willing to admit that.
Never said it was okay.

Cynthetiq

If you're talking about petty vandalism sure, I agree with you there is a difference. Not when there is an extreme political statement being made.

Watts got better? South Central LA got better? Because of those riots against the police and "the man" was just petty vandalism???

The G20 vandalism isn't equal in your head because you don't equate the actions and grade the violence because it isn't your storefront and goods that were destroyed.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

dc_dux

So now you bring in the Watts riots? Just another deflection.

If you dont see the difference in the intent of the acts (the intent of rock throwing is not to shut down the store), the resulting level of violence (again, rock v molotov cocktail) and the deliberate attempt at intimidation (in one and not the other) in the political messages...I guess there is nothing to more to be said.

And we can go back to the topic of discussion.....the impact or potential impact of vitriolic discourse.

Since I cant a response from anyone else...perhaps you can enlighten me.

Please provide example of anything on the left comparable to the daily hate fest spewed on conservative talk radio/tv....Limbaugh, Beck, O'Reilly, Savage, Levin, Hewitt, etc.......

---------- Post added at 05:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:34 PM ----------

RB expressed it better than I could.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

ottopilot

I suppose to go "there" you would need to qualify your claim regarding "daily hate spewed". It is simply your opinion.

So with the so-called context issue some of you are whining about, I suppose bringing up a lovable fuzz-ball like Jim Jones is way out of line. It must be so unfair to mention his huge influence with the San Francisco democrats producing rent-free "rent-a-rallies" for liberal politicians and causes... gee, Jim Jones effortlessly garnered such enormous amounts of good will from Democratic politicians and activists. Harvey Milk never seemed to care how Jones could, at the snap of his fingers, direct hundreds of people to stack a public meeting or volunteer for a campaign... (hmmm... sort of like ACORN and SEIU). Milk only cared that he benefited from that control and never bothered to do anything to inhibit such a dangerous cult operating in his city. Instead, he actively aided and abetted a homicidal maniac. And it wasn't just local hacks Jones commanded respect from... he hung out with "big shots" like SF Mayor George Moscone, future first lady Rosalyn Carter, California Governor Jerry Brown, (roachboy's buddy) vice presidential candidate Walter Mondale, and many, many more. Nothin' like taking the old rules for radicals "ends justifies the means" idea to the extreme.

The guy was the democratic party's wet dream until it blew up their faces. Then the scramble to disassociate from Jones after the Jonestown massacre seems like a tactic so familiar in so many ways today (WMDs). Just imagine how inconvenient it became to have ties to one of the biggest mass murderers in modern times. His ties to the media and the Democratic party were numerous. They were happy to use him as long as it served their purposes.

FACT: On November 17, 1978, Jim Jones was a hero to American leftists.

FACT: On November 18, 1978, Jones orchestrated the killings of 918 men, women, and helpless children ...then strangely suddenly morphed in the eyes of American leftists into an evangelical Christian fanatic... this tactic also rings familiar today.

Sorry for those on the left... but he's yours and yours alone . Top that one.

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Cynthetiq

I couldn't say because I don't subscribe nor consume that media either. I don't care about those extremes on either the right or the left. I'm not interested in being a media watch dog.

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I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Willravel

We've been through this, DC_Dux. While Cynth has informed and developed opinions about all of this media stuff and has repeatedly shared his opinions about this media stuff, he doesn't subscribe to or consume this kind media in any way. He just doesn't care. If you don't believe me when I say he just doesn't care about the topic at hand, please refer to his 16 posts in this thread.

dc_dux

First the Weather Underground...then Jim Jones

You guys sure know how to keep it relevant!

---------- Post added at 11:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:09 PM ----------

Its not about consuming that particular media, but raising the level of political discourse in the country.

But I get it....you dont see that as your responsibility.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Cynthetiq

dc, it's not my responsibility to watch them and criticize their behavior.

I don't think what they are doing is wrong. I can disagree with the positions they take without having to watch them if I happen to hear about their position through other channels or distributions every day. I assume you and willravel don't watch the opposing side at all, yet you have strong opinions about what they say. Why would you watch them? I assume your answer is the same as mine, but mine covers both sides.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

dc_dux

I have been equally critical of ANSWER, MoveOn.org and others on the left...not for their policies, but when their rhetoric was excessive and far to mean-spirited. IMO, it is counter-productive.

But, if you cant acknowledge that the rhetoric in the media in recent years is far more vitriolic than anytime in our lifetime, and far more from the right than the left, then with all due respect, IMO, you have been living under a rock.

If that vitriol is ok with you, then absolutely, dont be part of any attempt to try to tone it down.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Willravel

I can't speak for DC, but I watch Fox News and read Drudge because it matters to me what people who think differently than I do think. I don't watch every episode of the Factor or anything, but I do pay attention to it, and not just in the form of counter-points coming from Rachel Maddow or Daily Kos. If I walled myself off completely from sources of information other people commonly use, I run the risk of finding myself in an echo chamber.

Cynthetiq

I was thinking about this as I walked into the office today. I don't think it any more vitriolic than what I thought I was hearing in the 80s during Reagan and Bush Sr. I say thought because we didn't have the media tsunami juggernaut we have today.

I think that the vitriol is okay. It's when the speech or thought turns into action which is not okay.

will, I commend you in taking that kind of time to get your own fair and balanced. I can't be bothered any more. Life is too short and my free time too precious to give away to those things I don't agree nor subscribe to anyways.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

dc_dux

Perhaps a few examples:
Marxists? Destroying the country? Sounds like Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity....day after day.

The Health Care law is putting his life at risk...a bureaucrat will determine his health? Sounds just like what was heard on conservative talk radio for months.....death panels, government intrusion into your life. etc.....

How about the number of arson cases against mosques in the last few years....I think it is up to 4 or 5 now...during the same time that conservative talk radio makes repeated claims that most mosques in the US are funded by, or fronts for, terrorist organizations.

I can find more...and I dont have to go back to the 70s and the Weather Underground and Jim Jones.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Baraka_Guru

I posted this as a stand-alone in Found on the Net, because I thought it didn't require discussion in and of itself. It's good for a laugh if you want it.

However, I felt it was relevant to this thread. It's a parody of the kind of rhetoric that Glenn Beck goes on about the Obama administration: "the Marxists in Washington," socialism sliding into communism, progressivism sliding into fascism, etc.

This is the power of parody. It takes something, turns it on its head, and throws it back at you. This action gets you to look at the issue from a perspective that you may not have otherwise. Enjoy.

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Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
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