Dangerous Rhetoric Watch

[onmyknees]

Well .....we heard lots of condemnation from the high minded progressives regarding Dangerous Rhetoric in the aftermath of Tucson. Shockingly it was only right wing rhetoric that was corrosive , even dangerous perhaps driving some to violence. From the NY Times, to these boards we were lectured to about the dangers. The mere mention of Palin made some Progressives behave like Pavlov's dog !!!!! But the tragedy is over, so most have moved on to other things....not me ! I live for hypocrisy. So it might be time for a reality check again . Again....I really don't have a problem with any of the rhetoric, so this tape doesn't necessarily disturb me, but using your standards....well...I'll let you all be the judge LOL!



Hey...don't shoot the messenger !!!!!!!! LMAO

[onmyknees]

Tea Party Patriots encouraged by Palin??????

[trish]

Speech is not mere animal vocalization. We engage in speech in order to move one another. “Pass the salt.” “I love thee to the level of every day's most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.” “Vote.” The political speech of politicians, like a carefully constructed poem, is deliberate. Unlike a poem it is usually designed by one or more authors under consultation with a passel of political hacks and analysts. The end result is engineered with the hope of moving large subpopulations to action. The place of delivery, the form of delivery, the literary tropes utilized are all part of that engineering. Ask any commercial marketer whether or not the careful use of metaphor can move populations to action. Marketers agree: metaphors are causes of mass effects. A single metaphor can have a spectrum of effects . You can get people to buy a brand name beer and at the same time, depending on the metaphor, increase or decrease the risk of drunk driving. Of course Palin’s choice to cast herself in the roll of ferocious grizzly mom, gun-toting caribou-shooting, political Annie Oakley is engineered to reach and move a segment of the population to action. Without doubt Sarah’s metaphor, “Take up your arms,” does nothing to decrease the risk of gun violence; and by encouraging those already told to take their guns to town-hall meetings to take up their arms again, she, presumably inadvertently, increases the risk of violence at political forums such as the one in Tucson. Did she, her writers and consultants deliberately design their symbolic gun sights and their slogan “Take up your arms” to bring about that specific assassination attempt? Most probably not. Were some of them aware their language would increase the risk of such events? I think so. Did Sarah? Well, she’s pretty thick and blinded by ideology to boot. She probably honestly believes that her Annie Oakley persona calling for her admirers to take up their arms and take down those targeted by the gun-sights on her web-page had absolutely nothing to do with the risks Giffords and others are taking as they continue in public service. Those of us who learned from our grizzly moms know that just because others [are] doing wrong, it doesn’t mean Sarah’s off the hook.

[hippifried]

This thing in Wisconsin is getting interesting. The escalation could get out of hand.

[russtafa]

This Sarah Palin sounds so cool and switched on

[Odelay]

This thing in Wisconsin is getting interesting. The escalation could get out of hand.

I agree. We just went through a 2 year period with many protests from people on the right. We might just be heading for a long period of protests originating from the left. People in Ohio and other states are upset, too.

[Ben]

There's a lunatic fringe on both the left -- and the right. We need to condemn extremism on both sides of the aisle.
And, too, this is crucial: people on the left and the right will NOT change their positions or opinions. People are pretty much set in their thinking. Even if they're presented with the actual facts. Well, it doesn't matter. People will believe what they want to believe.
I mean, people can believe -- I mean, really believe -- that the moon is made out of cheese. They can believe that. They'd be wrong. But they'll strongly believe it.
People will believe that Obama is a socialist. They're wrong about that. But it doesn't matter.
People cannot be swayed from their belief system. It's simply the way the brain is wired, as it were.

[thombergeron]

Man, you are just thick, thick, thick. Totally missed the part where all those pro-union protesters showed up armed, like they do at Tea Party protests. Also didn't notice any footage of Olberman or Maddow or, well, anybody, fantasizing about killing prominent conservatives with their bare hands, as Glenn Beck likes to do.

Also thinking that you were shocked by the Hitler and Mussolini signs because you're undoubtedly ignorant of the fact that Hitler and Mussolini actually did outlaw labor unions -- Mussolini in 1922 and Hitler in 1933 -- much as Walker is attempting to do now, making it an apt, though obviously extreme, analogy. And you probably missed the irony of the "Reload" sign because, well, conservatives tend not to understand irony.

And I still haven't heard you make any comment at all on the numerous right-wing nutjobs who actually have killed people in the name of ideology over the past couple of years. For someone who loves to jump all over the world's 1 billion Muslims for their (alleged) failure to condemn every specific act of Muslim violence, you're pretty blasé about violence and murder committed by your own fellow travelers.

[hippifried]

Maybe a general solidarity strike is in order.

[onmyknees]

Speech is not mere animal vocalization. We engage in speech in order to move one another. “Pass the salt.” “I love thee to the level of every day's most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.” “Vote.” The political speech of politicians, like a carefully constructed poem, is deliberate. Unlike a poem it is usually designed by one or more authors under consultation with a passel of political hacks and analysts. The end result is engineered with the hope of moving large subpopulations to action. The place of delivery, the form of delivery, the literary tropes utilized are all part of that engineering. Ask any commercial marketer whether or not the careful use of metaphor can move populations to action. Marketers agree: metaphors are causes of mass effects. A single metaphor can have a spectrum of effects . You can get people to buy a brand name beer and at the same time, depending on the metaphor, increase or decrease the risk of drunk driving. Of course Palin’s choice to cast herself in the roll of ferocious grizzly mom, gun-toting caribou-shooting, political Annie Oakley is engineered to reach and move a segment of the population to action. Without doubt Sarah’s metaphor, “Take up your arms,” does nothing to decrease the risk of gun violence; and by encouraging those already told to take their guns to town-hall meetings to take up their arms again, she, presumably inadvertently, increases the risk of violence at political forums such as the one in Tucson. Did she, her writers and consultants deliberately design their symbolic gun sights and their slogan “Take up your arms” to bring about that specific assassination attempt? Most probably not. Were some of them aware their language would increase the risk of such events? I think so. Did Sarah? Well, she’s pretty thick and blinded by ideology to boot. She probably honestly believes that her Annie Oakley persona calling for her admirers to take up their arms and take down those targeted by the gun-sights on her web-page had absolutely nothing to do with the risks Giffords and others are taking as they continue in public service. Those of us who learned from our grizzly moms know that just because others [are] doing wrong, it doesn’t mean Sarah’s off the hook.

Well of course she's not off the hook with you and your obsessed liberal friends. She never will be....thus the word obsession. I see...so Sarah is blindfolded by ideology, but you're an impartial, dispassionate observer?? LMAO. Please ! Obviously there is nothing anyone, least of all me can write to move you off your strongly held violent fantasies with respect to Palin, and that's fine....You'll cling to that just like we'll cling to our guns and religion ! LOL..But I did read this today and it caught my attention. It deals with my favorite pastime..Liberal Hypocrisy. So instead of me spending a precious hour attempting to dislodge you from your orthodoxy, let's try liberal Washington Post columnist Charles Lane...Oh and a post script...Two of my favorite hypocrites, that Mr. Lane refers to below, but fails to mention ( Maddow and Schultz) in attempt to gin up the base repeated the 20% figure with respect to the percentage Wisconsin teachers were asked to contribute...PolitiFact review their broadcasts and gave them both a FAIL ! But hey...who's counting? As long as there were no "Take up your Arms " references, what's a little white lie here and there if it's for the greater good, and helps to fan the flames of the protestors !! It's doubtful anyone on this thread will conceed the hypocracy that several national progressives have seen and heard loud and clear...I'll enjoy thier words while I can !!!!!!!!!!

Enjoy !!!!!


Tyranny in Wisconsin, Part 4


By Charles Lane
It has been just over five weeks since a deranged gunman in a Tucson suburb left six people dead and 13 injured, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). In the wake of that horrific tragedy, Americans reflected on -- and argued about -- the possible connection between the violence and today's often nasty, polarized political discourse.
President Obama, in a moving eulogy for the fallen, called on all Americans to "pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds."
Yet today in Wisconsin, anger and vilification are once again the order of the day -- and the incivility emanates from the progressive end of the spectrum, including, no doubt, many of the same people who blamed right-wing vitriol for creating a climate of violence in Arizona. Union-backed demonstrators, furious at Republican Gov. Scott Walker's plans for reining in public-sector unions, equate him with Hosni Mubarak and Adolf Hitler, in disgusting mimickry of some Tea Party members' inflammatory linkage between Obama and the evil dictators of history. (See Photo no. 10 in this gallery) or Photo 13 in this gallery .
Meanwhile, progressive voices in the media fanned the flames, spreading misinformation and outright falsehoods with a zest that would make Glenn Beck blush: Gov. Walker wants to crush unions with the National Guard; he manufactured a budget crisis to justify his attack on unions; he proposed cutting union workers' pay 20 percent. Neutral sources have debunked it all, but as far as I know only Ezra Klein among these tribunes of truth has seen fit to correct the record.
And, of course, thousands of teachers have abandoned their classrooms to join a boisterous crowd intimidating and obstructing the elected state legislature in Madison -- in scenes reminiscent of the Tea Party's mobbing of Democrats on Capitol Hill during the health-care debate.
This is hypocrisy on an epic scale. I can't think of a more overwhelming refutation of the claim that incivility is the unique province of the American right -- as opposed to what it really is and always has been: a two-way street with both right and left lanes. No wonder so many Americans in the broad center of the political spectrum are turned off by both parties and their sanctimonious "bases."

One certified progressive, Joe Klein, has had the courage to make the case against the unions' attempted short-circuiting of democracy, and for Walker's legislation. Klein brilliantly and succinctly describes the conflict between liberal goals such as quality education and apolitical governance on the one hand, and public-sector unionism as currently practiced on the other.
But Joe Klein is unusual. Perhaps most disappointing of all is that the president himself, rather than living up to the words he spoke so eloquently in Tuscon, has chosen to fuel the fury on the Great Lakes. He labeled Walker's legislation "an assault on unions," while the White House political operation bused in more demonstrators to join those waving Walker = Hitler placards. These are the words and deeds of a partisan politician, not a national leader.
If the brave Gabrielle Giffords could speak normally, what would she say about these events? I hope she would agree with me: This is a sad moment for liberalism, for the Democratic Party, and, really, for the whole country.