Ex nihilo nihil fit

By Capt. Fogg 

George Packer, writing in the New Yorker about the debt ceiling crisis and the ever more strained fault line running through Washington, reminds us of a quote usually attributed to Vladimir Lenin: "the worse, the better."

I rather think Lenin himself was quoting Georgi Plekhanov's 1917 essay "Three Crises," but whatever the source and however Lenin used it, I tend to agree with Mr. Packer that we're looking at a planned destruction of our economy to serve a revolutionary cause that in some ways, in its ideological blindness to practical consequences, looks so much like the Bolsheviks it might cause liquid irony to condense into caustic clouds and rain down upon us.

Indeed, the worse this manufactured crisis becomes, the more likely it is, at least in the minds of the radical right, to destroy the prospects of Obama and the Democrats as well as our national prospects, leaving the Tea Party, like roaches after a nuclear war, in charge of a withered state sure to become a wildly prosperous unregulated utopia. It seems a fatuous dream, of course, to anyone who has read even a little about the aftermath of the 1917 revolution, but if you've read this far I shouldn't have to point it out. Out of a power vacuum, power comes.

Packer quotes Max Weber, writing only only two years later with regard to "the ethic of responsibility" versus "the ethic of ultimate ends," and it seems that little has changed in the course of human events since then -- at least in American events. The distinction: 

between those who act from a sense of practical consequence and those who act from higher conviction, regardless of consequences,

describes our current struggle -- unser Kampf, if you will. 

These ethics are tragically opposed, but the true calling of politics requires a union of the two.

Is there any doubt about into which group the "tax cuts and deregulation produce prosperity" and "the government is always the problem" people fall? Discussion of practical consequences can't be heard through the roar.

Such a political union is less foreseeable, I think, than at any time in American history that I can call to mind, and a complete rupture or a complete capitulation of the "ultimate responsibility" forces to the anarchists and nihilists may be the only possible outcome. Ex nihilo nihil fit: out of nothing, nothing comes, no longer is supported by science, but in the world of governments and power and people, things are different -- and après ça, le déluge, of course.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

The knock on the door

By Capt. Fogg

We've got a hard core Socialist Radical in the White House if you listen to people like the Koch Brothers -- and make no mistake, we do listen to them whether we want to or not and whether the slander comes from their mouths or the thousand mouths that speak their words. Yet the slide toward the right, the slide toward authoritarianism, the slide toward the business of America being war, continues without much popular resistance. Unless you mean the resistance of the voters of course but the voters don't matter since they're drawn along like hyena puppies following their mother, snarling about Socialism and Taxes.

Can we blame Obama, who hasn't done much to stop the wars, close the torture chambers and offshore prisons, end the DADT charade, temper the growing power of the Executive Branch or give us the kind of transparency in government we were promised? Sure we can, but if every naive campaign promise had been acted upon, we'd still have a long way to go to stop that slide.

Even while the Republicans, including my own Representative Tom Rooney, (R-FL) are howling about Obama exceeding his powers by authorizing a no-fly zone in Libya, his party has proposed giving the president even more war powers. The House Armed Services Committee's National Defense Authorization Act would authorize the United States to use military force anywhere there are terrorism suspects, including within the U.S. itself, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Yes, yes, I know, you hate the ACLU Libtards, but I don't suppose you like the idea of a president sending the marines to your neighborhood or invading any country the president suspects may be harboring "terrorists" either. As it stands there was little opposition in the house save for one member of the House Armed Services Committee: Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) who was the sole dissenter. Now let's all raise our right arms and shout "Libtard."

The President didn't ask for this awesome power boost. He didn't suggest that he needed it. He didn't ask for the extra billions in military spending or another extension of the Afghanistan War. It was the smaller government folks. It was the Republican House hissing with a forked tongue from both sides of their smirking mouths.

Yes, we're sliding and it's not toward Socialism but toward a military/police surveillance state. It's the courts, like the Indiana Supreme Court that has handed us a ruling suggesting that Indiana Police no longer need warrants nor to be in hot pursuit nor need they have probable cause to enter and search your home for any reason - and may beat hell out of you with impunity if you "resist."

“A right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence,"reads the decision.

And we're babbling about Planned Parenthood and NPR and the ACLU Commies and against right of the government to flood some fields to save millions of people or take poison of the store shelves in violation of sacred property rights. We're fantasizing about being economic secessionists free or restriction or responsibility. We're oozing lofty proclamations about property rights and the government of no government like medieval monks talking about angels and pinheads and hunting for witches and heretics.

Obama can't fix this and all the Republicans can do is offer people like Tim Pawlenty, Michelle Bachmann. Maybe we can't fix it either and if you want to know who's to blame, you need look no farther than your bathroom mirror.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Tim Pawlenty really hates gay people (and really loves DADT)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Minnesota Gov. Pawlenty, looking ahead to 2012, is making sure to present himself to his fellow Republicans, and specifically to the party's right-wing base, not so much as the sort of midwestern technocrat he appears to be but as a good ol' social conservative extremist. He's adamantly pro-life, he says, and he's also, as one must be these days in the GOP, anti-gay, opposing both same-sex marriage and DADT repeal.

Regarding the latter, he says he'd reinstate it, even though a huge majority not just of the American people but of men and women in uniform oppose it, including not just Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but perhaps America's most revered current military commander (and conservative wunderkind), Gen. David Petraeus.

But apparently that's not quite extremist enough. Yesterday he told Think Progress he'd go even further, trying to block the military from being able to implement repeal:

PAWLENTY: We have to pay great deference, I think to those combat units, their sentiments and their leaders. That's one of the reasons why I said we shouldn’t have repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell and I would support reinstatement.

TP: And rescinding the funds for implementation, implementation of repeal?

PAWLENTY: That would be a reasonable step as well.

Yes, that's right, he actually wants to try to hinder the military's effort, as commanded by its civilian leadership and supported by the top brass as well as the rank and file, to do what it must to do away with DADT. That's almost treasonous. At the very least, it's Pawlenty giving the finger to the Constitution, Congress, and Obama, that is, to the very pillars of American constitutional government and civilian control of the military. It's just the sort of anti-Americanism that is so prevalent on the right these days.

Now, I don't know if Pawlenty actually believes this or if he's just pandering to the conservative base, playing his right-wing bona fides as any good Republican must.

If the latter, he's sure trying really hard.

********** 

Update: It may be that Pawlenty doesn't want gays in the military at all. What disgusting bigotry.

Glenn Beck is crazy, but he's one of the Democrats' best friends

By R.K. Barry

I usually get home around six and almost immediately turn on MSNBC and pretty much keep it on as background noise through most of the evening. If you watch MSNBC with any regularity, you will know that show after show presents the day's political events from a relatively mild liberal-left perspective – at least from my point of view. 

Lawrence O'Donnell, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, etc. are on the roster. If there is one thing I wish they would do it's compare notes a little bit better because it seems that night after night they all cover pretty much the same stuff. Now, I know when world-changing events such as are happening in Egypt occur, it's impossible for any political pundit to refrain from commenting and that's fine.

But last week, on one given night, every single show did a little rant on Glenn Beck's recent fearmongering, conspiracy-theory claim that the events in Egypt are prelude to a generalized takeover by Muslim extremists in all parts of the Middle East as well as Europe and, who knows, even perhaps the United States. His claim is typically supported by an argument that radical socialists and communists will make common cause with radical Muslims because, as he argues, they have a common enemy – capitalism and freedom-loving people everywhere.

Having said all of that, I must also quickly say that I don't give a fuck what Glenn Beck thinks, though apparently a lot of people who reject his views still seem pretty focused on them.

What I struggle with is the extent to which I should pay any attention to this fool at all. More often than I can say I have either written or otherwise commented that I no longer want to write about or think about Glenn Beck. But here I am again.

When his lies and idiotic theories put the life of a hard-working, civic-minded, academic in jeopardy, simply because she is on the left, in the same way that a lot of us are, we have to call him out. This is just dangerous nonsense and we have to address it. I am of course referring to what he has been doing to City University of New York professor Frances Fox Piven, which you can read more about here.

But typically what he goes on about is so stupid and without any intellectual value that I want to ignore it. Then I think about the impact that he and Rush Limbaugh and others on the radical right are having on our national debate and have to rethink my willingness to call it fringe behavior unworthy of attention.

We do notice that Republican politicians are loathe to criticize Beck and Limbaugh and others, knowing that, if they do, those who watch such programming and are influenced by it are highly motivated and inclined to punish at the polls anyone who attempts to challenge the passionately held, albeit nutty, views espoused by these guys.

And this is the point. Right-wing extremism in the media, through the power of a focused and unrelenting message and the reach of media conglomerates, has by now a pretty good track record of motivating a significant segment of the conservative base to influence nominations and general elections. But as we also know, the outcome has not always been a happy one for the conservative side.

The reason for their mixed success is that so much of politics, especially in nomination contests, happens at the margins. Nomination contests are frequently about motivating true believers to care about yet another layer of political contest, which is where extremism can flourish.

This is why we end up with incompetent and unsuccessful candidates like former Republican Senate nominees Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell. This is why Sarah Palin can say any number of really stupid things and the Republican establishment has to pick its spots very carefully if it wants to criticize her. Establishment Republican candidates don't want to piss off those who are likely to be motivated enough to get involved in nomination battles, either as activists or voters. I don't know what percentage of the Republican base this characterizes. I don't know what percentage would be unhappy hearing their media heroes criticized by potential Republican candidates. Is it 5%, 10%, 15%? Whatever it is, it would be a big number in politics.

In politics, highly engaged voters at the margins are key. You need to keep them motivated, whether that motivation is about anger or about hope for a new future. They have a disproportionately important role to play in determining who gets to run in the general election. 

So, yes, I do resolve to pay limited attention to Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and the other right-wing crazies on the merits of their arguments, which, frankly, have no merit. But we should have no doubt that they are masters at stoking a certain kind of American political paranoia that has been with us for a long time, and let us at least give them their due for that.

A lot of people are saying that Beck has jumped the shark with his latest ramblings about Egypt. Maybe. For me, he's jumped so many sharks I've stopped counting.

I do think, however, that there is a bad moon rising for the Republicans as we head towards the 2012 elections, based on the dynamic put in play by the radical right and their cheerleaders on national television and radio.

Weak Republican candidates will continue to get nominated based in part on the passion of those on the margins who are driven by Beck and company. Republican presidential nominees will have to play to this constituency if they hope to secure the nomination, which almost surely guarantees their failure in the general election. There just aren't that many crazy people out there.

So there, I've talking myself into a changed position. Let's keep on talking about Glenn Beck. Let's help get his audience all excited and out of control. It can only help remind the sane part of the American electorate that they are not like Beck and those who take him seriously, that they are better than that.

I guess I also think that MSNBC should continue to go for it when it comes to Beck. But don't just do it in that way that you usually do, by mugging for the camera as he says one silly thing after another. That is just not that useful. No, I would challenge every responsible media outlet to ask every credible Republican nominee for office if they will disavow the crap spewed by Beck and Limbaugh. Force them to try to play the fringe of their own party against its vital center and then wish them good luck with that.

It's a little bit like House Speaker John Boehner being unwilling to criticize birthers in his own caucus.

Let us resolve, then, to make every Republican candidate wear the foolishness coming out of all those televisions and radios as Democrats march on to success in 2012. Seems like a plan.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Glenn Beck's continuing obsession with Professor Frances Fox Piven and the roots of violence in America

By R.K. Barry

Several months ago I published a post about Glenn Beck's obsession with City University of New York Professor Frances Fox Piven. I talked about having met her briefly in the early '80s in a grad course and about what a wonderful experience that was.

Mostly I wrote about how Beck, and those inclined to buy into his hateful message, can't stand anyone who helps poor people be heard or helps them make a legitimate claim to a decent life in America. I wrote about how Piven's career has been largely dedicated to helping us understand marginalized people and helping them help themselves, and that for this sin Beck was using the full weight of Fox News to vilify her.

Such was the nature of the bile directed at Professor Piven by Beck that it was clear that she would become a target for those misguided sorts who take Beck seriously, which is precisely what is starting to happen.

At the time I felt a bit like I was shouting in the wilderness, as few others seemed to be speaking out about this.

I was therefore pleased to see the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) get involved by writing a letter to Fox News directly to encourage the network to intervene.

In a press release dated January 20, 2011 about the letter, the CCR stated that it has:

issued a written appeal to Fox News president Roger Ailes to help put a stop to the increasing threats against progressive Professor Frances Fox Piven, largely incited by Fox News host Glenn Beck. In the letter, co-written by Legal Director Bill Quigley and Executive Director Vince Warren the CCR asks that Ailes distinguish between First Amendment rights, of which they are "vigorous defenders" and an "intentional repetition of provocative, incendiary, emotional misinformation and falsehoods [that place that person] in actual physical danger of a violent response."

The release goes on to say:

Beginning in September 2010, Glenn Beck started branding Piven, a distinguished professor of Political Science and Sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, as an "enemy of the Constitution." Piven, well-known for advocating for the organizational rights of the poor and encouraging voter registration, has since received threatening phone calls and letters, and has become the subject of many death threats left open to the public on Glenn Beck's website, The Blaze.

Much as it sickens me to repeat some of the threats here, people need to know what we are up against. Here are just a few that appeared on Beck's website:

-- "Maybe they should burst through the front door of this arrogant elitist and slit the hateful cow's throat."

-- "We should blow up Piven's office and home."

-- "Big lots is having a rope sale I hear, you buy the rope and I will hang the wench. I will spin her as she hangs."

Suffice to say, they are disgusting.

Unlike in Arizona, the connections are clear. Beck has picked a target and he is to blame for the violent responses that have followed.

Beck has been getting away with slandering Professor Piven the way he slanders everyone else: with lies and innuendo. He did to her what he does with everyone else with whom he disagrees: he called her an enemy of the state; in fact, he specifically called her an enemy of the Constitution, whatever that means.

I am so weary of pointing out that Beck is a monumental asshole who can only be taken seriously by other assholes. He panders to the worst in those either too stupid or too lazy to do their own research. He feeds people's fears by creating enemies for them, which is always the best way for people to feel good about themselves when they have limited options.

But, in truth, Beck is not that clever. What he is doing has been done successfully throughout history. Pick an enemy, any enemy. Tell lies about them. Get people to focus their energy and anger on hating the outsiders, which, as I said, makes them feel good about themselves, makes them feel a part of something larger and important, at least in the short term.

Entire nations have been built on this insidious in-group / out-group tactic.

As I wrote months ago, Professor Piven's "crime" is that she has been successful in pointing out serious shortcomings in the American experience, especially in the way it treats poor people. She does what people like Beck can't tolerate. She tells the truth and at the same time tells us that we have a lot of work to do if we are to make America the country we would like it to be. Beck peddles simple answers for simple minds. Get in the way of that and expect to be made an enemy of this self-righteous fool. Expect to be made a target.

This is hateful, despicable stuff, though Fox News has already said it will do nothing about it, as it serves its dual mandate of being a mouthpiece for the loony right in America and of making lots of money for Rupert Murdoch.

I have said this so often I am getting tired. We may not yet know fully what happened in Arizona, but what Beck is doing to Professor Piven is the clearest example of a problem about which many of us are so worried. Say that your political adversaries are enemies of the state. Imply that they must be stopped and then step back until some deranged bastard decides to take on the task – until some unbalanced nutjob decides that he can become a hero to the "in-group" created by Glenn Beck and those in his camp.

This is the point. It's already happening in America. What more has to happen before Fox News decides that there is too much of a downside to being associated with someone as disgusting as Glenn Beck? What precisely?

(Cross-posted from Lippmann's Ghost.)

Right-wing blogger praises Giffords shooting, targets other politicians

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So you think Jared Lee Loughner is just some crazy dude who acted purely out of his own derangement, and that the right-wing anti-government agenda and culture of violence had nothing at all to do with it?

I think that's ridiculous, but, regardless, what's clear is that the right-wing anti-government agenda and culture of violence are very real and very dangerous. And however much that socio-political context may have influenced Loughner, it is certainly influencing others, driving them to violence, as in Oklahoma City, and to more violence that may soon come.

Don't believe me? Let's head on over to Massachusetts for a rather alarming case in point:

Police in Arlington, MA this week seized a "large amount" of weapons and ammunition from local businessman Travis Corcoran after he wrote a blog post threatening U.S. lawmakers in the wake of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ). In a post on his blog (which has since been removed) titled "1 down and 534 to go" -- 1 referring to Giffords and 534 referring to the rest of the House of Representatives and the Senate -- Corcoran applauded the shooting of Giffords and justified the assassination of lawmakers because he argued the federal government has grown far beyond its constitutional limits. "It is absolutely, absolutely unacceptable to shoot indiscriminately. Target only politicians and their staff and leave regular citizens alone," he wrote in the post.

Charming. (And, hey, I used to live in Arlington, Mass.!)

"We certainly take this as a credible threat," Arlington police Captain Robert Bongiorno told reporters, adding that "multiple federal law enforcement agencies" were involved. Authorities also suspended Corcoran's gun license, though he is currently not facing any charges.

That's the least they should have done. But -- here's the crucial question -- is he a conservative? Is this really an example of the right-wing anti-government agenda and culture of violence in action (or preparing for action)? Looks like it:

Corcoran calls himself "an anarcho-capitalist" and while his blog has been taken down, based on his Twitter page, he appears to hold views similar to those of many in the anti-government libertarian wing of the conservative movement, like many tea party activists. Anarcho-capitalism is a radical subset of libertarianism, and is often referred to as "libertarian-anarchy." For example, echoing calls from many on the right, Corcoran tweeted, "it is unconstitutional for the Feds to even run a department of education."

Don't let the "anarcho" fool you. While anarchism is usually associated with the left, Corcoran's anarchism is very much of the right, where American anarchism is to be found these days.

He also appears to be a fan of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), re-tweeting a positive message about him in May: "Lefties: Before you start fringe-baiting Rand Paul, note that he's better on civil liberties than most Democratic senators. And Obama." He seems to dislike liberals, writing, "You so-called liberals make me laugh – you're all for free speech until someone disagrees, then it's 'report him!'" He also accuses the Daily Kos of "Stalinism."

Yup, he's a conservative, and pretty much all of this is mainstream Republican stuff these days. (And, yes, I admit, Paul has a decent record on civil liberties, and I myself have been critical of Obama's continuation of much of the Bush-Cheney national security state.)

Of course, to be fair, the vast majority of Republicans, and obviously all Republicans in Congress, and also probably most rank-and-file Republicans and movement conservatives, and probably even most Tea Party members, would recoil in horror from such violent extremism. But the point isn't that they would be against such violence but that their anti-government agenda and rhetoric, including the broad anti-government views that prevail in the Republican Party these days, including in Congress, have consequences and can mobilize their followers, or those who think like them, to rise up in violence against the "enemy" that they themselves have identified.

All it takes is one guy with a gun, but what we should realize is that there's an army of such extremists, with arsenals of weapons, preparing for action.

There's your fucking context.

That crazy Arizona shooting: Jon Stewart, Sarah Palin, and the triumph of right-wing narrative

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I don't really have all much more to say about the Arizona shooting. We've written a lot here already on it, and so much has been written elsewhere that, barring a major development, like Loughner talking, we're all just repeating ourselves. Still, it's important not to let the conservative we're not to blame for anything, it's the liberals' fault for being so nasty narrative prevail, which is what seems to be happening -- because it's easier to blame the crazy dude for doing something crazy than to delve into what might have been behind it, into the culture, into right-wing politics, where what you find now are conservatives crying victim and lashing out at their critics for being mean and partisan and trying to score political points (when of course they're the ones being mean and partisan and trying to score political points).

**********

Last night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart agreed with Sarah Palin that Jared Lee Loughner is crazy and that the right, Palin included, deserves no blame whatsoever for the Arizona shooting.

This, presumably, includes blame for the violent right-wing culture in which the shooting took place, that is, for the socio-political context, because those who are pointing at the likes of Palin and holding them responsible, myself included, make sure to stress that there may very well be no direct link between right-wing politics and the shooting itself. The issue isn't that Loughner is a card-carrying Republican or Teabagger (or both), which he apparently isn't, it's that Loughner didn't commit his act of violence in a vacuum.

This is what Stewart seems to be missing, and, needless to say, I have found his response to the shooting, including his refusal last week to say anything of substance, well, lacking.

In agreeing with Palin, all he was doing was buying into, and propagating, the right-wing spin, the narrative conservatives, finding themselves justifiably on the defensive, are trying so desperately to impose upon our discourse. I get that it's better to be civil than uncivil, but politics is politics, the right is the right, and Stewart is deeply naive if he believes a) that political civility is possible with conservatives being what they are these days, and b) that right-wing politics, and the right-wing culture of violence, had nothing at all to do with the shooting. If he truly believes the latter, it makes you wonder if he's watched his own show the past few years. Wasn't he the one pointing out all those gun-toting extremists at health-care town-hall events and Tea Party rallies?

**********

At Politico yesterday, Michael Kinsley provided a fine analysis of the right's "breathtaking bait and switch on Tucson":

In the week since the Tucson, Ariz., massacre, pleas for "civility" have turned into accusations of incivility, and the whole, useful discussion of "civility" versus "vitriol" has turned into the usual argument over competitive victimhood. The vast right-wing conspiracy has played President Barack Obama like a violin.

And they've done a pretty good job of messing with the heads of the liberal media as well. As a result, anyone who even raises the issue of who might be responsible, or more responsible, for the "atmosphere of vitriol" in which we conduct our politics is guilty of contributing to it. In just a few days, it has become the height of political incorrectness to suggest there might be any connection between the voices on right-wing talk radio and the voices in Jared Lee Loughner's head.

Republicans generally praised Obama's speech at the memorial service in which he took care to absolve conservatives and Republicans of any special responsibility for the tone of the political debate. It is, he said, "a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do." This sounds like a noble sentiment. But who is to blame for what ails the world if not those who think differently? If those who think the same as you are responsible, it's time to start thinking differently yourself.

Once again, liberals and progressives and Democrats and those generally on the left just don't seem to get it. Or, at least, a lot of them don't. I understand that Obama needed to be cautious, to walk a fine line, and that he said what had to be said. It would not have been "presidential" to have gone on the offensive.

But rank-and-file Democrats and mainstream liberals are backing off, too, perhaps because Obama was so effective (and they feel guilty fighting back against the right), perhaps because they, too, don't want to delve too deeply into what really happened and why, perhaps because they're terrified of Republicans. Whatever the reasons, the upshot is that conservatives like Palin are largely getting away with it.

And, again, what is Stewart's excuse? Given that he has made a name for himself criticizing the "crossfire" of the news media, and that he has fashioned himself a voice of the silent majority against the extremes, even as he himself, not to mention his audience, leans left, it may just be that he thinks now is not the time for partisan rancour. Or maybe he really does believe that Loughner is crazy and that it's irresponsible, and simply wrong, to suggest that there may be more to it than that.

Whatever the case with Stewart and others like him, backing off simply enables the right, and allows it to win. No, this isn't all about partisan winning and losing, but ultimately politics, and hence governing, which is what you need to do if you want to change things, is about who wins and who loses -- not just at the ballot box but in the media, in the world of narrative, in the world of spin. And if you let the right win, in this case and others, nothing will change, including a socio-political culture that is deeply disturbed as a result of years and years of abuse at the hands of conservatives and their ideology of division, violence, and power.

If you really care about America, and Jon Stewart does a great deal, you must do everything you can to prevent that from happening.

Sarah Palin won't shut up

By Nicholas Wilbur

Thirty-eight percent of Americans let out a long sigh of relief this week when Sarah Palin assured them – and the rest of us who sighed for different reasons – that no amount of criticism will silence the mother of all Mama Grizzlies.

"I will continue to speak out," Palin told Sean Hannity Monday on Fox. "They're not going to shut me up. They're not going to shut you up – or Rush or Mark Levin or Tea Party Patriots, or those who, as I say, respectfully and patriotically petition their government for change."

Damn. Here I was thinking that this new wave of civility in political discourse might convince Fox News contributors (and their big brother, Rush Limbaugh) to embrace a more measured tone – maybe even abandon the venomous, fearmongering rhetoric that has entranced even ideological opposites, if only for its theatrical contributions.

Then I realized that there is no new wave of civility in political discourse, and that describing right-wing radicals as "patriots" who "respectfully petition their government" is about as believable as claiming Paris Hilton is a frugal, teetotaling virgin. There is only those on the left saying the right is venomous and those on the right defending their venom as "patriotism."

Here I was thinking that if the demagoguery ceased, maybe we could all sleep at night knowing that, despite previous news reports, President Obama in fact wasn't going to force us to abort our unborn children and serve their bodies with collard greens to his Kenyan colonialist brotherhood at a dinner funded by Jew-killers like George Soros and domestic terrorists like Bill Ayers.

Then I realized that conservatism thrives and survives on the sensational rhetoric and extremist sound bites aired daily on the Fox network, and for a businessman like Rupert Murdoch, abandoning his bread and butter would be a boon for the evil empire of MSNBC.

Thanks for the reassurance and the clarification, Sarah. It's relieving to know that the sky will continue to be blue.

(Cross-posted from Muddy Politics.)

How conservatives are deflecting responsibility for the Arizona shooting

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I've written it again and again, including earlier today: There may be no perfectly direct connection between conservatism and the Arizona shooting, but that does not necessarily mean that what Jared Lee Loughner did (or, rather, is charged with doing) may be detached entirely from the broader, right-wing political context that may very well have informed his thinking, or his derangement, to some degree. And while he is evidently not a card-carrying member of the Tea and/or Republican Party, it is wrong to treat him as a detached loner, as a victim of mental illness who acted purely in a vacuum of his own derangement. 

This is the case conservatives are making -- that Loughner is crazy -- and it's their way of avoiding any and all responsibility not just for the shooting itself but more broadly for constructing the socio-political context behind it.

For more on this, see David Dayen at FDL, who says what many of us have said, and keep saying, but that we need to keep saying, not least with the right, which has been on the defensive since the Arizona shooting, trying desperately to impose its responsibility-deflecting we didn't do anything, we're victims of a left-wing plot narrative:

Republicans have pulled off a neat trick with respect to Jared Loughner. They have worked very hard to characterize him as a "whacko" and a "nutjob" (inadvertently hurting the prospect of a successful prosecution, by the way), going so far as to use the shooting as an opportunity to revamp the nation’s mental health system. I'm all for that, but the ulterior motive from the right is to absolve themselves of blame and marginalize the voices talking about overheated political rhetoric.

Now, you don't have to believe that Sarah Palin purchased the gun for Loughner and whispered in his ear about targets to believe that the rhetoric on the far, far right played a role in amping up the paranoia of a mentally unbalanced man...

The more you read by Loughner, or the more videos you see from him, they reflect these beliefs very strongly. He mentions the Constitution, illegal laws, manipulated currency, government control through grammar, and on and on. It's quite hard to follow, and it's not organized coherently, but it comes from a fairly precise place.

It's not necessary for Loughner to even understand the derivations of these conspiracy theories, or to be of sound mind, to be influenced by them. But they come from a very toxic, militia-friendly, anti-government place, and over the past couple decades the distance between that perspective and the mainstream right has absolutely narrowed; see Glenn Beck. The Birchers, militia groups and Alex Jones conspiracy ranters will always be with us; an isolated few scientists argued in favor of a flat earth well into the 19th century. The point that many who study this make is that mainstreaming some of these conspiracies, like when Lou Dobbs puts the North American Union on television, or when Beck hosts a Bircher on his radio show or concocts some bizarre blackboard theory, it hypes up and leads to greater attention to the real nutters on the fringe. And in the hands of a troubled mind, these conspiracies can do real damage.

As they did in Oklahoma City, as they did in Arizona, and as they will continue to do so long as they are not only embraced by the right but "mainstreamed" right into the heart of the GOP.

Rendell, Giuliani call for "early detection system" for mental illness and guns

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Hill:

Two high-profile politicians [yesterday] called for sweeping reforms to the nation's mental health system that would prevent individuals deemed ill from legally purchasing firearms.

Had numerous concerns about alleged gunman Jared Lee Loughner’s mental status placed him on a list restricting his ability to buy a gun, his Jan. 8 rampage might have been prevented, said former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican, and Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell, a Democrat.

During a "Face the Nation" appearance, Rendell called for an "early detection system" designed to keep mentally unstable individuals from buying guns. 

Basically, if you've attended more than one Tea Party event (because you could have attended one just by accident) or if you're a Tea Party-backed candidate for the GOP, you shouldn't be able to buy a gun. Period.

I'm kidding... of course. (Ahem.)

Actually, in a country that refuses to do anything about guns and gun violence, this was an admirable display of bipartisan support for a rational response to the Arizona shooting. Giuliani, once something of a moderate but now a Republican hard-liner, even talked about the country's "inability to deal with mental illness."

I would just note that while there does need to be a "rational debate" on gun control, as Rendell said, as well as a serious effort to address mental illness, the Arizona shooting -- an assassination attempt on a politician -- wasn't just about some lone crazy guy getting hold of a semi-automatic pistol with a high-capacity ammunition clip. It was also about the right's culture of violence, both in rhetoric and in ideology, and about the extent to which that culture has come to shape American politics and define conservatism.

As I wrote last week, while it certainly appears to be the case that the (alleged) killer, Jared Lee Loughner, is "deranged" (to use a loaded and hardly clinical term), as well as that he was not a card-carrying member of the Tea Party or GOP, it is wrong, I think to treat him as a detached loner who acted in a vacuum of his own derangement. To do that is to ignore context, to ignore the bigger picture, the "national climate."

In other words, there may be no direct connection between conservatism and the shooting, but that does not necessarily mean that what Loughner did (or, rather, is charged with doing) may be detached entirely from the broader, right-wing political context that may very well have informed his thinking, or his derangement, to some degree.

Glenn Beck: Lies and the manufacturing of paranoia

By R.K. Barry

I hate thinking about Glenn Beck. I hate watching him on television. I hate reading his crap on the web. I hate writing about him. But the truth is that he is such a perfect example of everything that is wrong with the right in America that it is impossble to ignore him, despite the fact that he continues to be an idiot.

Many have been making the point that those on the right railing about the extent to which Obama and progressives want to destroy America run the very serious risk of making their political opponents targets of violence. Beck and others so consistently make the absurd claim that Obama and his political allies have a plan to take away our freedom, our money, our guns, our very way of life, you name it. They work so hard to create a wildly paranoid right-wing culture and then claim surprise that people might respond irrationally.

I wrote about this a few days ago, but I notice that Harold Meyerson of The Washington Post makes a similar case and expands the argument in useful directions. Please take a few moments to read it.

It doesn't matter if this is what happened in Arizona. If it isn't, it will happen soon enough somewhere else if these bastards continue on this path. (Oh, sorry. Was I being disagreeable while disagreeing?)

Beck's duplicity and hypocrisy know no bounds and I am getting tired of stating the obvious. But as long as he and others like him continue to lie about their political opponents and deny the consequences of such lies, let us have the strength to challenge them, every day if necessary.

And, by the way, the poison is in the lies that feed paranoia, not the excitable tone or unpleasant character of the words used by the speaker. That is what should concern us. The target symbols and talk of second amendment remedies or of locking and loading are really only an issue because of the lies that manufacture such paranoia.

So we are left talking about rudeness as if that were the point. It's not.

Anyway, have a look at the Meyerson piece. It says it all for me.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost)

Playing politics with the Tucson tragedy

By Nicholas Wilbur

Nobody doubted the depth of denial that would gush from Rush Limbaugh's radio studio following the murderous rampage in Tucson this weekend. The "vitriol in politics" became a primary focus of the national media almost immediately after the news of the shooting broke.

Those who had made references to "second amendment remedies" and "firing machine guns" and "violent revolution" were targeted for contributing to the hate-filled rhetoric that has marked the past two years of political discourse. Having defended most of the Tea Party and Fox News celebrities who led the march against Democrats in November by riling their base and inciting the masses to join this new wave of "activism," Limbaugh, among many others, was put on the defensive.

Before his broadcast, I ignorantly maintained a sliver of hope that as one of America's most popular political personalities, Limbaugh would join the bipartisan movement to condemn both the savage murders and the extremism that has taken over this country. Instead, he demonstrated general ignorance of mass media's influence by denying the persuasive power of celebrities and excused the tone of politics by pointing fingers at the "liberal" media for "politicizing" the Tucson shooting as some sort of bizarrely-contrived Democratic conspiracy.

The attempted assassination of a politician is as political as it gets, but a Democratic Congresswoman taking a 9-mm bullet in the head at point-blank range wasn't enough to deter the almighty Limbaugh from accusing the left of political opportunism.

In a rant that should be remembered only in the history archives of national radio as the beginning of a giant's end, Limbaugh lambasted the left for capitalizing on a tragedy and criminalizing all Americans by anticipating the assassination as a means for pushing through a political agenda.

"I guarantee you," he said, "that somewhere in a desk drawer in Washington, D.C., someplace, in an FCC bureaucrat's office or some place, the government machinery will be in place to take away as many political freedoms as they can manage on the left. They already have it in place... just waiting for the right event for a clampdown. They have been trying this ever since the Oklahoma City bombing."

He continued: 

Here you have a 22-year-old kid, a dopehead – marijuana – just genuinely insane. Irrational. And the first thought – the desperate hope that the losers in November of 2010 had – was that they could revitalize their political fortunes because of this unfortunate shooting of a Congresswoman in Arizona. That was the most important thing to them, and that to me is sick. You know that they were rubbing hands together. You know that they were e-mailing and calling each other on the phone saying, "Ah-ha, this might be the one. This might be the one where we can officially tie it to these guys and shut them up and shut 'em down." They want you to believe that sadness was on the order of the day, and I'm sure it was, but... they couldn't help themselves. They just couldn't help themselves. [Emphasis added.]

Not surprisingly, Limbaugh was short on the details of exactly how Democrats would go about utilizing this event for their own political ends. But thankfully, there is such a thing as daily news to pin facts to the allegations made by the pill-popping millionaires on the right who see nothing but conspiracies in every gesture of every Democrat in the country.

According to The Hill, the first freedom attacked by the left is the right to use violent language against elected officials. After waiting more than a decade for a right-wing nut to shoot a bullet through the brain of a politically moderate member of Congress, Democrats finally had the opportunity to go for the jugular of America's constitutionally protected political liberties. So what did they do?

They proposed a bill – like socialistic opportunists will – that would make it a federal offense to use language or symbols that threaten or incite violence against a member of Congress or a federal official – a protection, it should be noted, that is already provided to the president.

The alleged aim of this proposed legislation is to quell the violent language that has become so common in American politics, but below the surface it's pretty obvious that Democrats are targeting right-wingers, Tea Partiers, and extremist conservatives in general – "to shut them up and shut 'em down," just as Limbaugh predicted.

The second "political freedom" Democrats are seeking to revoke is the right to carry high-capacity magazines like the one used by the Tucson shooter this weekend. This law actually isn't new; it was in place for a decade but expired in 2004. After seeing one man gun down twenty people in a matter of seconds with a clip that would have been illegal six years ago, Democratic lawmakers in D.C. thought it might be timely to re-implement the ban.

"The only reason to have 33 bullets loaded in a handgun is to kill a lot of people very quickly," Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said in a statement Monday, according to The Hill. "Before 2004, these ammunition clips were banned, and they must be banned again."

What they're really doing is taking our guns away, and Republicans will see to it that this doesn't happen – as they did in 2008 when Democrats proposed a reauthorization bill. It died in committee.

And lastly, what Democrat-imposed unraveling of the Constitution would be complete without the infringement on First Amendment rights?

According to several news reports, the Arizona state legislature is giving the federal judicial system the finger by going against an appeals court ruling last year that upheld the First Amendment rights of church members in Kansas who had taken to protesting funerals of military service members.

The congregants of Westboro Baptist Church believe any unnatural death is the manifestation of God's wrath against American society for its tolerance of homosexuality. They planned to protest the funeral of 9-year-old Christina Green, one of the six victims of Saturday's shooting, but will be unable to now, as the state legislature has barred Westboro from coming within 300 feet of the funeral.

God sent a "soldier veteran" to Tucson on Saturday, Rev. Fred Phelps said in a YouTube.com video posted after the shooting. "Congresswoman [Gabrielle] Giffords, an avid supporter of sin and baby killing, was shot for that mischief... God avenged himself on you today, by a marvelous work in Tucson. He sits in the heavens and laughs at you and your affliction. Westboro prays for more shooters, more violent veterans, and more dead. Praise god for his righteous judgments in his Earth. Amen."

It is truly sickening... how far Democrats are willing to go in order to push their agenda down the throats of America's patriots.

This is what "democracy" is all about for liberals – violating "political freedoms" by denying people the right to threaten an elected official, banning assault weapon magazines, and stomping on the First Amendment rights of church-going Kansans who want to picket the funerals of victims killed in a failed political assassination.

This is what Democrats do when they lose midterm elections – they upend the Constitution and attempt to unravel the very fabric of this country in order to "revitalize their political fortunes" by capitalizing on tragedy.

Probably most of the nation can agree with Limbaugh when he says, "to me that is sick."

The right's role in the Arizona massacre

Guest post by Dan Fejes

Dan Fejes is a blogger at Pruning Shears. He lives in northeast Ohio.

(Ed. note: I first came across Dan last November when I was doing a brief stint at Crooks and Liars, and I instantly became a fan of his thoughtful analyses of complex issues. Here is his take on the Arizona shooting, specifically a response to the stupidity of Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds. It's his first guest post for us, and we hope to have more from him in future. In the meantime, I encourage you to check out his excellent blog. -- MJWS)

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Glenn Reynolds is a dumbass and those who find his arguments persuasive are, if possible, even more stupid:

[I]f you're using this event to criticize the "rhetoric" of Mrs. Palin or others with whom you disagree, then you're either: (a) asserting a connection between the "rhetoric" and the shooting, which based on evidence to date would be what we call a vicious lie; or (b) you're not, in which case you're just seizing on a tragedy to try to score unrelated political points, which is contemptible. Which is it?

Melissa McEwan gets it:

When, a few months ago, there was a spate of widely-publicized suicides of bullied teens, we had, briefly, a national conversation about the dangers of bullying. But in the wake of an ideologically-motivated assassination attempt of a sitting member of Congress, we aren’t having a national conversation about the dangers of violent rhetoric -- because the conversation about bullying children was started by adults, and there are seemingly no responsible grown-ups to be found among conservatives anymore.

The reason the right wing is partially responsible is because it has embraced eliminationism. It has created a culture of political violence. This extremist rhetoric is almost exclusively the province of the right. There are virtually no examples of -- please pay attention to the following words -- prominent commentators and high ranking elected officials on the left doing the same. Both sides don't do it; only the right validates and exhorts its violent lunatics. Athenae:

The point that needs to be made clear as possible, loud as possible, often as possible, is that this is about people in POWER calling for violence. There have always been fringe goofballs making noise on everything from fluoride in the water to aliens in the cornfields.

The difference now is that you have members of Congress feeding these freakjobs, and a former vice presidential candidate cheering them on, and a whole news network dedicated to freaking them out and telling them where to aim their weapons.

What Reynolds fails to realize is that human psychology is complex. So are societies. As wonderful as it would be to have an unambiguous, direct, 1-to-1, "here is my last diary entry Sarah put her in the crosshairs so off I go on a shooting spree" piece of evidence to tie it all together in a neat package, life is rarely so cooperative.

Thoughtful people tend instead to look at things like patterns and environments. The law does this, too: Incitement to riot is not a crime because lawmakers thought there was a straight line between violent rhetoric and violent action, but because when you saturate the air with hate you cannot control who breathes it in. It goes out to the sane and the crazy, and those on the edge as well. You don't know how it reaches people, how it bounces around, how it can settle into an unsettled mind and incubate. All we know is this: The more violent rhetoric you put out there, the more you get back.

The fact that we will never have the kind of smoking gun evidence that unmistakably ties a specific belching of hate with a specific crime does not make suggestions of a connection a vicious lie, nor is the examining of the toxic bile spewed forth by the right an attempt to score an unrelated political point.

Advertisers spend billions of dollars trying to reach consumers, but in the words of retailer John Wanamaker, "I know that 50 percent of my advertising is wasted. I just don't know which 50 percent." It probably never happens that someone sees a Pepsi ad and thinks, I think I'll grab a cool, refreshing Pepsi right now. What we do know is, increased spending on Pepsi advertising will lead to increased sales of Pepsi.

The more you get the message out, the more you influence behavior. It is not controversial with advertising. Hell, it is not controversial with religion -- why bother proselytizing otherwise? It is not controversial in any area of human endeavor. Get the message out, influence behavior. Get the message out, influence behavior. Only inside of Reynolds' teeny tiny little brain does the widespread, top-down, continual delivery of a message have no impact whatsoever.

Sorry, I'm calling bullshit. Elected representatives, right-wing patrons, and the most famous conservative voices have taken great pains to continually bombard the base with extremism. They poke and poke with their sharp sticks with full knowledge that they will get a reaction. Like the unknown 50% of advertising that is wasted, they cannot be sure which messages will catch fire and which will fizzle out. Neither can they know which ones will inspire a more aggressive response, though I'm willing to generously grant that in their heart of hearts they would prefer to see the mere threat of violence (e.g., packing heat at campaign rallies) than the actual commission of it.

But that does not excuse them, and it certainly does not exempt them from scrutiny when it literally blows up and the blood starts flowing. I can understand Reynolds' reluctance to be associated with, or see his allies implicated in, the massacre in Arizona. But only someone with a truly below average intellect or a deep psychological investment in remaining blind can fail to see it: the right wing is partially responsible for this. They created this culture of political violence. They cannot be denied their portion.