| This is likely going to be perceived as harsh by some. It's funny how little I care. I've noticed the last several days how many of our friends on the right, including here in Montana, are using the assassination attempt in Tucson as a venue to validate their fantasies of what the left 'really' is. While many have been arguing against the political equivalence which seems so important to the right to prove just about now, the equivalence argument is clearly winning. It's a simple matter to discern why. First, there are those on the left desperate it seems to agree that both sides are 'bad'. Funny thing about that. As Tom Tommorow points out, not all 'targeting' imagery (surveyor's mark) is the same, nor are all arguments of what is hateful rhetoric. I read Lawyers, Guns & Money pretty much every day. It is a website not well favored by the left, often seen as "centrist" or "center right". Maybe it is. But it is well thought and pertinent to most discussions lately. SEK questions exactly what makes up "violent rhetoric". If anything is a must read, that is. The right ignore such discussions at the peril of us all. My opinion, but I think they do so willfully, and that makes it dangerous for those of us on the left who ignore it as well. The rightward don't really care if we blame their cultural will to fear and anger for inflaming one nut in Arizona. They don't want us (liberals and independants) catching on to the idea that their imaginations are all about fear, and that is the only inspiration they can bring to bear. Of course, "both sides" appeal to imagination. The more deluded among the left consider that the coup de gras of their argument against the two party structure. How convenient since it ignores the actual effect and will of the rhetors, as SEK calls them. That is a cheap political ploy, and almost as deluded as the right's desire to see the left as wholly evil. Imagination is every bit as much fantasy as it holds to reality. The fantasy of the right is that the left is: Socialist Communist Fascist Violent Minority favoring above common decent white folk Anti Christion Anti Semite Jewish controlled Gay agenda-ed Anti-birth Delusional. It is the mythos of the right that the left is the enemy, dangerous and conniving. Rhetoric rarely has the same effect on the right and the left because rhetoric inflames the imagination of the holder. That is why normally rational folk (even in the Montana web-o-tubes) are going full on freak-out to prove that Liberals are really to blame for what happened in Arizona. Both sides do it! Now watch as others argue that to the left the Right is the enemy, dangerous and conniving and we hate them, and want to hurt them, or silence them or wish to deny them rights. The manipulation, propaganda and appeal to imagination from the right is all about violence, here of late. I've noticed, and I can't be alone, that the threats have escalated a huge amount in the last two years. Oh wait, I haven't been alone. It's been noticed elsewhere too. Rand Paul has attempted to use his awesome skills at eye doctorin' to claim that Loughner was a paranoid schizophrenic. What an ass. Let's take a look at what a real expert has to say. Notice that he deals with things in the setting of culture. He isn't "blaming" violent rhetoric, as the right would desperately want us to believe. No, Dr. Swartz is concerned about the culture of violence that we, right and left, seem so enamored of. And that's really what it's all about. |
