Rhetoric and violence, take two

The right wing punditry has so intimidated the mainstream media that they are afraid of looking at the trend of rhetoric and violence, but here's an interactive map of violence directed at liberals and government

Then there's this: Glenn Beck ramping up the hate

I will continue to post these connections as I find them. They are real, and they fit the definition of domestic terrorism.

They were for it before they were against it

Remember when there were rational Republicans for universal health care mandates?

The anti-intellectual GOP, and no, that's not a compliment. Stupid is as stupid does.

An Interesting Perspective on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

How the civil rights movement led to the conservative takeover of the US govt.

Middle class whites were so unprepared to share the spoils of the American Dream with the colored people who helped build this nation that they turned to a party (the GOP) set on destroying what would most help them hold on to the very thing they desired to maintain.

"Here is the fundamental tragedy of the backlash: Voters like this empowered a party that decided they didn't need protection against predatory subprime mortgage fraud. Didn't need affordable, universal health insurance; made it easier for companies to rape their pensions; kept on going back to the well to destroy their Social Security; worked avidly to shred their union protections. Fought, in fact, every decent and wise social provision that made it possible in the first place for mere factory workers to live in glorious Chicago bungalows, or suburban homes, in the first place."

And here we are 45 years later...

Economics 101

"Between late 2008 and 2010, the Standard & Poor's 500 index rose in healthy double digits to the point that many investing stalwarts who stayed in stocks recouped the money they'd lost in that period, and then some. The national savings rate -- income minus taxes and household expenses -- rebounded from a negative number in 2006 to almost 6 percent in October 2010, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis."

Then there are jobs:

I have a great idea. Let's put the party back in charge that brought about those negative numbers now that we're finally moving forward again.

Spewing hate has consequences!

Conservative have history of bloody rhetoric.
More examples
When rhetoric leads to real violence

My own thoughts: Anyone who could commit such a heinous act is a lunatic. Just because the killer might not be officially associated with any organization doesn't mean that the nasty unacceptable language used by the media and even elected leaders did not play a role. I'm not going to couch my disdain of the rhetoric that has implications in this tragedy. One cannot continually talk of such things as "2nd Amendment solutions" or specific talk of killing those with whom one disagrees without someone eventually acting on it. When it happens, of course it is a lunatic, but I'm not going to pretend that the constant vitriol and the clearly violent language used has no effect - is anyone here really going say there was no incitement when a sitting congresswoman who spoke out almost a year ago about being in "the crosshairs and this has consequences" gets gunned down? Ask yourself this: if a student went on a rampage in a school, and then they find out his friend has a page with students or classrooms in crosshairs that got shot, how do you think the authorities will treat that person? You really think they'd just ignore the complicity?

To be clear it's not just Palin's crosshairs page linked here, but the very long page I linked above of extremely violent rhetoric coming from the right side of the aisle. You want to say it happens on both sides, bring me examples that match what I posted: in sheer numbers, in the hateful bloody imagery used, and by people as big as those on the right (and I will equally denounce it). We're not talking unknown angry commentators, but people with huge followings such as Rush, Glenn Beck, O'Reilly, Coulter, Hannity, Savage, Erickson, and on and on ad nauseum. We're also talking about elected members of congress such as Boehner, Bachman, etc. I'm all for disagreement, but there are indeed consequences for the tenor of the rhetoric and only by pointing it out and linking it directly to real life events such as this and the killing of Dr. Tiller will it possibly change.

While my heart weeps for those needlessly killed, you bet I'm angry. People who are in positions of power are playing with fire, and just as predicted events like this are occurring. I will not stand silently by while the U.S. devolves into a 3rd world thug state. I want legal consequences for those who purposely incite violent solutions to disagreements. Know that your words have consequences and maybe you'll think twice about how your present yourself in front of millions of people, of which someone listening may, in fact, be crazy enough to act on those words.

GOP-style judges

Justice Scalia says women not protected from discrimination.

What a dangerous buffoon. Yep, these are the judges we get from the GOP. How can a party be "pro-America" yet be against 51% of the population?

The equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment states: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

I don't know how a strict Constitutionalist, as Scalia pretends to be (unless there is a presidential election hanging on the decision), could read this so wrongly.

Wealth disparity and what it means for America

Income concentration.

Is the U.S a plutocracy?

The inequality that matters.

Two thoughts worth sharing:

"We mean not just rule by the rich, but rule by and for the rich. We mean, in other words, a state of affairs in which the rich influence government in such a way as to protect and expand their own wealth and influence, often at the expense of others. As the introductory essay to this issue shows, this influence may be exercised in four basic ways: lobbying to shift regulatory costs and other burdens away from corporations and onto the public at large; lobbying to affect the tax code so that the wealthy pay less; lobbying to allow the fullest possible use of corporate money in political campaigns; and, above all, lobbying to enable lobbying to go on with the fewest restrictions. Of these, the second has perhaps the deepest historical legacy."

"Scandalous as it may sound to the ears of Republicans schooled in Reaganomics, one critical measure of the health of a modern democracy is its ability to legitimately extract taxes from its own elites. The most dysfunctional societies in the developing world are those whose elites succeed either in legally exempting themselves from taxation, or in taking advantage of lax enforcement to evade them, thereby shifting the burden of public expenditure onto the rest of society."