At 10:00 p.m. on February 27, 1933, the Berlin Fire Department received a message that the Reichstag (the German Parliament building) was on fire. Despite the best efforts of the firemen, the building was gutted by the blaze.
The day after the fire Hitler asked for and received from President Hindenburg the Reichstag Fire Decree, [which]suspended most civil liberties in Germany and was used by the Nazis to ban publications not considered "friendly" to the Nazi cause...Hitler, after having obtained his emergency powers, announced that it was the start of a Communist plot to take over Germany. Nazi newspapers blared this "news." This sent the Germans into a panic and isolated the Communists further among the civilians; additionally, thousands of Communists were imprisoned in the days following the fire (including leaders of the Communist Party of Germany) on the charge that the Party was preparing to stage a putsch. With Communist electoral participation also suppressed, the Nazis were able to increase their share of the vote in the March 5, 1933, Reichstag elections from 33% to 44%. This gave the Nazis and their allies, the German National People's Party a majority of 52% in the Reichstag.
What has the media done since the assassination attempt on Congresswoman Giffords, which killed a small child (ex-Met skipper Dallas Green's grand-daughter, FYI) and a Bush-appointed federal judge? They've gone on a full-bore assault against the Republican party, fingering their rhetoric as the true triggerman behind yesterday's bloodbath. Never mind that that Jared Lee Loughner's YouTube account shows him to be a government-hating, Mein Kampf-reading, Communist-manifesto-loving nutjob. Because like the Reichstag fire, this is an opportunity for the media to silence the Republicans and the Tea Party, and they sure ain't gonna let this crisis go to waste...
The AP pins blame for the attack directly on Sarah Palin, and Giffords' 2010 Republican opponent, Jesse Kelly, for apparently daring to have been an ex-Marine and proud of it. In other articles the same AP claims that Giffords has drawn the "ire" and "animosity" of the right, although provides no factual data to show it is anything further than partisan politics as usual. CNN interviews every Democrat they can find to condemn "inflammatory rhetoric", which, if you only read/watched CNN, would lead you to believe that "political hate speech" was the motivation behind the attack, and that only one side uses it. Paul Krugman, economic psychotic of the New York Times, blames the Tea Party and the Republican party for creating - wait for it! - a "climate of hate".
The beachhead is being established, as the media works furiously by Monday morning to create the meme that the Arizona slaughter was a Republican-created tragedy. Once this becomes "fact" - they way the Reichstag fire's "intent" was a Communist takeover of Germany - the next move becomes limiting the speech of Republicans, the Tea Party, and any opposition to the Obama/Democratic agenda, all with an eye towards re-establishing liberal dominance in Congress and assuring Barack Obama's victory in 2012.
With the idea of all criticism of Obama being racist having backfired, the media now moves forward with a new weapon: All criticism of Democratic policy is inflammatory rhetoric with the potential to cause bloodshed. It's a new version of the race card, a way to wrap a noose of guilt around our necks, a way to silence opposition to a radical plan to socialize America. (And maybe even hide the fact that Giffords, a Jew, was shot in an attack that may have been based on that very fact? No evidence for that yet, but it seems as if the media is studiously trying to ignore that angle, perhaps in order not to have to revise it's "All Americans are Islamophobic" meme...)
Don't fall for it. Defend yourself and your right to free speech. Remind everyone of the hate speech propagated by the Left that the media ignores, or smirks at with silent assent. Recall that Journalists urged caution after Ft. Hood, now race to blame Palin after Arizona shootings . Remind them which American president said “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” . And inform them of the hate speech oft propagated in print by the very same folks now trying somehow, desperately, to pin the Giffords shooting on their political enemies.
Loughner's gun has now been turned towards every conservative in America, with the media now locking and loading. Before we allow them to execute our free speech, can we ask them, in the name of fairness, why remarks like these by Democrats have been allowed to go unnoticed?
"A spoiled child (Bush) is telling us our Social Security isn't safe anymore, so he is going to fix it for us. Well, here's your answer, you ungrateful whelp: [audio sound of 4 gunshots being fired.] Just try it, you little b*stard. [audio of gun being cocked]." -- A "humor bit" from the Randi Rhodes Show
"I want to go up to the closest white person and say: 'You can't understand this, it's a black thing' and then slap him, just for my mental health" -- New York city councilman Charles Barron
"..And then there's Rumsfeld who said of Iraq 'We have our good days and our bad days.' We should put this S.O.B. up against a wall and say 'This is one of our bad days' and pull the trigger." -- From a fundraising ad put out by the St. Petersburg Democratic Club
"...but the kind of people who would buy a car that increases the risk to other motorists in an accident can't be reasoned with. They're selfish and stupid. It's unfortunate that drivers must worry that their SUVs are being targeted by insulting stickers and Molotov cocktails, but one thing's for sure: It couldn't be happening to a more deserving group of people." -- Ted Rall winks at ecoterrorism
"F*** God D*mned Joe the God D*mned Motherf*cking plumber! I want Motherf*cking Joe the plumber dead." -- Liberal talk show host Charles Karel Bouley on the air.
"Republicans don't believe in the imagination, partly because so few of them have one, but mostly because it gets in the way of their chosen work, which is to destroy the human race and the planet. Human beings, who have imaginations, can see a recipe for disaster in the making; Republicans, whose goal in life is to profit from disaster and who don't give a hoot about human beings, either can't or won't. Which is why I personally think they should be exterminated before they cause any more harm." -- The Village Voice's Michael Feingold, in a theater review of all places
"I know how the 'tea party' people feel, the anger, venom and bile that many of them showed during the recent House vote on health-care reform. I know because I want to spit on them, take one of their 'Obama Plan White Slavery' signs and knock every racist and homophobic tooth out of their Cro-Magnon heads." -- The Washington Post's Courtland Milloy
My Congressman Eric Cantor, and you and your cupcake evil wife..." "Remember Eric...our judgment time, the final Yom Kippur has been given. You are a liar, you're a Lucifer, you're a pig, a greedy fucking pig, you're an abomination, you receive my bullets in...your office, remember they will be placed in your heads. You and your children are Lucifer's abominations." -- Obama campaign contributor Norman Laboom
(links here - Liberal Hate Speech the Media Forgot to Tell You About)
3 comments:
Partisan propagandists on both sides, whether it's Rush Limbaugh or Keith Olbermann, have sought to appeal to our worst fears and emotions, never letting facts interfere with the ratcheting up of the partisan hatred (or ratings). With all the angst added to a difficult economy, violence was bound to erupt. A number of local congressional offices have already been attacked. Sooner or later, somebody was going to get shot.
Maybe it is time everyone dials down the rhetoric. It may not be as exciting or get the same ratings, but maybe rational discourse is the patriotic thing to do rather than the mutual demonization that is currently practiced. Free speech is not free of consequences. For everyone’s sake, let’s keep the crazy talk from reaching the crazy people.
Lone nutjob. Doesn't seem like he heard any political rhetoric at all save his own.
Although the Mein Kampf angle, and the point that Gabrielle Giffords was Jewish, is a fact that many seem to be studiously ignoring. That bothers me - was this in fact a hate crime, just not the one the media wants it to be?
"Paul Krugman, economic psychotic of the New York Times ..."
Hah! Perfect description.
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