How Much Violence Lurks in Your Neighbor's Heart?
Primary tabs
Hoss is wondering how responsible people like Beck are for individual expressions of eliminationist violence, and to me that's not even an interesting question. It is just for that purpose that Beck in on TV, to better encourage his viewers to violence. It's as old as the Nazi Playbook and one of the reasons I'm very strict about not exposing myself or anyone in my care to that sort of filth.
What does interest me is if I have any neighbors like this. I know my neighbors pretty well, and even the Republicans on my block are laid back people who smoke dope and like to take naked hot tubs at midnight. If they watch a lot of FOX and the like, it doesn't show up in more than occasionally repeating some of its more innocuous lies when we shoot the shit around the mailbox. I don't think that even if my Republican neighbors experienced some dreadful economic upset and were told directly to blame me, they'd come over here with a shotgun looking to blow the ACLU card out of my hands.
But I wonder... The continuing decline of the economy (not to mention things like health care and educational standards) along with the deliberate increase in violent rhetoric in the SCLM: how powerful do you think they are, in terms of creating more gun-toting would-be "revolutionaries?" The guy in the Media Matters link was going to San Francisco to kill people in the ACLU and some foundation Beck hates. But what about killing regular brown people, or gay people? It's not a stretch to say those groups are being blamed and targeted by the likes of Beck daily, too.
How worried are you about your neighbors, and have you ever been threatened with violence by someone for political reasons?
- chicago dyke's blog
- Log in or register to post comments
Comments
No violence....
But I was told - forcefully and with much anger - that if I made a single comment about X, I could leave the house (this was from a friend we had - as in past tense - for 30 years).
Oh, and it was in reference to Obama - not any Repub stuff.
Yeah, it's not the Republicans on the block who scare me
It's the people who are still Obama fans. The ones who start choking, red with rage when I mention I didn't vote for him and am not/have never been a fan.
Inciting people to violence is a tricky, dynamic thing. People with a propensity to solve problems through violence tend to be attracted to violent ideologies/situations, but definitely the people in leadership positions who egg them on make the situation worse. I don't think any leader can be responsible for the actions of all of their followers; anyone famous attracts some crazies or overly zealous. But they can be measured by the actions of the weight of their followers. The fact that Obama fans were collectively, just online, orchestrated gangs of wilding bullies meant to me, not much different from Beck followers.
On the other hand, I only have marginal proximity to real Beck followers, while I had daily (hourly, minutely) exposure to Obama's fans, and still do (although fewer in numbers these days, even around Cambridge). As for my neighbors -- they are mostly just a wave and a how-dee-do most of the time, so I really have no idea what evil lurks in their hearts. If anything, they are probably afraid of me, since I'm the quiet one on the street who keeps weird hours.
Beck is just a symptom
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." -- Napoleon Bonaparte
Beck is just a symptom of the bigger problem. We've had Father Coughlins and Rush Limbaughs for as long as we've had media. Their more sociopathic views could be safely dismissed by good people because we, as a people, stood as one in shared commitment to the rule of law.
What do we say now? Our banks are busted, but "pretend and extend" lets them carry on their looting. When our leaders ignore the foreclosure crisis they are explicitly encouraging the banksters to forge documents to steal homes. "No moratorium" might as well be quoted as "Go ahead and steal -- it's OK." Look forward, not back...?
Beck is creepy and he'll draw still creepier followers, but he's not the problem. The problem is that the belief in the rule of law -- the foundation of our society -- has eroded to the point that we may no longer have "herd immunity" to malignant sociopaths like Beck and his followers.
Boycott Glenn Beck's advertisers? TERRIFIC - but that's just a start. When "look forward, not back" is properly labeled as an impeachable offense, then we'll get our society back. Criticism (such as from the "professional left") is the best antidote we have. Let's get loud, people...
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing..." -- Edmund Burke
"We don't need people like you"
Said to me during the infamous 2008 primary which was followed by, "You need to really examine if you're a racist".
I know, I know... if a "liberal" says something like that, it's not meant in a truly scary way. Well, it scared the hell out of me.
The fact that someone could feel so strongly that our history of friendship could be replaced with the declaration that people like me are not needed was numbing.
Who is Hoss?
Who is Hoss?
sorry, Joe. my lazy intertubular shorthand way of saying
"Atrios/Eschaton" who is the father of this blog. do you know the story? it's cute.
so basically, the answer i'm seeing is "no, i'm not too worried about my neighbors." that's really good to hear.
i believe it's very, very important we use our own eyes and ears and value what they tell us far above what we see in the SCLM, and even on blogs like Corrente. i try very hard not to let other people decide for me what "reality really is" and i apply this not only to the topic of this post, but some of what is being said about this election, the economy, etc. if most of us aren't surrounded by gun toting crazies, that can only be a good thing and i hope it lasts despite continuing economic decline.
Oh! I want to hear this story!
I do! I do!
Who is the violent crazy person again?
Interesting that IOZ is also on this. Or at least on Digby on this:
My neighbors seem generally all right.
I wish I interacted with them more, but when I do, they seem fairly friendly. Of course, that's what I'm sure many people say before discovering terrible things about their neighbors, but there it is.
I think more about the violence in my own heart. Ironically, Beck triggers that, but of course for an entirely different reason than he intends.
sadly, it's not mine to tell.
ask one of the members of the Gang of Four. lambert, when he gets back, may be in the mood for some nostalgia. i am a junior Senior member emeritus of Corrente, and i don't want to speak for/of that in which I was not an original part. but it is a cute story. ;-)
heh, i wonder if The Farmer ever checks in here anymore. anyone remember him? he hates my guts, these days. old timers, feel free to share your stories of the Good/Bad/Ugly Olde Dayz when corrente didn't have "wire" in the title and we were all so sure that Blogging Would Change the World.../sigh/
Well, right after we invaded Iraq,
my neighbors all put up flags. At that time, I had a Quaker 'War is Not the Answer' yard sign. For months afterward, my sign was vandalized every night, and often my house or yard. I also had to replace the sign twice because it disappeared. Eventually the signs were not readily available anymore.
I felt at that time that our aggressive nation gave the bullies out there in our society a feeling of being validated and that they were emboldened. Recently I read a book by Susan Faludi, 'The Terror Dream', which confirms this in documented detail. It also traces the waxing and waning of this attitude throughout our history.
I have to add that it is not the Obama supporters in my town who are inclined toward violence. They are the affluent liberals. It is the more working class people in my neighborhood who are 'conservative' and who reject anyone who is different from them. I think my 'crime' is being single and having my own ideas. What I am experiencing is misogyny, but their anger is directed at anyone who is not with their agenda. It's hard to explain. I don't think it was really a political issue.
The aggressive behavior has continued to this day.
My neighbors are fairly tame
But pot's our drug of choice, not meth, so that helps.
My neighborhood is mostly poor white renters, poor whites who inherited a home from a relative, or low middle class homeowners.
There are 17 abandoned houses in the block around my house. One across the street from me, one right next door. The people next door divorced and let the bank take it, and the old British lady who lived thru the Blitz died last year. Her kids and grandkids swing by and check on it, and they let us use their empty driveway for extra parking(we have 3 cars, all necessary, and usually at least one's broken at all times. We just junked a 4th we were in possession of today.[No it wasn't on blocks, smartass.] Plus my mom, her cats, dog & car all needed to stay with me for a few months.)
So in my experience, poor people are usually too tired and busy to kick up a ruckus like that. We have enough we don't want to lose it, and just enough to help each other out when needed. The only real crime is drugs. If they'd just legalize the shit, we'd be the nouveau riche. Heh.