False Equivalency and Trial by Media

What we have in the wake of Saturday's shootings in Arizona is a false equivalency, and a trial by media, in the media, for the media(also known as the court of public opinion). Could it be the mainstream media is feeling a tad bit defensive for their role in enabling the toxic state of political discourse by giving Sarah Palin and others a national and international platform?

Roger Ailes, president of the Republican network, offered the usual defense -- insisting that Jared Lee Loughner "was not attached" to Tea Partiers -- and said the criticism of Fox News is "just a bullshit way to use the death of a little girl to get Fox News in an argument."
But also Ailes went a little further, making two related points. The first is that he claims to have told his network's on-air talent to "shut up, tone it down, make your argument intellectually," and urged Fox News' team to stay away from "bombast." The second is that Ailes is convinced that "the Democrat [sic] Party" is just as bad: "This goes on ... both sides are wrong." Ailes added that he hopes "the other side" tells its team to tone down the rhetoric, too.

TeeVee Pundit Heads parade "expert" after "expert" before cameras declaring Jared Loughner is mentally ill without the benefit of a professional, independent examination. It is a weapon of mass distraction from the fact he attempted to assassinate a Democratic congresswoman in an atmosphere of violent threats against Democratic politicians.
If Loughner were an African American, a Muslim or an immigrant we would hear HOURS AND HOURS of debate about, shiftless blacks, radical Muslims, and them there illegal immigrants, not a mental illness.
Legal Schnauzer says the Gabrielle Giffords Shooting Reveals Cluelessness Among American Elites and is an indication that a few of our nation's leaders are woefully out of touch with reality.

Many Americans, especially elites, tend to think of crime in a "bottom-up" fashion. It's something that an individual from a lower class inflicts upon an individual from a higher class. In that sense, Jared Loughner appears to be a standard-issue American criminal. He apparently is a troubled guy, perhaps inflamed by right-wing rhetoric, who had access to a gun and took out his anger on an innocent person from a higher class. Had one of Loughner's targets not been a member of Congress, many Americans probably would have never heard about the shooting. Many of us, after all, have become anesthetized to bottom-up crime.

For the media and elected officials attemppt to promote the spin this tragedy is the result of a "maniac" and not the result of a political assassination by a fanatic influenced by a toxic political culture is proof they believe the American people are stoopid, and we will believe anything they say, simply because they said it.
Prior to the Arizona Shootings, we had a campaign season rife with gun rhetoric by right wing republicans.

Robert Lowry, a Republican challenger to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schulz (D-FL), stopped by a local Republican event in October. The event was at a gun range, and Lowry shot at a human-shaped target that had Wasserman Schulz's initials written next to it. He later said it was a "mistake."

Geno at Pine Belt Progressive saw this coming and sounded the alarm in February of 2009.

I’m concentrating on studying white supremacy as a political movement until further notice. I need to know just how advanced it is at this point so that I can judge how best to deal with it.
It’s my general opinion that the way to deal with groups like this is to shine a spotlight on them. And I think when you do that, you typically find some people who have to be dealt with by the state, some who have to be defeated politically, and some who can be assisted by education.
I think a time may be coming when it will be necessary to confront these groups and deal with them. If so, the methods we use to confront them will determine whether we make the situation worse, or whether we make it better. So we must choose carefully.
For now, I will say that I am seeing some developments that concern me. I have a fairly alarming hypothesis about them that I am trying to confirm with evidence, and I am afraid they will be in a position to recruit a lot of real talent soon if they aren’t already. I think it is worthwhile to spend some time gathering evidence, and can think of nothing more important to spend my time on.

Geno also cautioned us not to forget about the white supremacists with this comment;

I'm afraid they're gonna have to be smacked down. Here's why. They've been forming totally new groups - chapters and cells -- for the entire time Bush was president. All these new orgs can recruit independently, and appeal to people with slightly different interests. And the numbers required to do great evil, assuming you have a committed and energetic rank-and-file with talented leadership, are smaller than one might think.

Driftglass warned us about the men and women who thrive and grow at the white hot core of the Pretty Hate Machine

Your Party Masters have burned your bridges and salted the Earth behind you, and now there is nothing left for you to do but desperately tunnel deeper into the Hell you have built for yourself.
Which is why John McCain now publicly grovels and kisses the poxy asses of the men who service and steered the Pretty Hate Machine diffidently past the bodies of the dead and dying of NOLA, and gleefully down the blood-tarred, bone-macadamed streets of Iraq. Men who went right after his family -- his wife and children -- and his honorable national service without a second thought when it suited their despicable purposes.
Because the Pretty Hate Machine does not come with a conscience, and it now casts its depraved shadow over their entire Party.
And over the entire nation that Party has seized.
And over the entire world that Party has polluted.
It has become all Means and no Ends but More Power, and as with all power, it comes with a steep price.

A steep price indeed. From "job killing" to "death panels" republicans have numbed us to their rhetoric, enabled by the mainstream media.

The GOP has relied on the phrase “job killing” to frame the repeal effort as an economic endeavor that will help create American jobs and sustain the economy, but conservatives probably didn’t give much thought to the implications of the word “killing,” having relied on the rhetoric of ‘life and death’ so frequently throughout the health care reform debate. In fact, if it wasn’t for Saturday’s shooting, few people would have seriously considered the real meaning of the GOP’s words. In the aftermath of “death panels,” suggestions that the law may “cost you your life“, kill more people, and abort babies, the Republicans have downright numbed us all to their frequent use of death imagery as a tool to ferment political opposition. A quick look through the past 18 months or so reveals a stunning array of messages warning Americans that the Democrats’ signature legislation would lead to death.

Once again I am begging President Obama to use the power invested in him by we the people to wrestle control of the message from the GOP infused, media enabled Tea Party and stop letting the MSM distort what we decide with all spin all the time. We didn't elect the media we elected Y-O-U. Yes, we DID.