Is HATE RADIO responsible for the Tennessee church shooting?

[Joanne98]

DUH!

Monday, July 28, 2008
I Hatez Libruls

So now it's being reported the church shooter hated liberals

The shotgun-wielding suspect in Sunday’s mass shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church was motivated by a hatred of “the liberal movement,” and he planned to shoot until police shot him, Knoxville Police Chief Sterling P. Owen IV said this morning.
That struck a chord with me, but not for the reason you might expect.

There's a local radio station in town that broadcasts a show hosted by a husband and wife team. I don't want to name the show or link to it because I don't want to give them publicity.

Occasionally I will tune in while in the car, mainly when one of my sports shows is at commercial, and also mainly to hear what they have to say about local issues (county government, schools, etc). But a lot of what I end up hearing (and fascinated with, in a watching-the-accident-as-you-pass-on-the-highway kind of way) is a lot of deep-seated contempt toward liberals.

Now, I know you're thinking, "What? A conservative local talk show? In Knoxville??? Who whoulda thunk?" And as we all know there's nothing conservatives love better than bashing liberals (and vice-versa) so it's nothing really new here. Rush Limbaugh and Jeneanne Garafalo have turned this sort of thing into an art form.

But there's always been something a little over-the-top about this particular radio show in its discussion style. There's haughty, and then there's haughty. There's contempt, and then there's contempt. Substitute the word "black" for "liberal" and you'd think you were listening to something from the 50's in Mississippi. In fact, they and some of their callers don't simply call them liberals - they're "Libs". "The Libs" say this, and "The Libs" do that. Insert your own racist-derogatory terms to understand the tone and bias that comes across on this radio show.

And, to top it off, there's always a taste of Christian apologism that they bring to their broadcasts. They publicly avow their religious convictions (which I happen to agree with) yet their actions betray their beliefs.

Here's the thing: they're perfectly free to broadcast whatever they like. Just because some of it rubs me the wrong way, that's my own thing to deal with. I can turn them off anytime I like. If they want to say how much they hate liberals - fine. That's totally their right to feel, and right to say. If they want to broadcast their opinions of whether gays might be immoral deviants (a policy they also seem to espouse) that's fine and totally within their rights as well.

But people listen. And people learn. And people follow. And people act.

The media's reach is wide and their influence is vast. People's capacity for tacking onto a movement or belief and letting their flames be fanned by those they listen to in the media is well-documented.

When you speak publicly how much you hate certain groups of people, how certain groups of people are contemptible, and stupid, and how some barely deserve to exist in our society - the message I get from this radio show - then you have to understand that some people will be listening to you, and some people may agree with you.

And no matter how well intentioned you may be, some evil people may energized to act. I have no idea if the shooter listened to this radio show (his hatred of Christians makes me doubt it), but he likely listened to something like it. Or he talked to and associated with people who do listen to it, or read literature about it, or frequented websites or blogs that mirror it, and it increased his hatred. To a point where he felt he had to act. When groups of people are marginalized in the media, it become much easier for these evil people to find targets for their hatred. "Didn't get a job? Must've been the libruhls! Lost my food stamps? Must've been those gays! Or the blacks! Or the _____'s!" (again, you fill in the blank of the favorite compartmentalized labeled group of your choice)

And here we are, a day after, dealing with the aftermath.

Be careful what you say. Children Will Listen.

http://lasthome.blogspot.com/2008/07/i-hatez-libruls.html

[NJmaverick]

1. I think the proper framing of this issue is - rightwing terrorist

[Joanne98]

4. Exactly! Terrorists with a microphone. Inciting violence against Democrats 24/7

I hope the victims families SUE them ALL!

[no_hypocrisy]

2. I'd guess it's part of the reason.

When a guy who is chronically unemployed blames "liberals" (read democrats) for his situation when his target party has not had any opportunity to have much if any influence for more than a decade and a half, this guy got the connection from somewhere. And you have hate radio blaming democrats for all evils, every day, an endless loop, all in the name of "entertainment". And there will be listeners who aren't entertained; rather, they are being indoctrinated and "educated" to a particular way of rationizing complex problems. They are literally told what to think. And imho, it was a matter of time before yesterday's event would come to pass. I wish I could tell you all I was surprised, but I wasn't. Just incredibly saddened nonetheless.

[nam78_two]

3. K&R.nt

[trthnd4jstc]

5. This is part of the Reason I am involved in Politics, Hate must be countered.

Limbaugh, O'Reily, Hannity, Savage, etcetera. All Liberal Bashers. All Propagandists. All Hate-Mongerers. One with power needs to be cautioned about throwing blame around. Those who are desparate, scared, less disciplined, and hopless will take the words of hate, and rationalize their violence upon others.

[mmonk]

6. Where else would he get his hatred of "liberals"?

[Joanne98]

8. He didn't have any family, friends or a job. You KNOW he was listening

To Rush, Hannity, Laura, Savage and watching Fox noise at night. He didn't have anything else to do. Also, "Christian" radio and the John Hagee's. They preach hate all day long too.

[mmonk]

21. Yep.

[Peregrine Took]

23. Plus he was a truck driver and they call in all the time. I think they are the

main listeners to talk radio.

[bbgrunt]

7. to answer your question--to a large degree, yes.

[SidneyCarton]

9. Hatred propagates...

It must be faced, confronted and exposed for the naked bigotry it is. There will always be cowards pontificating about the healing power of violent hatred, it must be reminded, over and over again, that tragedies such as the atrocity yesterday are the outcomes of such thought. In doing so the attraction of such thought decreases.

[newmajority]

10. Janeane Garafolo?? When was the last time she was on the radio?

And even when she was, I don't remember her ever inciting anyone to go out and shoot up a church.

[Warpy]

11. Hate radio kills.

That's been proven before, from Rwanda to Bosnia. Both holocausts started with hate radio.

I am not pro censorship. Hate radio needs to be answered, though. Hate that exists without a challenge gets taken as fact.

Only resurrecting the Fairness Doctrine can do this.

[lolly]

12. Um, Garafalo=Limbaugh??????

Sorry, but this is the kind of false equivalence that enables this type of hatred.

Garafalo, besides having a much more limited audience (how many radio markets are handed over to her for several hours each day?) argues forcefully against neo-con positions and programs when she gets on a talking-heads forum. Her comedy is purely labeled as stand-up comedy, and in it lampoons the effects of neocon government.

Limbaugh launches pervasive, nonstop ad-hominem attacks on liberals, is caught lying repeatedly (see Al Franken's books for examples), and when caught in something so egregiously evil that he can't justify it as a political opinion (mocking a Parkinsons' Disease victim, for example) claims he was "just kidding. Can't you liberals take a joke?"


They are not the same, and saying that one balances out the other is disingenuous.

[Marr]

17. I know-- I hate that sort of mindless equivalency.

Lazy minds very much want to believe things all balance out, but they do not.

[Generic Other]

13. How come they aren't fining the stations for inciting violence?

The FCC protected us from Janet Jackson's boob...why not from hate filled rightwing wackos?

[lonestarnot]

14. It is noteworthy, in response to your post, to check out the steps to genocide and remember them.

Some of the steps are being met in the hate radio atmosphere.

http://www.genocidewatch.org/8stages.htm
1. Classification
2. Symbolization
3. Dehumanization
4. Organization
5. Polarization
6. Preparation
7. Extermination
8. Denial

[Marr]

15. If you're going to bitch about Hollywood's effect in 'advancing the liberal agenda', or

violent video games' way of making children more violent, then you also have to accept the notion that right-wing radio fuels this type of domestic terrorism.

I'd say you can accept that last point without accepting the previous two points, really-- as right-wing hate radio is very direct in it's messaging.

[Joanne98]

16. She's a local.

[Marr]

19. What do you mean?

[NashVegas]

18. As Far As I'm Concerned - Absolutely

This guy had some real problems. Hate-filled right-wing broadcasters and bloggers just gave him something to focus those problems on, instead of getting help.

[Clark2008]

20. I'll name the show and post their website

It's Lee and Terry Frank... http://terryfrank.net/

And, as for their bile - it's over-the-top. Lee calls liberals "traitors" on a daily basis, espouses how stupid we are and how much he hates us.

I live in Knoxville and listen to this show on the evening drive home to here what the nuts are up to and where their diatribes are headed next.

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

[Joanne98]

29. Thankyou very much Clark2008!

[Joanne98]

31. I'm going thru their archives. Boy they really LOVE Star Parker!

Star Parker is a star…

Daily News & Comments

Yesterday we interviewed Star Parker on the radio about this article:

Blaming poverty on liberalism and the federal government, a conservative activist on Friday said: “It is very sad what the liberals have done with their war on the poor in this country.”

”After 40 years of failure, they still insist that they want to expand this war, that they think they should pour more money into this war,” said Star Parker, president of the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education. “Already, over $3 trillion has been spent on the war on poverty, and so far, we’ve not seen results.”

Parker said the war on poverty has really been a war waged by liberals on four fronts — “war on the family, the war on thought, the war on tradition and a war on religion.”

I could have talked to Star for hours. What an awesome lady and such a wonderful story of redemption. Star’s history is incredible. She was living a life in the gutter–sex, drugs, multiple abortions, welfare dependency & more. But she overcame. And now she’s out testifying against the harm that welfare dependancy and liberalism has done to our communities.

Shelby Steele has a column in today’s Wall Street Journal that touches on some of the points we discussed yesterday with Star. Steele’s column focuses on the 50th anniversary of troops from the 101st Airborne Division escorting nine black students through the doors of Central High School in Little Rock.

For the most part, this is how white America came to handle its new accountability in the civil rights era. The country got busy self-consciously redeeming itself. Redemption would be our big, ingenious achievement. If freedom and opportunity and wealth had always been the special mandates of American life, suddenly redemption was added to the list. And, as the civil rights movement worked its way through many more Little Rocks, as a movement for women’s equality burst forth, and as the Vietnam War came to be held against America, the idea of American evil expanded and, thus, redemption became more and more entrenched as a national mandate.

By the mid 1960s this mandate had already given us a new illiberal liberalism — a busybody, interventionist liberalism that was more bent on erecting an American redemption than ensuring freedom. The Great Society wanted to make America look like a country in which Little Rock could never have happened. It failed because it was a venture in denial rather than in realistic social transformation. And today’s “diversity” will fail because it, too, is only a denial — a kitsch that gives us an image of an America shorn of Little Rocks.

But on this 50th anniversary of the Little Rock crisis, it is important to remember that this evil did happen in America, and that no engineered redemption can make us innocent again. And we might also remember that it is better to be chastened than innocent. Innocents don’t learn from their sins; the chastened are informed by them.

As it turns out, Star will be in Nashville this coming Saturday for a Right to Life banquet. You can read about their event here:

http://terryfrank.net/?p=2589

[Joanne98]

32. Man those people are really over the top!

I think we found the source.

[Bake]

33. It would be a damn shame if something "happened" to them ...

Sooner or later, the hate will catch up with them.

Bake

[Peregrine Took]

22. The right wing talkers go OVER and OVER and OVER a topic til your head is

ready to explode. The few liberal talkers out there vary their subjects but the right hammers and hammers for hours on Obama or whatever the topic is of the day.

No normal person could stand to listen to the harangue and 'would change the dial - that leaves only the abnormal crowd behind.

[KG]

24. oh hell yeah,

[KT2000]

25. Absolutely

and I hope someone studies the individual and societal effects of the hate shows.

I live around a bunch of retired people - many of the men are bored to tears and harbor frustrations about lost "power" when their jobs are over.
They listen to those shows and fox as well and it makes them feel alive - they are fueled by adrenaline - hatred and anger. They then have to pass that on to others or they will explode.
This happens in traffic, lines at stores and against neighbors.

These hate shows are operating on the same principal as drug dealers. The listeners are hooked on the adrenaline of hate and come back for more, never realizing they are being played. Too many times I have seen these listeners almost vomit the talking points of the day to anyone who will listen.

[redqueen]

26. Yes... and this isn't all...

if anyone cared to look, there are other murders and assaults which have been inspired by their disgusting hate speech.

Says a lot about anyone who listens to that crap.

[slackmaster]

27. Why the mindless stampede to blame someone other than the guy who did it?

:shrug:

[zbdent]

28. Note, one of the newsblurbs said that the shooter got angry when

she told him she was a Christian ...

Sounds like he had a "WTF" moment ... "How could a liberal be a Christian???"

[samsingh]

30. yes - they should be sued and charged for solicitation to murder