Need some help with my HuffPo piece, please -

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It posted yesterday.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-lyon/i-dreamed-i-had-a-bulls-e_b_115964.html

Hoping you'll see it and perhaps leave a comment.

Thank you! I think this subject is pretty damned important - growing moreso all the time (hate radio and its effects on real-life wackos who go out and act on the feelings hate radio has stirred up inside them).

Even saw this posted elsewhere on Alternet - a guy warning the same thing. Evidently somebody else agrees it's a big problem.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3719276

Anyway, thank you in advance.

[janethussein]

1. Great article, Mary

Thanks for putting it on HuffPo.

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4. Welcome to DU!

This is really bothering me, and I felt compelled to make a column out of it. That jerk in Tennessee who SHOT AND KILLED two people (and injured several more) in a church, for cryingoutloud, because he didn't like their beliefs, was spurred on by the strident shrieking of hate radio and hate TV and all the jackals on there yowling nonstop, around the clock, about how supposedly vile liberals are.

I remember when there were t-shirts with targets on them and the word "STUDENT" emblazoned across the top - in reaction to the Kent State shootings.

If this shit continues from the likes of the limbaughs, o'reillys, savages, and that insufferable, obnoxious guy-whose-name-rhymes-with-VANITY, there will be more innocent people on whom their "true believers" will take out their frustrations.

Have any of these hatemongers actually stopped a moment and asked their audiences to take a deep breath and just slow down a moment?

[PatSeg]

10. Reminds me of the movie The Fisher King

except that radio personality had a conscience. Guess its too much to hope for in real life.

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11. As long as its wall-to-wall hate radio, probably so.

Criminy, but it's frustrating.

[PatSeg]

12. And its all about the money

There apparently is no thought to the repercussions of their actions and words. I seriously doubt they have any strong beliefs other than fame and fortune are great.

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16. It all boils down to IGMFU for these people.

IGMFU stands for "I Got Mine, F-U." And they'll pound the Bible into the ground for you, conveniently forgetting the parts of the Bible that talk about Cain versus Abel, and some bearded guy in the New Testament preaching about The Beatitudes.

In all my years of observing the so-called "Christian right," I have NEVER EVER EVER heard any of them cite The Beatitudes in ANY of their speechifying - or fundraising. Nor do they ever point to that item about camels, the rich, and the eye of a needle. Seems it's just not in their Book. Maybe it's the translation or something...

[PatSeg]

17. It has always amazed me at how the basic

simple truths just go over their heads. Judge not lest ye be judged? That one alone could transform the world if everyone lived up to it. It's not like it is cryptic or anything.

He without guilt cast the first stone; do unto others as you'd have them do unto you; and that one about not being concerned with the speck in your brother's eye when you have a plank in your own. Hey, I'm not religious but these lessons work really well for me. I must have an underdeveloped sense of righteous indignation!

[hwmnbn]

2. done. Great article....

my comment is pending approval. ;)

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3. Thank you.

I just didn't want it to sink into oblivion.

There's another thread about this, now, too. Somebody else shares my concerns, it seems.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3719276

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5. Kicking!

I just got off the phone with a gentleman who's going to be one of my guests on the next KPFK show here in L.A. (next Wednesday the 6th) and he maintained there are hateful people fomenting violence on both sides. I don't see it so much from our side, especially here, where there's constant vigilance against advocating violence against someone with whom we disagree. It's in the rules here and the rules are strictly enforced - which is as it should be. Maybe it's must myopia on my side, but I see the hate speech coming primarily from the so-called radical "right."

[gratuitous]

8. Yeah, the old "pox on both houses" dodge

But who gets assassinated in America: Alan Berg or Rush Limbaugh? Bobby Kennedy or Richard Nixon? Martin Luther King Jr. or Jerry Falwell?

Now try to tell me that the level of violence is anywhere near equal.

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13. I pointed that out to a friend of mine once - after she'd said bush has done so many

disgusting, illegal and immoral things that it's surprising that... well, you get the idea. (And mind you, I would never ever advocate such a thing, nor have I done so ever before.)

My response was and still is - that's because OUR side doesn't do that shit. The people on OUR side don't think you settle something with a gun like some lone cowboy. OURS isn't the side that resorts to fire-arms to make themselves feel powerful or invincible or intimidating. OUR side doesn't seem to be into intimidating, period.

It's THEIR side that pulls this shit. Nobody who voted for Gore or Kerry then or sides with Obama now was/is the kind you'd find mowing down innocent students in their classrooms or innocent people in churches (and by the way, was it a bunch of liberals who torched black churches at one time - killing innocents inside merely because of who they were?). Nobody on OUR side stockpiles frickin' guns by the crate-load and holes up in Ruby Ridge or Waco or some God-forsaken place with a fortress, looking for spooks in black helicopters. Nobody on OUR side goes the paranoid, paramilitary route. That's just not who or what we are. We aren't the assholes who wore white sheets and set fires to crosses. We aren't the ones who beat up Matthew Shepherd and left him to die alone and tortured. We aren't the ones who picket and otherwise stink up a soldier's funeral because that Iraq War/bush-cheney victim MIGHT be gay. We're not the ones who selectively tweezer out one passage out of some moldie-oldie Old Testament backwater book and use it to justify slaughtering people we don't like - and then claim they believe in JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZuss.

OUR side does stuff like chain ourselves to trees or the fences around government or Defense-Department outlets. OUR side pickets and does hunger strikes and sits in at somebody's office all day and sits on railroad tracks when a train carrying nuclear waste or weapons components is approaching. We do non-violent stuff. The nutcases who decide to "settle this once and for all, God Bless 'Murka, Freedom Isn't Free!" are on THEIR side. The Dark Side. The - um - Overcompensation Side. Maybe they were all bullied on the schoolyard and nurse a grudge against the universe. Maybe the men among them are pissed they're not sufficiently well-hung. Or something...

I do NOT know. What I DO know, however, is that whenever some shit like this happens, INVARIABLY, with very few exceptions, it's some extremist, CONservative-gone-postal, wrong-wing nut. Our side is just not the type to do this shit. THEIRS is. The guy who killed and injured innocent people at the Tennessee UUC was NOT found later with a stockpile of Thom Hartmann's books or Michael Moore's books or Al Franken's books in his home, that is for sure.

[gratuitous]

18. How very unfair and unbalanced of you

You're not supposed to actually notice the blood in the streets from Republican policies, hate, fear and greed. It simply isn't done in polite society. See, there was a letter to the editor yesterday in the local fishwrap that explained it all to me:

With the recent church shooting by a "conservative," I have noticed a surge of angry liberals attempting to blame conservatives for all that is wrong in the world. The truth is, there are good and bad people of all stripes. I read plenty opinion articles in The Oregonian written by liberals that I would consider angry and prejudiced. And some of the most hate-filled radio can be heard on Air America.

See, when Mr. Adkisson went into a church to shoot the place up with a shotgun, that was exactly equivalent to unspecified "angry and prejudiced" opinion articles and the vague allegations of "hate-filled radio" from Air America. The proof from this pudding? Well, just you wait, I guess. We'll see it all. Someday. In the meantime, let's not be angry and let's not blame conservatives, okay? Heed the sage words of the self-described (you guessed it) "former Democrat."

http://www.oregonlive.com/letters/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/121763311983470.xml&coll=7&thispage=3

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6. Just.

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7. Because.

[PatSeg]

9. Excellent article

I left a comment and hope it gets lots of exposure.

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14. Thank you! I turn to my DU friends for help, and they're always there for me.

I love this place!

[PatSeg]

15. This is true

In spite of the squabbles and feuds, its like family. They show up when needed.