Apparently Rush Limbaugh has made the claim that James von Brunn is a leftist. David Corn (Bureau Chief at Mother Jones) was in his glory calling him a fool on TV. Rush’s case is weak and illogical. But why do we have to put this guy on any political spectrum? David Corn makes the case for placing von Brunn squarely in the extreme right.
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Since the folks on this blog have bantered back and forth about pigeon-holing and labeling, this video seems to shed some light on some of the very questions we have all been debating.
Grab some popcorn and enjoy the show, captured from Mother Jones.
You know, after all that has happened the past month or so, how can you all continue with the moral outrage. Randall Terry reorganized and wants to take a bullet. White lone wolf white supremist goes on a rampage. Some radicalized in prison taliban type goes on a rampage and kills a soldier, wounds another, Anti-abortion wackjob goes on a rampage, enters a church and kills an abortion provider.
What does it take? Is it ok just to kill your political opponents?
Do you think it is OK just to kill your political opponents? Seriously, what reasonable person would think that way?
So we put everyone with disagreeable opinions on a watch list, and then what? We are somehow safer?
I suppose it depends on how disagreeable the opinions are. Certainly someone who feels that the holocaust did not exist and keeps it to themself isn’t going to attract the attention like someone who goes around shouting denial from the roof tops.
Let’s stick to government watch lists. I don’t know of any people specifically who are on watch lists. I am sure some people are, it just isn’t public knowledge other than the post office people.
Reasonable people seems to be the operative word here. Obviously some people feel it is ok to kill your political opponents, as we have had to witness the past couple of weeks. I would say those were not reasonable people.
I expect all sorts of things are avoided that we never even know about. I tend to not sort domestic terrorists into right and left. To me, someone who wants to kill over the world bank is just as bad as someone who wants to kill over guns or holocaust denial.
And there are degrees. Killers are worse than those who damage property. However, it doesn’t make those who damage property any less of a terrorist.
Not surprisingly, the only Limbaugh fan remaining on this blog is Emma. “She” is our longest running Letiecq clone. Her purpose in posting here instead of in Letiecq’s stinking bathroom is to demonstrate that some people in this county persist in conflating politics and prejudice. Perhaps. But this anti-immigrant experiment has failed … indeed it has backfired. If you fell on the wrong side of the Probable Cause debate a year ago, you are probably on the wrong side of current debates as well. Ordinary Americans should not be tarred by the recent terrorist attacks, but neither should they defend them.
Ah, another clip from state run media.
Hi WHWN, Emma is the only remaining Limbaugh fan on this blog because the others have been censored. For some reason if you have opposing views your put into moderation or banned.
but you will never seem my comment about that because… you guessed it, I’m being censored for my views. Ah, isn’t hypocrisy grand. 🙂
WHWN, did you even bother to read any of my comments? Obviously not, since you just feel the need to spout the same old tired “anti- immigrant” “HSM” talking points that in no way reflect anything I said here.
Did you see von Brunn’s despicable website before it was shut down? I did. He liked to put people in neat little groups, too, and then spout on about how those groups should be watched and dealt with. Perhaps you and Witness are a lot more like the people you fear than you even realize.
I read most of your comments Emma, and I can see a vestibule of truth in what you are trying to articulate. But you need to stop fighting on a rhetorical battleground that so terribly disadvantages you. There is a reason why the liberals are all too happy to egg you on. Cease, if you can help yourself. You are bloodying your own cause.
In discussing Mr. von Brunn’s despicable hate crime and similar murders in recent weeks, I find it unconscionable, even a bit ghoulish, to use race or ethnicity in any way … in any way at all. Your list of crimes supposedly committed by Hispanics has no business in a discussion of what may have motivated Mr. von Brunn. However upset you may be, this is a line that should not be crossed.
If a plea to your humanity will not suffice, consider this: anti-immigrant and anti-Hispanic hate mongering has been discredited and discarded as a political strategy. It will not be coming back, not this year with the Governor’s mansion on the line, and not in any year where a statewide or nationwide office is at stake. It’s time to move on and almost everyone knows it. From now, the only people who indulge in such ghastly political opportunism will be the amateurs.
You distort and mischaracterize what I have said, and then you declare yourself at some kind of rhetorical advantage? That childish tactic is unworthy of a middle-school debate club. Hooray for you on yet another WHWN cut-and -paste.
This debate is becoming a little too frightening for me. Let’s just agree that terrorism, murder, and intimidation should not used as a way to push for a particular policy agenda. Whether it be against abortion, for white supremacy, for the environment, against the war, against immigration, etc.
Moon, why do we feel the need to put this nutcase ‘squarely in the extreme right’? I don’t think this idiot belongs anywhere other than squarely in the extreme loony party. Even though this guy has rants against the right, G.W. Bush and Bill O’Reilly this guy, David Corn states his case… why?
Could it have anything to do with state run media? I don’t know, to me MSNBC has a vested interest in not only discrediting anyone on the right but associating insane killers with the right. It furthers their agenda and Mr. Corn is pretty good at towing the party line for them.
I don’t trust any media who is owned by government.
It seems we were all unanimously in agreement with that at the outset of this discussion, Shelly.
Yes, Amen to that!
Does anyone know the status of that soldier who was shot but not killed in Witita, Kansas? Am I imagining things or were 2 shot?
A unanimous agreement that “terrorism, murder, and intimidation should not used” is a cop out. This is an important discussion … one that is based upon shades of gray with no black or white answers.
Let’s say that terrorism and murder are a 10 on the graduated scale of extremist political tactics, and intimidation (threatening violence but not following through) is a 9. I would rate the type of hate politics that Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage employ (exhorting hatred toward minority groups for political advantage) as an 8. Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, and Lou Dobbs (when he talks about immigration) are a 7.
10 — violence for political intimidation, attacks targeting symbols such as the Holocaust Museum, terrorism
9 — threats of violence or vigilantism that do not lead to violence
8 — campaigns of misinformation intended to solicit/harvest hatred toward minority groups to gain political advantage
7 — constant insinuations that create fear and dislike of minority groups using code words, without crossing the line of openly encouraging bigotry
I have never met anyone who would disagree with you all that 10 should not be tolerated.
But, there is ferocious disagreement on 7, 8 and 9.
One might argue that, because political violence is never acceptable, hardcore political tactics that can lead to political violence should not be acceptable either. 7, 8 and 9 can often lead to 10. This is the reason that Rush Limbaugh and other extremist commentators find themselves on the defensive in the wake of all these politically motivated murders.
Some on the right are quick to defend 7, 8 and 9 because such tactics are cornerstones of their political heroes, and, frankly, such tactics can be very effective, at least in the short term. Unfortunately, some diehard extremists on the right posit hate politics as their raison d’être … indeed hate is the only reason they are interested in civic affairs.
Even more unfortunately (because it is preventable), some members of the Republican party are reluctant to move to denounce these tactics for fear of losing the support of a reliable voting base. I am not among them. I would prefer to offend extremists in order to regain credibility with moderates. (It may not seem like it right now, but the extremist constituency is shrinking or at least will be in coming decades.)
Thus, my position is that 8 and 9 should be denounced with every bit as much resolution as 10 … not only because 8 and 9 can lead to 10, but also because they can lead to a breakdown of our political process and a series of disastrous policy decisions (George W. Bush, Corey Stewart). More over, these tactics prove politically ineffective in the long term, and if unchecked, could lead to decades of one party rule.
I’m interested in what you feel falls on the scale between 0 and 6.
Hello, you are not being censored. I have attempted to figure out how fix the issue. So far, no luck. I will release you when I am online until I can figure out the problem. All the administrators are aware.
If you are talking about von Brunn, I haven’t put anyone anywhere. I think it is tradition to put white supremacists in the political right.
I can tell you this: if von Brunn was spouting conspiracy theories from left wing talk radio, I would be trying to disown him too. But the fact is he was inspired by right wing extremists to go even further than that, into the 10 range. I know that 8 and 9 are bad for society and can lead to 10, but what can we really do in a land of free speech other than shun and discourage it? I guess we can vote out the people who do it like we did in 2008 and 2006. But look what it got us. More 10’s than ever.
Unfortunately we can’t do much about people until they actually do something.
I blame cable news. All day long it bends, twists, and hammers over issues. The ‘reporters’ raise eyebrows, roll eyes, smirk, gesture, frown, use voice inflections, and present in ways that influence. I am very concerned over the great divide in this country. I define myself as a moderate, a centrist. The way things are going, there is no such thing as centrist. The DMZ between the 2 camps is filled with landmines. No room for us moderates.
M-H, that is a valid perception, but moderates are more powerful today than we have been in the past 20 years. Not every county has a Corey Stewart. Not every county has a Greg Letiecq.
Cable news is insufferable, but the truth is not very many people watch it. There is no one program nor any channel that is powerful enough to decide an election … although there are plenty of them that try.
We live so close to DC that cable news and partisan politics seems to dominate civic life more than it really does in the rest of the nation. And, as Virginians we are woefully ill-served by an electoral process that puts us through a contentious election cycle each and every year. Party leaders never get a chance to step back and think about an overarching philosophy or long term strategic planning, because another opportunity to “pick up seats” is never more than a few months away.
But let’s not lose sight of the fact that now, more than any time since Reagan, moderates decide elections. At some point, the radical polemicists on both sides will realize that irresponsible and inaccurate misrepresentations designed to illicit anger, hostility, panic, and hysteria are no longer effective means of moving the middle. It works until the moderates realize you are lying to them … and then it doesn’t work. Unfortunately that’s where a lot of Republicans are finding themselves today. It just isn’t working.
(By the way, Bob McDonnell is privately taking steps to keep Corey Stewart at an arm’s length this fall. There is a reason for that.)
On a national level, Republicans deserve to be out of power for a good while. My hope is that some of that time will be spent reassessing America’s shifting demographics, and finding a way to update core principles to appeal to the nation we are becoming … rather than clinging to the nation we once were. The sting of last fall’s defeat has driven men and women of lesser character into a feverish cycle of grief and resentment, followed by pitiable stabs at vengeance that inevitably cross the line, which creates another small defeat, and thus more grief and resentment.
This is to be expected. We saw it from the other side in 2001 up until that fateful day in September. I worry, though, as I watch each year pass, as another crop of old-timers passes on and another crop of youngsters turns 18 … each generation more diverse, by the way, and less judgmental than the one that came before it. The longer that the loudest Republicans remain in hate politics mode, the more difficult it will be for a moderate Republican party emerge from the ashes of Bush era radical extremism to restore the health of our democracy by restoring a two party system.
I think there are Coreys and Gregs in every county. From a relationship point of view, there are view places where an elected official actually works in isolation, away from the influence of those who want to exert political pressure to bear.
Right, but it’s not in every county that extremists who rate 7, 8, and 9 on the chart (see above) hold positions as high as the County Chairman and the County Chairman’s Puppeteer.
But in terms of the slippery slope from hate-based politics to violence, I blame cable TV and right wing extremist radio both. As for what to do about it, I think John Stewart has the right idea. He makes fun of how preposterous cable “news” programs have become, and reminds us not to take them any more seriously than any other form of entertainment. See it is very expensive to go out and do honest reporting. It’s cheaper to make things up. And the more upset you can make your listeners/viewers.
We are in big trouble as newspapers give way to blogs, and news reporting gives way to cable “news” and right wing extremist radio.
I meant to complete my second to last thought like this:
The more upset you can make your listeners/viewers, the higher your ratings, so no, they aren’t going to stop no matter how many acts of terrorism they cause.
I think both of my two solutions fold into each other. Comedians and commentators make fun of extremist media hysteria/hate-mongering, and then the public votes out the politicians who employ it. That way, other politicians learn from this and stop using extremist media hysteria and hate-mongering. Or, the ones that try it always lose so they just die a natural death.
Shellyb, I think you are right about us being in big trouble as newspapers give way to blogs and news reporting——> cable.
The standards are so relaxed. Any idiot can blog and their words become gospel. I am more concerned about cable. 24 hours of spewing whats wrong with America, whats wrong with this leader, that leader…
The more doom and gloom and the more hate stirred up, the higher the ratings.
I just see people whipped into frenzies over some of this stuff. How can anyone listen to that crap for hours and not come away with a bad attitude.