The Right Wing Media's Role in Fostering Domestic Terrorism

[Joanne98]

by Teh Nutroots | Remember the great Furore o' Right Wing Fury a few months back when the DHS published a report stating that right wing extremism and the threat of right wing extremism was on the rise in the US? No? If not, please see "Dept of Hollow Laughter: Right Wingers Incensed Over DHS Report on Rise of Right Wing Extremism," published on April 15 at this very blog. And while you're at it, see also Bill Kav's piece yesterday on the increasingly scary rhetoric coming from right wingers who watch Fox News.

In re: the DHS report that had certain vocal conservatives up in arms last April, Paul Krugman says:

The chairman of the Republican National Committee denounced the report as an attempt to “segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration” and label them as terrorists. But with the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic, closely followed by a shooting by a white supremacist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the analysis looks prescient.

And Krugman points out, as many have pointed out before, the role of conservatives and the conservative media establishment in fostering hatred.

There is, however, one important thing that the D.H.S. report didn’t say: Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.

Now, for the most part, the likes of Fox News and the R.N.C. haven’t directly incited violence, despite Bill O’Reilly’s declarations that “some” called Dr. Tiller “Tiller the Baby Killer,” that he had “blood on his hands,” and that he was a “guy operating a death mill.” But they have gone out of their way to provide a platform for conspiracy theories and apocalyptic rhetoric, just as they did the last time a Democrat held the White House.
And at this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream conservatism and the black-helicopter crowd seems to have been virtually erased. (NYT)

But O'Reilly is by no means the only offender, and Krugman lists exhibits A-C as well: Fox's Glenn Beck, The Washington Times, and Limbaugh.

It’s not surprising, then, that politicians are doing the same thing. The R.N.C. says that “the Democratic Party is dedicated to restructuring American society along socialist ideals.” And when Jon Voight, the actor, told the audience at a Republican fund-raiser this week that the president is a “false prophet” and that “we and we alone are the right frame of mind to free this nation from this Obama oppression,” Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, thanked him, saying that he “really enjoyed” the remarks....

What will the consequences be? Nobody knows, of course, although the analysts at Homeland Security fretted that things may turn out even worse than in the 1990s — that thanks, in part, to the election of an African-American president, “the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years.”

And that’s a threat to take seriously. Yes, the worst terrorist attack in our history was perpetrated by a foreign conspiracy. But the second worst, the Oklahoma City bombing, was perpetrated by an all-American lunatic. Politicians and media organizations wind up such people at their, and our, peril. (NYT)


Memeorandum has more.
http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2009/06/the-medias-role-in-fostering-terror.html