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Don't Tone It Down, Amp It Up: In Praise of Incivility in Politics
By Dave Lindorff
"The wranglers over creeds and dogmas are perhaps the most persistent of all agitators; the bedrock idea being that a wrong exists which must be found and exterminated."
-- Eugene Debs
"Get it straight, I'm not a humanitarian, I'm a hell-raiser."
--Mother Jones
I’m going to take issue here with the mainstream media commentariat (and even some on the left) about the issue of “civil discourse.”
There are two main arguments being made, and both are wrong.
One is that our politic process is being damaged by violent and intemperate rhetoric, and the other is that this violence is coming from both the right and the left.
On the first point, there is a big difference between violent rhetoric and intemperate rhetoric. Violent rhetoric is where a speaker actually tries to incite her or his listeners to violent action. Intemperate rhetoric is simply rhetoric that is not temperate, as in polite, respectful, calm. That is, it is angry, it perhaps heaps scorn on some other party, it condemns the actions and motives of an opponent, and it seeks to rile up its intended audience.
There are times, I would agree, when violent rhetoric can be akin to the proverbial shout of “Fire!” in a crowded theater, and such speech--the kind of speech that used to be used to rouse a crowd to become a lynch mob--should rightly be viewed as a criminal act. But riling up a crowd to kill somebody is different from riling up a crowd to, say, damage construction equipment that is about to destroy a poor neighborhood to make way for a casino development, riling up a crowd of workers to break into a plant and engage in a sit-down strike to prevent the shipping of the machinery overseas, or riling up a crowd to resist a forcible eviction in a foreclosure.
There is a big difference between shouting “Kill the Nigger!” as listeners did during some Sarah Palin campaign events in 2008, while she said nothing to dissuade the racist crowd, on the one hand, and, on the other, declaring as I and others have done that those who would cut Medicare and Medicaid funding are condemning thousands of people to death, or writing, as I have also done, that President Obama, like President Bush before him, is a war criminal for ordering the indiscriminate use of drone missile attacks on Afghan and Pakistani housing compounds known to be filled with families, or for refusing to punish those who ordered torture, and that the punishment for such crimes can include execution...
For the rest of this article by DAVE LINDORFF in ThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent online alternative newspaper, please go to ThisCantBeHappening!
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Hey kidz!!! Amp it UP??? This MOVEMENT GOES TO "11" !!! . . ;-)
However, who is it that keeps saying, "Turn it Down" whenever the the spotlight gets put on them??? . . . ;-)
(clipped letter from ADL's "Tolerance" campaign)
"Restore Civility - In the aftermath of the tragic shooting in Tucson, Arizona, join ADL in the call for a more respectful political debate. Urge Congress to lead by example and bring us back to a more civil discourse by asking your elected officials to:
* Act to dramatically to change the tenor of our national public discourse.
* Use their bully pulpit to set a tone of civility.
* Refrain from overheated rhetoric that inflames passions and stokes hate and violence in America and speak out against others who employ these base tactics.
* Rededicate themselves to engaging in reasoned and thoughtful debate on the very difficult issues confronting our nation.
* Work together with other Members of Congress on both sides of the political aisle to restore a level of respect and civility to public life that will reflect the best of America."
(link to letter source at ADL)
http://regions.adl.org/action-center/issues/join-the-call-for-a-more.html
And of course, with our "Special Friends" if this "shaming into silence" tactic doesn't work there's always the "TURN THAT BLASPHEMY OFF!!!" tactic that they are so well known for in their "Cultural Tolerance Pogroms" . . .
"YOU WILL ACCEPT OUR SPECIAL VICTIM STATUS OR WE WILL DESTROY YOU!!! . . .;-)
(clipped headline and article from Simon Wiesenthal Center)
"ANTISEMITISM GOES MAINSTREAM: WIESENTHAL CENTER TO RELEASE 'TOP 10 ANTI-SEMITIC SLURS' OF 2010"
http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=lsKWLbPJLnF&b=6455757
Just ask "Helen Thomas, former UPI Senior White House correspondent" . . .emphasis on "former" . . . ;-)
Or you could ask Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haneyya . . . better call his cell phone because I hear his Facebook page is . . . well, you know . . . ;-)
(clipped headline and article from Desert Peace)
"FACEBOOK BOWING TO ZIONIST PRESSURE - Haneyya’s page removed from Facebook - GAZA, The fan page of Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haneyya has been removed from Facebook. More than 10,000 people liked the site. . . Israel was suspected to be behind the move.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrullah’s page was removed from the Facebook social network earlier."
(full story)
http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/facebook-bowing-to-zionist-p...
Funny thing about YouTube and Facebook . . . the two topics that are guaranteed to get you censored are "9-11 Truth" and "Holocaust Truth" . . . which are actually two subsets of the ONE topic that is the third rail . . . "World Zionism/Israel" . . .
. . . which would explain this censorship of the Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haneyya's Facebook page, as it is a threat to World Zionism and Israel.
An interesting discovery I made last night was that YouTube still has up both the videos and the User Channel for a "Holocaust Truth Debunker" named 'Sobe104839" and all of these "debunk" films are still out there, yet, YouTube does not allow the actual film that is being "debunked" to appear. . . curious, no??? . . . ;-)
(clipped headline and article from Censored Film Maker)
"REBUTTALS AND CENSORSHIP - Then there's YouTube. They have a 'comments' area underneath their videos, and there were many rebuttal comments to my videos, but those were removed by YouTube when they deleted the video 'One Third of the Holocaust' and 'Nazi Shrunken Heads.'
At Youtube, though the episodes themselves are no longer there, there are some rebuttal videos to specific episodes of 'One Third of the Holocaust' made by a user named 'Sobe104839.' They are a vestige of when my videos used to be on youtube. In other words the rebuttal videos are still there though my videos have been deleted. You can find them by searching 'holocaust denial movie' at Youtube."
(full article)
http://www.holocaustdenialvideos.com/rebuttals.html
Here is the link to the Youtube Channel for debunker "Sobe104839":
"Sobe104839"
http://www.youtube.com/user/sobe104839
Ironically, this video is at the top of the "Sobe104839" debunker channel:
(link to video - approx. 3 minutes)
"For Free Speech"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyL4YyeERZ4&feature=player_profilepage
So, this ol' fool from North Cackilacki says, when it comes to open debate and discussion about Zionists, Federal Reserve/IMF Banksters, International War Criminals . . . but I repeat myself,
. . . and all those folks that want to destroy this GREAT CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC from within and without . . . with their BIG LIES that result in BIG WARS and BIG DEBTS without end . .
. . . well, perhaps the intro to Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" says it best,
"TURN IT UP!!!" . . . ;-)
"The place is really jumping to the Hi-Watt amps,
'Til a 20-inch cymbal fell and cut the lamps,
In the blackout they dance right into the aisle,
And as the doors fly open even the promoter smiles,
Someone takes his pants off and the rafters knock,
Rock is dead, they say,
Long live rock,
Long live rock,
Long live rock."
- "Long Live Rock" by The Who
peace.