I think in our desire to take political sides and focus our anger across the aisle, this is an important point to remember. It would be very very easy for the media to not pay attention to people spewing such vitriol. But, it would not equate to high ratings. So....

Perfect example would be someone like Christine O'Donnell. Crazy, no-hoper of a politician running a losing battle that was obviously going nowhere but to an easy win for the opponent. Yet, it was good for ratings because of the sensationalism around the campaign. And then media attention makes her bigger and more important than she ever had a right to be.

The media rewards batshit crazy.

It's a media problem, yes. But unfortunately batshit crazy = big ratings. It is the populace that loves hearing about the crazy. Of course, for non-journalistic media outlets paying more attention to ratings is just common business sense. It is once the serious journalism outlets jump into the fray that the integrity of the profession comes into play.

Sadly, many of our biggest news outlets are now owned by corporations who are less concerned with informing the population and more concerned with giving the population what they want because that = $$$.

It may be true, but with nothing to compare it to, I'm not buying it. It's sort of like Detroit saying that they only make gas guzzling SUVs because that's what people want. It's short-sighted and irresponsible, and ultimately, doesn't do you a whole lot of good.

Kind of like a doctor saying he doesn't give out blood pressure pills because there is more money in surgery. Professions have certain standards for ethics that "should" be upheld. News media in the US has totally screwed the pooch on doing so.

Always advocating the taking away of our dessert, Fu.

i was just about to post the exact same thing - it's all about giving the people what they want

we've become an idiocracy, just as mike judge prophecized

i mean, JERSEY SHORE is the most popular tv show in america

by and large, we are a country chock full of mouth-breathing morons who possess the intellectual (and emotional) capacity of an average 3rd grader

we're a lowest common denominator society

Man, I love me some Jersey Shore, but Ed Shultz and Lawrence O'Donnell need to stay the fuck off my teevee.

Remember when Obama was on The View (I think) and said he didn't know who Snookie was?

Yeah, and that out of touch a-hole is running the gubment.

In response to Squirg - my position has much more to do with understanding how media works and how hard it is to get a message heard, not that I just want to keep purveying bs to the public. And just FYI, I won 6 elections in 2010 without running a single negative ad. You can back that up to 2008 and make it 8 elections. I think Palin and Beck are the flip side of Maddow and Olbermann, and that between the 4 of them, 1 has ever made a good argument, and that is Olbermann's ranting about Lou Gherig being the best player of all time in "The Big Show" his boom about hosting Sportscenter with Dan Patrick.

I hate all of this swill more than the lot of you combined, but I am able to divorce my emotions from this and see it for what it is.

FYI, rads and Harry, you're essentially making the fundamentalist preacher argument of "if the children would stay closer to God and away from that rock and roll, our world would be a better place." The fact that you can't or won't realize that jut further proves my point that no one pays attention to what anyone else says.

Hmmm... or can't understand what others are saying. I truly have a hard time getting your point here.

I will stay engaged and try to understand the other side... but some things also mystify me. You think that Rachel Maddow and Glenn Beck are somehow equivalent... not that their "place" on the right/left axis is balanced in some positional equivalency, but that their rhetoric, affect, discourse is somehow equivalent? Again I think what we are talking about in this thread is inflammatory rhetoric and imagery that brutalize our culture and make violence a wind that schizoid wingnuts sail off on...

I think that a Maddow and a Beck are equally base-level appealing to a different crowd of dumbie.

And I think that while obviously environment has an effect on the way people think, but that things like music, sports, movies, and peers have a much larger influence on people's actions than anything a politician says or does.

And that anyone saying that the political environment contributed to this incident is pushing their own agenda - and that agenda has less to do with toning down rhetoric and more to do with proving their own point.

Above, I was just implying that you and Radcliffe and others are using an argument against one medium you don't like, whereas you would certainly not support that argument if it were used against a type of music. I was typing that on my phone while rocking a sick baby, so it came out a little disjointed.

dead link

Ok, I understand then, but respectfully disagree. If you think the tone and rhetoric of Maddow and Beck are equivalent, that the content of what they do is the same, then we really do see things differently.

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that the public sphere distinguish between what is expressed in the body politic and what happens in arts and entertainment. Strom Thurmond should not, did not, say "black girls just want to fuck all night I don't think I have that much jam." What is appropriate from Mick's mouth and mind is not appropriate from the good senator's. This is the fallacy that distinction is "taking sides" or being inconsistent.

Dave, the level of intellect between Maddow and Beck is absolutely not equivalent. The degree to which they will exaggerate or outright lie is not equivalent. They do both pander the their respective bases, but you're trying to make the same argument as sanacore, vacinek, and others... That both bases are the same. They. Are. Not. Both may dip into the same broad categories of rhetoric, but they are not the same. Show me threats of violence from the left. You can't, can you? I'm thinking like maybe one wingnut somewhere maybe, but I haven't seen it.

We vote for what we want. If we lose, we cry. If they lose, they call for second amendment remedies.

Different.

Weeeeellllll, here's where if I were a dick, I would bring up William Ayers, or the "They bring a knife, we bring a gun" line Ol Barry used, or Rahm mailing a dead fish to a rival, or every single committee that deal with elections using terms like "targets" or "battlegrounds."

But, again, that argument is the equivalent of Kobe getting nailed for trying to pay off his accuser and telling the cops that "Shaq be paying off a lot of hoes" -- which is not nearly as bad as the "we're intellectually superior to you" argument that is the basis of most of MSNBC's nightly line up, and which, oftentimes frustrates people to an overreaction, sorta like you probably get CHH listening ti Rush.

Politics is essentially about winning and losing, and power. Which is why slapping a political prism on incident like this does not do it justice, as this was essentially the nihilistic act of a crazy person.

I am trying to stick with you here, really I am.

You are saying that Rahm mailing a fish is equivalent to talking about Second Amendment remedies?

You are saying that "politics is about power and winning" so any discussion of what discourse and rhetoric does to our culture is irrelevant or disingenous because underneath it is a desire to "win for your side?"

I got just a couple more response-postings in me, 'cause this, someone of your deductive power, taking these positions is troubling. I AM trying to practice what I've preached and take the heat out of the kitchen, but it appears as though the house is burning down.

This thinking encapsulates what is wrong about the political climate today. Its probably realistic, but not what most intelligent people want from their elected reps. With a winner/loser attitude there is no value in compromise with differing viewpoints. Not much of a way to rationally run a country though.

If you treat politics as sport, though, it sells really well. The same reason people hate to see their team punt, and give power to the opposing side.

I get that we're essentially arguing right now what the exact shape of our problem is, but I think we've all got the basic dimensions.

So I go back to the question at the top of my last post; what's the answer, guys?

I ask that having largely divorced political rhetoric from Loughner's motivations. That dude is a wackjob who may just as well have chosen to knock off Kurt Warner if the wind had blown the right way 5 or so years prior. But since we're having a look in the mirror in the aftermath and there's a lot that we don't like in terms of how we as a whole behave, how do we go about fixing what's wrong? I'm talking realistically, no polyanna bullshit.

A lot of food for thought here. Harry, the acid grandfather, has a way of sparking actual thought and debate in whatever subject he weighs in on. Maybe we need a zen moderator for all debates?

I don't like, or use, professionally, the type of rhetoric we're talking about. The only solution I can think of is to try to get both sides to police themselves. Roger Ailes and Morning Joe both have said that the debate needs to refocus on policy not personality. If people could follow the examples that are out there of how to win without excoriation, maybe we can mitigate some of this stuff.

I think my point is that I don't see it happening. Especially from a politics as business perspective. And I still don't see a connection between this incident and Palin. MoJo had a good point about conservatives saying that this has nothing to do with "2nd Amendmemt Remedies" and more to do with crazy, and liberals tried to make the Ft. Hood shootings not about Islam and more about crazy.

And I waded into this in the beginning to say focus not on whose right and more on the victims, and what I never said was - that's how you get rhetoric to tone down. Bring up that little girl and the hole in Gabby Giffords' brain when people start spouting about watering the tree of libergeeg.

To be fair, you waded into this by starting a thread saying that Gabby Giffords couldn't duck a bullet before your better angels told you it was a bad idea.

Have you seen or heard Jon Stewart's open from Monday? Pretty well done argument for moderation.

His remarks are pretty much exactly how I feel about it. Here it is for reference:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-j ... s-reaction