Violent rhetoric - It's been going on forever...

[cynatnite]

That's basically what I've heard coming out of corporate media. When they're not saying "both sides do it", they're saying "it's normal or it's always been around"...

Even if it was "normal", that will NEVER make it right.

[villager]

1. Well, sure, it lead to the assassinations of Abe Lincoln and JFK, for example

...if that's what they mean...

[JustFiveMoreMinutes]

2. Yes true, BUT WHAT ABOUT MAINSTREAM POLITICAL FIGURES?

Not para-military, militia, or other fringe organizations?

[Davis_X_Machina]

10. Oh, hell yes...

...go read Taylor Branch's books about the Civil Rights movement, or Ron Perlstein's book on Goldwater and the rise of the radical Republican right.

Every bit as scurrilous and vicious as what we see today.

A hundred and twenty years ago, it was much, much worse.

[JustFiveMoreMinutes]

15. I've argued before about the 'much worse' 120 years ago..

.. in that yes, the rhetoric might have been vile, viler, vilest....

BUT

120 years ago....

* Mass communication was slow
* Illiteracy was still high
* Women/Blacks couldn't vote
* (Cant remember when 'only landowners' could vote was removed)
*
* and we have 24/7/367 PUNDITRY (often orchestrated) today that didn't exist even 30 years ago.

Might have been worse... but a Viper in a room full of 200 wont do as much damage as a cottonmouth in a room of 20,000.

[Davis_X_Machina]

16. Literacy 120 years ago was roughly what it is today...

...the speed of a lie doesn't matter, and pundits have always been with us. In the 1930's a Walter Winchell (for the mouthbreathers) or Walter Lippman (for the PBS set) had just as much clout as their corresponding numbers today. Their influence was enlarged, if anything, by the fact that they were fewer in number.

We don't live in special times. Special times would be the Civil War, or the Depression. It's an affectation to think that our predicament is unique, or that the peril the Republic is in is any worse than the norm, and so extraordinary measures need to be taken.

[JustFiveMoreMinutes]

19. Seriosly, the same as today?

Wow, I do genealogy for my family lines and on the census it even has Can Read Can Write columns.... being from a rural area a lot of my ancestors had to say no.

So illiteracy is truly about the same in 2010 as 1890?
Wow.

I never intended to say our situation was unique in the manner at which its done.. only at the manner at which it is received.

Surely in 1890, someone in Oregon couldn't post a blog and 20 minutes later a Miami native could read it... and agree with it or argue against it and forward to 50 friends, etc etc.

Again NOT unique in TIME, UNIQUE in amount/speed of information.

[Davis_X_Machina]

21. White illiteracy...

...in 1890 was 7.7%

[JustFiveMoreMinutes]

22. Thanks! I'll have to review more. !!!

[Deep13]

3. It has never been this consistent or pervasive.

It has never been this passively accessible. What I mean is that in the past one had to go out of his way to read radical, hate-mongering material. Now it is on TV and radio 24-hours a day, is in bed with a major party, has the backing of rich interests and has a very high production value.

[Davis_X_Machina]

6. If it were really that much worse than it used to be..

....then things would be that much worse than they are, and they aren't.

I lived through the sixties, and though present times aren't what they ought to be, they aren't any worse than they were then.

This too shall pass, and the Republic will survive.

[Deep13]

12. Never assume the republic will endure.

Right now it is on life support and family members have gathered around for their goodbyes. America is ruled, and I mean really ruled by a permanent, inherited industrial elite that are analogous to the nobility of feudal times.

[Davis_X_Machina]

18. If they're analogous to the nobility of feudal times...

..that just goes to show that the nation's real power had always been at the beck and call of the booted, spurred and ready to ride, back then, waaaaay back then, or now. Used to own castles, now owns banks. Always owned us.

When was this Lost Golden Age of Real Democracy Before the Plutocrats Took Over, anyways?

[Kaleva]

7. Actually, it has been.

[Liquorice]

8. Yep, people seem to have short memories. Right wingers have always acted this way. nt

[Davis_X_Machina]

9. I grew up reading the Boston Herald

...when it was a Hearst paper, and the Manchester Union Leader when William Loeb owned and ran it, and both were every bit as biased, vituperative and partisan as Fox is today.

You'll say 'But it's not as pervasive as TV' -- but newspaper readership was that pervasive, then.

Fox is old wine in new bottles.

[Deep13]

13. Yes, but they never had such a large audience. nt

[Davis_X_Machina]

17. Actually, they did.

Fox news has a nationwide audience in the low millions. Hearst papers had an audience ten times that in their heyday.

[Deep13]

11. Really? Where could I have heard 24-7 RW hate-mongering before Fox News?

I think a detailed examination will show RW media is more universal than it used to be, has infiltrated "mainstream" media more than it ever has before and is meaner, more polished and more effective than it ever was.

[ShockediSay]

4. it's NOT rhetoric! It's Right Wing Propaganda, intended to provoke

as it did in mid 20th century and as it does now

[EFerrari]

5. This is what wife beaters do, they justify. n/t

[Deep13]

14. But I know he loves me! nt

[Dappleganger]

20. "But he does it too!" doesn't work with my kids...

it sure as hell doesn't work with grownups, either.