Stochastic Terrorism: How the right-wing hate machine works.

[backscatter712]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/1/10/934890/-Stochastic-Terrorism:-Triggering-the-shooters.

G2geek wrote this diary on Daily Kos, explaining how the right-wing hate machine is deliberately trying to incite violence against us. In the end, it all comes down to statistics. Stir the pot enough and heat it up enough and eventually bubbles will form, though you don't know where and when they will form, just that they will.

Stochastic Terrorism: Triggering the shooters.

Stochastic terrorism is the use of mass communications to stir up random lone wolves to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable.

This is what occurs when Bin Laden releases a video that stirs random extremists halfway around the globe to commit a bombing or shooting.

This is also the term for what Beck, O'Reilly, Hannity, and others do. And this is what led directly and predictably to a number of cases of ideologically-motivated murder similar to the Tucson shootings.

...

The person who actually plants the bomb or assassinates the public official is not the stochastic terrorist, they are the "missile" set in motion by the stochastic terrorist. The stochastic terrorist is the person who uses mass media as their means of setting those "missiles" in motion.

This is exactly what I mean when I stated in an earlier post that Jared Lee Loughner wasn't so much the murderer (though he is certainly guilty of murder, assuming he's mentally competent). Jared Lee Loughner was the murder weapon, and the real killers wielding this weapon are Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, the Koch Brothers, etc. etc. etc.

I'll bet you that they've even had their people mathematically model it, calculating probabilities, figuring out exactly how much hateful spew they need to put on the airwaves to create a 65% chance of a violent incident against Democrats in the White House or Congress in the next year. or something like that.

It sounds sort of like the science of psychohistory, as described by Issac Asimov in the Foundation series, doesn't it?

[ClassWarrior]

1. Wow, I haven't thought of Foundation forever!

Thanks for sharing. Scary stuff.

NGU.

[silverweb]

2. I had to look up "stochastic."

For others interested, the word itself simply means "random" and relates to probabilities. It has specific applications in mathematics, science, medicine, etc.

Excellent Wikipedia article here.

Flashback. I miss Numb3rs. Charlie would have explained this really well.

[Ellipsis]

8. It's a printing term too ...stochastic dot. He's probably a graphic artist or a pre-press guy.

It was developed in the 90's as way to cut down on printing anomalies by producing a random dot. Heap big words... shoulda just said random.

[quaker bill]

10. Or a scientist

I use the term all the time.

[backscatter712]

14. It's used in science and mathematics.

I've seen the term used in software engineering circles, usually describing one algorithm or another.

[hootinholler]

16. I don't think it's simply random

But a specific kind of random, because random isn't always so, um, random.

It's too long since I worked on systems where this was important and I'm sure I've forgotten more random stuff since.

The generation of random numbers are too important to be left to chance. - Old Programming maxim, possibly Knuth?

-Hoot

[backscatter712]

20. It's all based on probabilities and populations.

I imagine the math is relatively straightforward, though I don't have what Karl Rove has in front of him in terms of figuring out the variables and estimating the probabilities.

But I imagine it's sort of like the lottery. The odds of a single individual winning the lottery are infinitessimal. But millions and millions of people buy lottery tickets, which means that over the course of a few weeks, the odds of one of the tickets sold being a winning ticket approaches 100%. Eventually, someone will win the lottery, though it's probably not going to be you.

You'd probably have to do some research to find the number of potentially violent individuals in the population - the target demographic for right-wing violent rhetoric, calculate the odds of driving one over the edge into committing an act of violence, figure that each individual person's odds of flipping out is very small, but in a large enough population, the odds that somebody will go postal given enough months and years of being saturated with violent rhetoric and images approaches 100%.

Where's a statistics major when we need one?

The way I figure, Karl Rove, Rupert Murdoch and their ilk have already done the research and the math.

[BadgerKid]

3. Interesting, but it's just a theme we've seen before, no?

The RW collectively is taking advantage of the fact that there are people who want certain things to be true. Call it shaping your own reality. It's how the lottery preys on people's hopes, how the sparse examples reinforce one's perception of stereotypes, how praying is considered by some to be self-fulling prophesy.

[backscatter712]

It does have something to do with the lottery, or casinos.

The house knows that its customers win some games, and lose just a little bit more of the time. It's a very random process, but the casino knows with mathematical certainty that at the end of the day, it will have vacuumed all the money out of the customer's wallet that he was willing to spend. The house always wins.

So it is the same with the right wing media hate machine. They just keep stirring the pot. The next schizophrenic lunatic could strike tomorrow, or in a few years, but eventually someone will strike. The collective odds guarantee that it will happen, even though there's no way to tell when and where. Only a matter of time and heat.

[snagglepuss]

4. Call me crazy but I think Lougher's references to mind control are related

to stochastic terrorism. I think he was a person on the edge who was overwhelmed by these messages.

[backscatter712]

6. I've heard similar arguments...

though while Loughner and his conspiracy theorists were arguing about mind control using grammar (which is nonsense), a more compelling argument can be made that people are being propagandized and controlled through the language, specifically through vocabulary, not grammar.

Think about it. Ever read 1984? Remember how the government was promoting Newspeak - controlling the people by controlling the language. Sure you could say "Ingsoc doubleplus ungood", but because the vocabulary was limited, you couldn't explain why.

The republicans and the media do the same thing - look at how the Bush administration used terms like "freedom" - freedom to do what you're told and support the war, lest you be branded a traitor...

They redefine the words to mean what they want them to mean.

But I'm rambling. Back to Loughner being driven over the edge...

Between the grammar-mind-control and the gold-currency conspiracy theories, I'd say that Loughner was influenced more by the Alex Jones school of nuttery. Still, the right-wing hate machine does stir up the crazies by coming at them from multiple angles - one lunatic might be driven over the edge by Jesus talk and ranting about abortion, another gets pushed to go postal by talking about the Federal Reserve, or ranting about Saul Alinsky, or talk about Obama being a secret Muslim Communist illegal alien, or something else.

And much of it I'd say is subconscious, as evidenced by Sarah Palin's map with crosshairs, or her advice to her fans to "Don't retreat, reload." - such language is designed to set off triggers in unstable people, and drive them closer to the edge, or over the edge.

[snagglepuss]

9. Thanks for your reply.It's absolutely fascinating to learn that there is a group

conspiracy theorists who believe govt uses grammar to control minds. It's very odd.

[Tsiyu]

5. yet as we knew this was going on

and as we complained and warned about it, they just laughed at us. We couldn't PROVE anything, could we?

When Bloody Beck inspired a guy to wound law enforcement officers and claim he would kill the Tides Foundation workers - after Bloody Beck spewed his hatred on the Tides Foundation - Bloody Beck should have been shit-canned. Any RESPONSIBLE news outlet would have said, "enough."

But no, not in America. Not on Fox News. he has been allowed to threaten Nancy Pelosi, Michael Moore and others with his DEATH FETISH. Anyone who thinks that was not calculated incitment to violence is seriously lacking in judgment.




Now that their teabagger wet dreams have come true, they know their game has to change. BUT THEY HAVE NO OTHER GAME!


It's going to get interesting. They are addicted to violence; they cannot go without their fix.


I predict lots of meltdowns in the days to come On HATEAMERICA TV and radio.....

[backscatter712]

11. At least one good thing that's coming out of this is that now people are talking about it.

If we're lucky, Sarah Palin's political career will be over. She'll probably come up with some weaselly apology, but who can hear her say "I hate violence!" and keep a straight face after seeing her shoot wolves from helicopters and club fish on live TV on Sarah Palin's Alaska?

I just hope that she's not just the scapegoat - the entire right-wing media hate machine needs to be called out and forced to dial this shit down.

[Tsiyu]

17. You would think

they could all get their "conservative heads" out of their rear ends and decide to show some empathy.

that's all they really have to do. And yet, this is too difficult for them.

This proves they have nothing but violence. They exist merely because of the ignorant, crazy unstable haters they encourage. No one else takes them seriously EXCEPT the racists and the haters.

Without their hate, they are NOTHING.

They are scared right now. Which makes them amusing, but also very dangerous.

[backscatter712]

18. What we need to do is be much louder in condemnation of their violent rhetoric.

If we can make enough noise and give them enough bad reputation, they'll be forced to dial this shit down, and we can deprive the right of one of their most potent weapons.

[Tsiyu]

25. Yes and you see how they are pushing back like demons

at even the mere SUGGESTION that they could be partly to blame.

they are going on defensive attack right now, circling the wagons, acting outraged that we would call them on their blatant calls to violence. Which proves they KNOW they have been seen for what they really are and they are frightened beyond belief.

This just means we have to be even more relentless in calling them out for their bloody rhetoric.

[backscatter712]

13. Glenn Beck is on the air because Rupert Murdoch wants him there.

They know perfectly well what they're doing. Rupert Murdoch is a stochastic terrorist. He pays to put Beck on the air to spew lies and hate, but I'm not buying the hand-washing routine when some nutcase goes postal and people get shot and killed.

Murdoch's fingerprints are on the murder weapon.

[Tsiyu]

19. Ah yes, Bloody Rupert

he's the mad scientist behind Fox's sociopathic lineup.


IMO Bloody Beck is a murderer, and Murdoch is one as well. They're all making bank inciting assassination, and America says "oh, ho hum."


It's really a sick and twisted world view they are pushing to the masses. But some Americans just eat it up like candy....and Bloody Rupert smiles all the way to the bank, the blood of innocents all over him.

they love war, torture, pain and suffering....great stuff we get from Fox....

[backscatter712]

23. It's telling that Beck's still on the air despite an advertiser boycott.

In the U.S., Beck's got nothing left except the gold scamsters and survival seed salesmen.

In the U.K., Beck's got absolutely no advertisers at all.

Yet he's still on the air. Rupert Murdoch wants him on the air badly, and will sacrifice millions of dollars of revenue to keep him there.

[Tsiyu]

24. It takes a special sort of craven individual to pull off Bloody Beck's

sort of scamming. When you find such a lowlife who will spew whatever hate you ask him to spew, you pay that sucker well and you do ANYTHING to keep him. Why? because most of us can't be that hate-filled, can't lie so readily and don't want to destroy America and our government as Murdoch and the corporations wish to do. Beck is their whore - he will do whatever they want - same with Bloody O'Liely, Bloody Sean and the rest of that craven, evil lot of liars and violent fools.

I worked in radio - had my own shows and also produced/board-opped for Malloy, Clark Howard, Boortz, hendrie and others...this was when the Fairness Doctrine was still in place and liberals were allowed on the PUBLICLY owned airwaves. We are all shut out now.

But they tell us that's "The free market" at work! Bullshit! Why would Americans choose hate radio 24/7? We aren't that full of hate and we elected Obama...so why would we want to hear the sickos hate on Obama all day long? It makes no economic or market sense.


The way it DOES make sense is this: Bloody Rush, beck and their ilk ar HEAVILY SUBSIDIZED by the corporations. their rating suck dick, and half of those ratings are only due to there being nothing else on but HATE.

The American puiblic is being bamboozled by this scam on our Public Airwaves, but no one will do a goddamned thing about it.

All we can hope is that karma gets all those hate-filled threats to America's way of life...that's all we can hope. And believe me, I don't "pray" for much, but every single day i pray that the Cretins who have taken over our public discourse get exactly what they deserve....prison sentences for inciting violence and for assisting in the rape of our nation.

[leveymg]

7. The Bolsheviks called it "aggitation propaganda." Same concept, same result -

politicized crazies do the dirty work of the party elites. Only this time, it's the extreme right and corporate elites that are promoting insurrection and revolution from above.

[backscatter712]

12. Good point. These tactics are not new.

Also see the Rwandan Genocide and the role of Radio Rwanda, and authoritarian regimes across the world including the Nazis. When those thugs wanted to retain a veneer of respectability, they'd just rant and rave and provoke, until violent thugs came out of the woodwork and did their dirty work for them.

"Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?"

[moondust]

26. agitprop

[backscatter712]

15. Just because I'm a fan of this particular Kos article, upvote on Reddit, please!

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/f01is/stochastic_terrorism_yes_virginia_the_rightwing/

[justiceischeap]

21. Every time I see the title I think it reads "SCHOLASTIC terrorism" (eom)

[backscatter712]

22. Different term...

Though this isn't unrelated to school shootings...

[leveymg]

27. You should see the movie, "If" (1968) for that.

[BrklynLiberal]

28. Excellent post!!