A well thought out set of comments from someone who is obviously not afraid…
Words have consequences. That thought seems completely lost on the Fox News network, which launches a daily rhetorical assault on Obama, starting with the "Fox and Friends" morning show. The anti-Obama beat goes on through the day, and reaches a fevered pitch at night with Sean Hannity. Witness excerpts from Wednesday night’s exchange between Hannity and radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh:
Limbaugh: I do not hide from it. I do want and I still want Obama to fail.Hannity: But it’s interesting here. …A lot of things you are saying – [Obama] is apologizing for America’s arrogance. He has taken over car companies. They want to dictate CEO pay. All of these things have been unfolding. Socialism is the Obama vision for America.Limbaugh: And fascism. We must not be afraid to use that word either. It is a combination of the two.Limbaugh and Hannity know the standard definition of fascism:"a regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition."
And they must know how their characterization of Obama goes over with those Americans who live in fear that all they hold dear is coming under attack by a fascist in the White House.
"Words have consequences. That thought seems completely lost on the Fox News network." Colbert King is being naive here. The intent of these words is actually based on the fact that "Words have consequences." Take these words, for example:
The Jewish youth lies in wait for hours on end… spying on the unsuspicious German girl he plans to seduce… He wants to contaminate her blood and remove her from the bosom of her own people. The Jew hates the white race and wants to lower its cultural level so that the Jews might dominate. Was there any form of filth or crime…without at least one Jew involved in it? If you cut even cautiously into such a sore, you find like a maggot in a rotting body, often dazzled by the sudden light — a Jew.Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf
Domestic Terrorism is like that. Find something people are afraid of and throw some gasoline on the fire. But being frightened by these people is as bad as embracing their world view. Being frightened of them is as much a part of the thing as being frightened by the specters they create. Bin Laden is one down right now, so he may well try to frighten us again soon. Hannity, Limbaugh, and O’Reilly are ratchetting up their fear-mongering to a fever pitch to hold on to their devotees. The danger in both cases, al Qaeda and Fox News, is in either fearing them or ignoring them. They’re dangerous when they’re allowed to fester unobserved, and they’re dangerous when we’re afraid of them.
And their "words have consequences" for them too. As noisy as they are, I wonder if they are hurting themselves in the long run. Hitler was speaking to a Germany that was in desperate economic straits with an ineffective government. Our neo-Nazis are speaking to a country whose economy they helped collapse, about an auto industry that we all know went belly up all by itself. And they’re unlikely to get a lot of sympathy for gajillionaire C.E.O.s or Torturers. As the economy stabilizes and the government looks competent, this message is going to solidify the "hate" and the "fear" base, but will it bring anyone else to the altar? I doubt it. I think I’d rather they stay in the contemptuous bufoon mode than anywhere else right now. Things don’t really hinge on their rhetoric, their words. They hinge on results. And the results from their heros are still apparent to anyone who looks…
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