Democratic Underground - Violent Rhetoric, Violent Viewers

Frameshop: Violent Rhetoric, Violent Viewers

In an alarming trend that has received scant notice from journalists, more and more consumers of right-wing media have started using violent threats to respond to political opinions that differ from their own. Once a rarity in American political discourse, it has now become commonplace for people who appear on right-wing media to offer dissenting opinions to subsequently receive emails filled with death threats, promises of physical and sexual abuse.

While it is difficult to pinpoint one cause for this trend, those on the receiving end of these violent threats have commented that the catalyst appears to be the right-wing shows themselves, both on television and radio.

Commenting during a recent appearance on Real Time With Bill Maher, African-American pundit and TV regular Michael Eric Dyson observed:

We see on FOX about ‘fair and balanced’--when I go on Bill O’Reilly’s show—and I tell him this after the show—I get the worst hate mail ever. I get the ‘n-word’ thrown at me, I get email. And I want Bill O’Reilly to challenge that in public

(Real Time With Bill Maher, Episode 110, September 30, 2007)

More recently, Brandon Friedman of VoteVets.org, appeared on Countdown with Keith Olbermann to discuss the violent threats he had received from Rush Limbaugh listeners. One email threat sent to Friedman stuck out for the specificity of the violent promise it offered:

It never matters to you Left wing liberal bastards about the truth, but it appears that the control of the future of this country is at stake and like it or not, we may have to resort to the same tactics as used back in 1860 when this country went to war with itself, North vs South, only this time it's Conservative vs Liberal and I'm ready to join in as soon as the fireworks start.

Just keep up the constant lying and sooner or later it will catch up with you and all those in Move On.org and Media Matters will get what you so richly deserve

Make no mistake: that is a death threat. Once upon a time, death threats were spelled out in letters cut from magazine pages. Now they are typed out on temporary email accounts. But they are death threats, just the same.

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http://jeffrey-feldman.typepad.com/frameshop/2007/10/frameshop-the-v.html

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