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Keith Olbermann- We Must Get Back to Calm & Sanity in our Politica

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CapitalistSwine

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Keith Olbermann went on a tangent and made one of those speeches you don't forget for awhile on the Giffords event. Suggesting that we should get back to calm and sane political discourse and that the American people should boycott (i.e. deny political support) to those who continue to propagate these tactics that have promoted the exact opposite.

I do not watch the MSM and this is the first time I have watched a video of Keith Olbermann in probably 5 years, but this is quite a little speech and unlike the rest of the liberal media he knows better than to blame Palin and Kelly for this event, or to suggest that the shooter has a right political bent.

Edited by CapitalistSwine
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If you are unwilling to watch all 9 minutes and 3 seconds do not post in this thread. The only reason I posted this is because he takes shots at everyone to blame (he isn't blaming any politician for the shooting, this is a commentary arising from that event critiquing the heated environment that we have had the past few years in particular) and not just one political side. If people are unwilling or incapable of accurately addressing and portraying the contents of this video, for whatever the purpose of their post is, and this becomes a theme, I will request the moderators delete this thread. I have watched this video several times already specifically for the purpose of knowing, with certainty, exactly what those contents are. As a result, I will know when it is misrepresented. Thank You.

Edited by CapitalistSwine
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I'm not going to comment on the content of this video, but I will point out that Olbermann is among the worst offenders to violate the maxim of calm and sane political discourse. He is probably the worst of the MSM's left-wing commentators. Whatever saneness he may be demonstrate here will, no doubt, eventually give way to his usual vitriolic character assassinations.

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Probably, I don't ever watch him, but on its own I think this is a good piece, examining the content, rather than the presenter if you will. He apologized himself at the very end. Even if that doesn't hold up, its still one thing to do that on mass media, because some people will hold you accountable and remember. We shall see, but after some of the campaign ads I have seen in the last year for state campaigns, something like this needed to be said.

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This speech is drivel. The translation of it, for anyone who doesn't want to waste the 9 minutes and 2 seconds watching it is this: “Tone down the rhetoric” a.k.a Stop opposing us. Obey. Anyone who dissents from statism is hateful, violent, and mentally ill.

This is exactly the Alinskyite strategy employed to demonize political opponents. Left and right are intellectually bankrupt, and cannot stand to have their ideas named and defined and debated out in the open. They will do everything in their power to ignore and blank out the fact that the essence of the entire issue of politics is: either one man has a right to initiate physical force against another, or no man has that right; which means either socialism or capitalism. How vicious do you have to be to try to use the pain inflicted against innocents by a random criminal act as a means to inflict pain and guilt against a political opponent? Guilt and fear are their tools, not reason. This is all they have, the strategy of ad hominem and guilt by association. They seize upon every opportunity to brow beat and heap humiliation and guilt upon opponents. "The other side's rhetoric made him do it!" "The other side is hate! (and therefore wrong) Hate hate hate! Timothy McVeigh Timothy McVeigh Timothy McVeigh!" and so forth. This particular commentator calling for an end to violence as a means of achieving social ends is bald-faced hypocrisy and would qualify him for, in his own words, being shunned and ignored.

There are 310 million people in this country. People die every day for various reasons in various causes, some of them man-made and unjust. Violent acts are not a new phenomenon. But criminal predation is sporadic as compared with the government's institutionalized predation. The government guns innocents down in the name of non-objective laws all the time, for example: "Mass - SWAT cops shoot, kill, wrong, unarmed, 68 year old man in botched drug raid." The government sends our soldiers to their deaths by the hundreds openly for altruistic purposes and politicians and media revel in their "sacrifice" for ends allegedly "higher" and "beyond" their own lives. One person out of 310 million, a mentally ill person, kills one of the many democratic rulers in the country in a senseless lone-wolf style shooting and the rest did not. This event has no objective political significance whatsoever. "Toning down the rhetoric," i.e. becoming afraid to speak out against the government, will do nothing whatsoever to stop mentally ill people from committing crimes. No I will not "dial it down" and I will continue to point out the hypocrisy of the attempt to exploit every random violent criminal act in a society of millions of people to further a program of legalized force-initiation.

Edited by 2046
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You forgot to post the part where he trots out SPLC's Potok as he connects the shooter to Ayn Rand's theme of the individual against the State, but dishonestly ignores the contradicting themes of the myriad of other popular books listed as his favorites, such as the Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf.

“[T]here is a thread through the material... seeing the government as an enemy. The books you mentioned, there is a theme that runs through all of them, in particular the Ayn Rand book: the idea of the individual against the State. There are ideas like the idea of the only legitimate currency being backed by gold and silver. That's a core idea of the radical right in this country. […] It's not surprising than an individual like this acts out.”

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This speech is drivel. The translation of it, for anyone who doesn't want to waste the 9 minutes and 2 seconds watching it is this: “Tone down the rhetoric” a.k.a Stop opposing us. Obey. Anyone who dissents from statism is hateful, violent, and mentally ill.

This is exactly the Alinskyite strategy employed to demonize political opponents. Left and right are intellectually bankrupt, and cannot stand to have their ideas named and defined and debated out in the open. They will do everything in their power to ignore and blank out the fact that the essence of the entire issue of politics is: either one man has a right to initiate physical force against another, or no man has that right; which means either socialism or capitalism. How vicious do you have to be to try to use the pain inflicted against innocents by a random criminal act as a means to inflict pain and guilt against a political opponent? Guilt and fear are their tools, not reason. This is all they have, the strategy of ad hominem and guilt by association. They seize upon every opportunity to brow beat and heap humiliation and guilt upon opponents. "The other side's rhetoric made him do it!" "The other side is hate! (and therefore wrong) Hate hate hate! Timothy McVeigh Timothy McVeigh Timothy McVeigh!" and so forth. This particular commentator calling for an end to violence as a means of achieving social ends is bald-faced hypocrisy and would qualify him for, in his own words, being shunned and ignored.

There are 310 million people in this country. People die every day for various reasons in various causes, some of them man-made and unjust. Violent acts are not a new phenomenon. But criminal predation is sporadic as compared with the government's institutionalized predation. The government guns innocents down in the name of non-objective laws all the time, for example: "Mass - SWAT cops shoot, kill, wrong, unarmed, 68 year old man in botched drug raid." The government sends our soldiers to their deaths by the hundreds openly for altruistic purposes and politicians and media revel in their "sacrifice" for ends allegedly "higher" and "beyond" their own lives. One person out of 310 million, a mentally ill person, kills one of the many democratic rulers in the country in a senseless lone-wolf style shooting and the rest did not. This event has no objective political significance whatsoever. "Toning down the rhetoric," i.e. becoming afraid to speak out against the government, will do nothing whatsoever to stop mentally ill people from committing crimes. No I will not "dial it down" and I will continue to point out the hypocrisy of the attempt to exploit every random violent criminal act in a society of millions of people to further a program of legalized force-initiation.

I have to throw in my hat with 2046 and Grames here, CS.

Stand alone perhaps the speech makes some sense.

But I don't think it is fair of you to make demands on the content of what others post in response without knowing what kinds of rhetoric this person has put out for the past several years.

Hitler, Mao, Lenin, Stalin... they all had good speeches that seemed reasonable outside of the greater context of their true intentions

Not trying to attack you CS, but urging you to look into the man a bit further and maybe you'll see his hidden motives for wanting to have people "tone down the rhetoric"

Edited by SapereAude
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I have to throw in my hat with 2046 and Grames here, CS.

Stand alone perhaps the speech makes some sense.

But I don't think it is fair of you to make demands on the content of what others post in response without knowing what kinds of rhetoric this person has put out for the past several years.

Hitler, Mao, Lenin, Stalin... they all had good speeches that seemed reasonable outside of the greater context of their true intentions

Not trying to attack you CS, but urging you to look into the man a bit further and maybe you'll see his hidden motives for wanting to have people "tone down the rhetoric"

The only thing I demanded (in *my* thread, of which anyone may make their own on the same topic, maybe I misinterpreted the forum rules in relation to this) was that people watch the entirety of the content that the thread is discussing, and that they do not make disingenuous statements. I thought Objectivism cared about those things, maybe I am mistaken. It is one thing if people wanted to post their feelings about Olbermann or what have you, or even speculate on what he was really saying, like 2046 has done (of whose commentary here I not only approve of but agree with). That is quite different from suggesting you have some automatically derived knowledge,out of thin air, of what the man has said in this specific video, before even having watched it, and then condemning the man, not for what he has said at other times, but what he has said in the video they have refused to watch, which has happened, in another place at another time. I merely wished to make sure that this did not happen again in here, since it would only devolve the conversation. To attempt that is to not only insult the way of thinking prescribed by Objectivism, but basic intellectual honesty. In my mind, such a request was reasonable. If not,then I welcome a (polite) response as to why I am incorrect and I will consider it.

I agree with Grames and 2046 after having further reviewed this (I posted this right after watching it). I have simply been distressed by some of the absolutely disugsting campaign advertisements I have seen as of late, such as the nuking of a state after the democrat hypothetically won, and that nuke blast clearly having the clearly labeled Democratic runners house hit by it. I was taking this video on its own at the time, and have since looked more into Keith Olbermann's actions within the last few years.

Edited by CapitalistSwine
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The only thing I demanded (in *my* thread, of which anyone may make their own on the same topic) was that people watch the entirety of the content that the thread is discussing, and that they do not make disingenuous statements. I thought Objectivism cared about those things, maybe I am mistaken.

Well, here's my point- I did not watch the video in it's entirety. I've seen many pieces of it seperately-about 4 minutes worth. I don't believe that makes me pointing out that singling this person for praise may not be wise disingenuous. Your pre-edit post seemed a bit more miffed at my statement than it does as it stands now. As I said before-my commentwasn't an attack on your post, merely acaution that you may be

prematurely praising someone you might regret praising and that it also seems fair that persons familiar with this man's history may feel compelled to protest at words of praise for him.

If the tone of my post is easily miscontrued I apologise.

Sorry for the bordeline literacy of my posts lately- keyb oard is trashed haven't had time tobuy anew one. Space key most especially.

Edited by SapereAude
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Well, here's my point- I did not watch the video in it's entirety. I've seen many pieces of it seperately-about 4 minutes worth. I don't believe that makes me pointing out that singling this person for praise may not be wise disingenuous. Your pre-edit post seemed a bit more miffed at my statement than it does as it stands now. As I said before-my commentwasn't an attack on your post, merely acaution that you may be

prematurely praising someone you might regret praising and that it also seems fair that persons familiar with this man's history may feel compelled to protest at words of praise for him.

If the tone of my post is easily miscontrued I apologise.

Sorry for the bordeline literacy of my posts lately- keyb oard is trashed haven't had time tobuy anew one. Space key most especially.

It's not a problem. I was not in fact miffed by your posting and thought it was quite reasonable. I have entered into a bad habit where I tend to re-edit something 2 or 3 times in the process of my thinking. I was mostly fearful of what had happened elsewhere, where someone had claimed that Olbermann was attacking the right and completely leaving out the left, when in fact, this is not what he had done (again this is taking this video on its own) and even pointed out himself as one to blame and apologized, but this was at the *end* of the video, which is why I felt it was necessary for people to watch the entire video before posting if such things were to be avoided when discussing *this video on its own*. You are right that the term disingenuous may not be appropriate here.

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The fact that he is even blaming the admittedly damn-near treasonous slogans is proof that he doesn't want everyone to put down their guns: He just wants his enemies to.

Blaming both parties for minor, unconnected inconveniences like these is the most convenient way to give yourself credibility. You're non-partisan, therefore, you must be objective and have no hidden agenda of your own. If Keith Olbermann truly wanted everyone to put their guns down, he would not have even conceded that this was an incident that was connected to anything. Gun metaphors and slogans are bad, but it's stupid to insist that a person is going to motivated to kill a political figure by listening to gun metaphors. Jared Lee Loughner is a conspiracy theorist, and conspiracy theorists do not tend to view themselves as immoral for initiating violence against government leaders. Keith Olbermann is most certainly not the only person to say something like this, at any rate.

http://www.alternet.org/news/149460/how_the_right%27s_rhetoric_fueled_the_actions_of_arizona%27s_mass_murderer?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=alternettop_stories

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Not to hijack this thread, but here's another great example of the pot calling the kettle black:

A Dem. Congressman who said on October 23rd:

"That Scott down there that's running for governor of Florida," Mr. Kanjorski said. "Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him."

... is now saying in the NY Times:

It is incumbent on all Americans to create an atmosphere of civility and respect in which political discourse can flow freely, without fear of violent confrontation.

Dem. Congressman who called for GOP Gov. to be put against a wall and shot now pleads for civility

Edited by brian0918
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Of course you can catch them telling you what the really think all the time. Like this, the PR shill that Clinton hired to help pin the Oklahoma City terrorist attack on his political enemies, Mark Penn, on MSNBC's "Hardball" stated that Obama needs another Oklahoma City in order to "reconnect" with the American people. The host, self-avowed Marxist, Chris Mathews didn't bat an eye and heartily agreed with the analysis that "words aren't enough."

http://blog.eyeblast.tv/2011/01/flashback-dem-pollster-obama-needs-another-oklahoma-city-bombing-to-reconnect/

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What I dislike most about this is that the more they go after Palin the less I am able to dislike her.

She's hardly the spokesperson I want representing small gov/capitalist politics but the way she has handled herself the past six months depsite what can only be termed a vicious witchhunt against her- I have to admit it is admirable.

I'm on twitter and the thing I've found very telling (I have about a 50/50 mixture of liberal&conservative followers) in the accusations of "hate filled rhetoric" is this-

Almost exclusively and I mean over 90% of twitter statements by liberals have been either vicious attacks, calls for a more totalitarian state or wild accusations.

Without exception all the conservatives I connect with expressed their deepest sympathy and offered prayers for those affected only delving into politics at all when being accused by liberals.

I don't affiliate with either although I would say I lean conservative for lack of better options. I found the responses of my conservative followers impressive and those of my liberal follwers beneath contempt.

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Yes, not to mention the consensus throughout the Fort Hood shooting that we must not “jump to conclusions” (even though we have a guy shouting “Allahu Akbar” as he is gunning down unarmed American soldiers) (of course jumping to conclusions is wrong, but you have to consider what they mean by it, which is "don't think"), we must hold our commentary until we have all the facts (there's an idea), we must not abstract or induce anything whatsoever about the religion of Islam, we must not judge, we must not even call it an act of terrorism, etc. Now compare that with this, and is it not a concretization of the meaning of altruism?

http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/01/journalists-urged-caution-after-ft-hood-now-race-blame-palin-afte

“The important thing is for everyone not to jump to conclusions,” said retired Gen. Wesley Clark on CNN the night of the shootings.

“We cannot jump to conclusions,” said CNN’s Jane Velez-Mitchell that same evening. “We have to make sure that we do not jump to any conclusions whatsoever.”

“I’m on Pentagon chat room,” said former CIA operative Robert Baer on CNN, also the night of the shooting. “Right now, there’s messages going back and forth, saying do not jump to the conclusion this had anything to do with Islam.”

The next day, President Obama underscored the rapidly-forming conventional wisdom when he told the country, “I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts.” In the days that followed, CNN jouralists and guests repeatedly echoed the president’s remarks.

“We can’t jump to conclusions,” Army Gen. George Casey said on CNN November 8. The next day, political analyst Mark Halperin urged a “transparent” investigation into the shootings “so the American people don’t jump to conclusions.” And when Republican Rep. Pete Hoekstra, then the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, suggested that the Ft. Hood attack was terrorism, CNN’s John Roberts was quick to intervene. “Now, President Obama has asked people to be very cautious here and to not jump to conclusions,” Roberts said to Hoekstra. “By saying that you believe this is an act of terror, are you jumping to a conclusion?”

Edited by 2046
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