We have marched blindly, with proud stupidity, into the valley of bombastic verbal confrontation that can have no good outcome. Words now hurled, epitaphs, curses, and ad hominem attacks are featured on, rather than suppressed by corporatist media. Sensationalism and conflict sells.
American discourse is at a low, low point.
A Point of Actual Danger.
"Exhilaration of Rage" continues fold...
An observer in Canada, Andrew Coyne, was motivated to question the origins of on an outburst of rage and rhetorical attacks back in 2000: Had that "exhilaration of rage" spirit spilled over from the States into neighboring Canada and helped to incite Toronto’s Queen’s Park riots of June that year?
When anti-government terrorists bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City, there was an immediate round of debate over whether the rhetorical attacks on Big Government characteristic of Newt Gingrich and other Republicans had created a "climate" that might have tipped more extreme elements into violence. When anti-abortion fanatics shot and killed an abortionist, there was a similar flurry of accusations that the harsh, intemperate language to which some pro-life groups are prone had prepared the ground for murder.
Sticks and Stones
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" is a mendacious falsehood. Sticks and stones are often the result of hate-filled words. Attend to our national domestic violence epidemic.
Buchanan’s Declaration of Religious and Cultural War
The announcement of, and advocacy for, verbal warfare of the kind which "loose cannon" Pat Buchanan gave to cultural and religious war, from the high podium of Houston’s Republican National Convention 1992 has reverberated time and again in America. Buchanan's hard right template for national violence and discord was laid out and blessed there and then.
The Canadian writer observing the Queen’s Park Riot was moved to comment:
Among the emotions, rage -- righteous anger -- is considered the primus inter pares. For rage does not merely equip the emotional absolutist to win the argument, but, crucially, establishes one's place in the moral hierarchy.
And how dangerous then is this thing called "righteous anger."?
It’s Not Normal
Kossack Hunter sites thoughts expressed by Ta-Nehisi Coates, in the Atlantic, directed at the anger and rage displayed and incited in the current health care debate:
... the explicit instruction to protestors (sic) not to debate, but to aggressively attempt to shut down the meetings entirely -- not normal. It is perhaps the best possible approach for insurance lobbyists to take, if their goal is to protect the profits of their industry -- but it is still not normal. We have always had the fringes of such speech, but I cannot recall a time it has been so celebrated as the formal solution to political debate. Certainly not by a major political party, coupled with the majority of their most popular pundits and talking heads, coupled again to lobbyist groups with long histories of corporate astroturfing. And the proud shuffling just-up-to-the-line-of-violence, right in the very faces of their own representatives of Congress, requiring police protection in order to escort those elected representatives safely from the meetings -- that part is new. That part is not normal.
Proud Shuffling Just-up-to-the-line-of-violence
One should never forget that the American Civil War started as a rhetorical barrage, a loud venting of angry accusations and rising emotions: Righteous anger, irreconcilable political speechifying . The words said, which kindled the devouring flames of patricide, started a conflagration that only horrific carnage, destruction of property, and bloodshed could finally quell.
The recent introduction of the propagandistic term, "gangster government" has added legitimacy to the negativist thrust—Righteous Anger--of those who claim to hate government, government programs, and government control and regulations.
Righteous Rage Over "Gangster Government"
In present context, Republican operatives and a cross section of the malleable public, scared and prepared by carefully honed media tactics and broadcast ads, as well as the harangues of hateful pundits, have done much to incite the current "rage," having exalted rage as the appropriate response to what the GOP operatives falsely claim amounts to a criminal Obama regime. When couched in and framed by the cleverly contrived contextual myth of "gangster government", this libelous label marches the ranters and obstructionists straight into the Goldwater mantra, "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."
Pour Oil on the Waters
Wouldn’t now be the perfect time for the religious and civic leaders of this country, both right and left, to pour the healing oil of contrition and reason on the roiling waters?