Welcome to the Left-Right derby (cross-town rivalry in American)
The harrowing murders in Tucson have raised two difficult questions. These questions have no easy answers and will, hopefully, spur cool and collected political debate.
The first regards the 2nd Amendment and gun control laws. These are issues I’m not going to address in this post and are affairs that I long for Congress to take definitive action on in interpreting and imposing, respectively.
The second: Did violent political rhetoric motivate this mentally unbalanced individual?
Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck didn’t cause Jared Loughner’s heinous assault on innocent people and rhetoric alone is incapable of squeezing triggers. But, this isn’t to say that we shouldn’t reconsider the calls to violence that cascade radio airwaves, television stations and the blogosphere. And ask, does violent rhetoric stoke the flames of the already enflamed?
Sarah Palin attempted to defend her violent metaphors last March by stating that they are commonly used in sports.
"To the teams that desire making it this far next year: Gear up! In the battle, set your sights on next season's targets! From the shot across the bow -- the first second's tip-off -- your leaders will be in the enemy's crosshairs, so you must execute strong defensive tactics."Get in their faces and argue with them. (Sound familiar?!) Every possession is a battle; you'll only win the war if you've picked your battles wisely. No matter how tough it gets, never retreat, instead RELOAD!"
The full story is available here.
She has also stated that by “a call to arms” she only meant to encourage people to vote. Don’t use innuendoes. They’ll get you in trouble at the office and in politics. These recent events raise, again, the question asked by Michael Calderone and Kenneth Vogel in Politico, is Sarah Palin a pundit or a politician?
After reading her sport invoking defense, I immediately recalled a fascinating book by Franklin Foer, How Soccer Explains the World.
A quick skim of the first two chapters vividly illustrates the violence that consumed European (the UK received the most media exposure) soccer until the 90s. The racist cheers and calls to violence in European soccer stadiums actually led to violence, violence that has stained the history of the sport. People were beaten within inches of their lives, stabbed outside pubs, and sometimes killed.
War in Europe moved onto the pitch of the soccer field. Protestants revived their primordial hatred of Catholics and tribal lines were drawn as gangs ruthlessly waged war inside and outside stadiums.
This was labeled hooliganism.
What is a hooligan? Someone who engages in bullying, rowdiness and violent behavior.
What do Glenn Beck and others, Left, Right or Center, who call for armed resistance and intimidation, have in common with the Chelsea Headhunters or Red Star Belgrade’s Ultra Bad Boys? They are all hooligans.
I cannot think of a more appropriate label for radio, TV and blogosphere pundits (Sarah Palin?) who pollute the media with messages calling for violence. Their rabble rousing is fueled by what seems like an infinite reserve of anger directed at anyone who expresses an opposing view. This sounds more to me like the irrational fervor of a Ranger fan at a match with Celtic than political commentary.
Palin is hardly the biggest offender and a Google search will yield an unending amount of articles written on this topic since the shooting. Andrew Sullivan points out Erick Erickson stating that he will use a shotgun if someone comes to his door with a census form and Roger Ailes has called NPR executives the “left wing of Nazism.” Erickson is a conservative blogger and Ailes is the president of Fox News Channel.
Why do all these hooligans seem to be on the right? This is an interesting question. It could be because of the war waged against radical leftist ideologies after WWII. We treat Marxist radicals with contempt, who I’m sure if given their own radio shows (now they have blogs) would call for nothing short of armed revolution. Let’s not forget we waged the same ideological war against the far-right in the 30s and 40s. The Economist blog "Democracy in America" brings up good examples of the violent rhetoric far-left groups like the Black Panthers advocated in the 60s and 70s.
It may seem like I am personally attacking Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, but that is not the intention of this post. With comparative politics being my discipline of choice, I do not have the time to analyze, in depth, the American punditsphere and only read the opinion pages of a few of my favorite periodicals. I would love to attack the Left, but besides Keith Olbermann they simply don’t have the mainstream champions that the Right does.
Ross Douthat brings up an interesting point in The New York Times that Americans are polarized along cultural and religious lines rather than economic policy. He points out the great example of his pet peeve that dental hygienists should be allowed to perform cleanings without the dentist and questions why Republicans haven’t fought for this a similar free market policies. My pet peeve would be the existence of the university accreditation system (and lawyers, addressed in Freakonomics).
I agree with Douthat that this could be the reason why we see such incredible ire on display in punditsphere; the same type of barbarism that was present in the UK over two decades ago. People have demonstrated time and again that they will savagely defend their religious and cultural beliefs. This begs the frequently raised question, is primordialism the source of all conflict?
Where do we go from here?
Fear, intimidation, bullying and violence are the strategies of hooligans across the political spectrum. We should take people that employ these tactics as seriously as we do the Westboro Baptist Church.
Glance at the image that this post begins with. Many people empathized with soccer hooligans, but that doesn’t mean they joined them in smashing a beer bottle over the head of an Arsenal fan. There are a few principles that Glenn Beck preaches that I would agree with, but because of his overall message and behavior, I cannot take him seriously. When I turn on Glenn Beck’s show I am in the mood to be entertained. A craving for entertainment that also causes me to watch Green Street Hooligans (an Elijah Wood movie about one of West Ham’s hooligan gangs). It is concerning that political hooligans can have an impact on public policy that genuinely affects our lives; a soccer match has a trivial outcome on the grand scheme of things.
So act rationally, put the beer bottle down and switch the radio off.
There always will be hooligans in soccer and American politics. Hooligans should be allowed to express their views, as should everyone, no matter their beliefs. Limitations on free speech can only be implemented if a “clear and present danger” is demonstrated in the U.S. It is impossible to tease out what speech, especially with modern technology, incites violence. Shouting fire in a crowded building when there isn’t one obviously produces a clear and present danger. Commercials for Call of Duty: Black Ops? Violent Tweets or YouTube videos? Unclear.
Again, we need to use common sense and ignore violent rhetoric. By committing our attention to hooligans, who happen to be savvy businessmen, we allow their messages to become wide spread. If views of Glenn Beck’s show began to plummet because of a general disdain for violent rhetoric, I guarantee he would either tone it down or lose his show. Remember, cash is usually the most persuasive incentive.
The UK has, for the most part, pacified its soccer hooligans through gentrifying the sport. While we can’t gentrify politics (assuming this would entail exclusion of the poor) we can hamstring hooligans’ outrageous rhetoric by refusing to read it, watch it and tune in to it.
No comments:
Post a Comment