So, we’re back with sound!

Ok…we never really had a point where there wasn’t any sound…I just needed to remove myself for a bit from the blog postings — and to some extent, even the podcast itself.

Regardless…I’m back into the posting swing off things.  I’ll try and get a weekly post in here…starting with this one….
—-

So, lots of stuff in the news.  Lots of it political in nature (booooring)…some of it not.  Interestingly enough, is the Tucson shooting that took place recently.  After the shooting was reported and a lot of the details came forth — I stopped watching the news.  Not that I don’t care whether the Representative recovers from her wounds.  In fact, I like that kind of story – where an individual fights the overwhelming odds to step back into a life of “normality” — however that gets defined.  I just really didn’t need all the details of where the shooter went, what he read, what he had for breakfast, what he bought at 7-11 the night before…just details I don’t really care about.  However, one part of the entire story did catch my interest….the perspective that the political rhetoric here in America may have played a part in the shooter’s motive.

What made this interesting for me, is that this jacked-up rhetoric is exactly what I have been railing against for the last three years.  It turns out that the political rhetoric likely played little to no part in the motive that the shooter had — but the supposition that it might have certainly did play a part in bringing this topic floating to the top for a short while.  A long while back, I did a podcast on the fact that words do have meaning.  The talk about how political rhetoric – coming from both the Right- and Left-sides of our political spectrum – reminded me of this particular show.  It can be argued that individuals such as Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Mark Levine, Alan Colmes, Tom Hartman, Mike Malloy, and even Rachel Maddow are merely forms of entertainment – not true instances of political discussion.  Many of these show host/esses would disagree, as would many of their listeners.  I count myself as a former listener to a lot of these shows too, but would categorize them as forms of entertainment now – simply because I can’t take any of them seriously.  Much like wrestling shows…I found myself seeing the entertainment value over the serious discussion perspective.  Nonetheless, there is some truth to the notion that the nature of the rhetoric has bearing on the political waters in this country.

I stopped listening to these shows on a regular basis about four years ago.  I spend more of my time nuzzled in a book or writing my research papers for my doctorate degree.  See, the rhetoric started being ramped up, shortly after the re-election of George Bush Jr.  Some notations were floated about the fantasy of him being assassinated.  Granted, I was never a big fan of the man – and am still not.  But expressing fantasies of killing someone over their political perspective just seemed to be over-the-line for me.  It certainly wasn’t the first time in history that anyone may have expressed such a point of view — but it certainly got a lot more discussion thanks to the changing delivery method of media content.  With a change to a 24/7 news cycle, material such as this tended to float to the top — mostly for the ratings pull that it generated.  In return, secondary shots from the opposite side of the spectrum began to float up as well…and well, you get the “shooting war” we currently have in the realm of political rhetoric.  Each return volley seems to need to generate a stronger response than the previous received volley.  Thus, we get the “ramped up” rhetoric of today.

For me…all of this is a major turn-off.  Therefore, I tuned-out and dropped-out.  This is why I don’t discuss politics very much (or now, any longer) on the podcast.  Thanks to the rhetoric, the political environment has changed from one of respectful disagreement and discussion – to one of dangerous political venom and absolute hatred.  Terms like “liberal” are hurled as insults rather than as descriptive definitions of a political point of view.  Those that don’t adhere to X perspective are labeled as “Nazis” or “Socialists” and belittled as being “unAmerican”.  Sorry, but those are political discussions that I walk away from and completely ignore.  I just don’t have the time or desire to play the insult game.  I out-grew that when I was six years old.

So, back to words having power and meaning.  I didn’t find it very surprising that some would start drawing conclusions that today’s venomous political rhetoric may have inspired the shooter in Tucson to undertake what amounts to an assassination of a Congressional Representative.  In fact, I’m surprised that something along these lines hasn’t become more prevalent in today’s society.  I’m pleasantly surprised that it hasn’t become common-place — but I’m still surprised.  When individuals utilizing the power of radio transmitters and television airwaves to spread their form of “angry entertainment” — their words carry weight to those who agree with them.  I’m no fool.  I know that even with my very small podcast listenership, what I say does carry some weight with those who listen to me.  I can only hope that I’m more helpful with what I bring to the show.  Maybe not…but this is where I have to accept the responsibility that my words carry weight.  What I say, can and probably does (to some extent) effect the manner in which people think.  I’d like to believe that all these folks spouting angry and hateful rhetoric against a political perspective do realize that what they say carries a degree of weight with their listening audience.  Individuals, such as Rush Limbaugh, have attempted to side-step that responsibility by claiming to be “entertainers” and not political analysts.  Regardless, they do need to accept some degree of responsibility for what they utter into their microphones.

Don’t get me wrong here folks.  IF this had been a driving factor in the Tucson shootings, I’m not claiming that the responsibility for the deaths of six people falls at the feet of these political talk show host/esses.  Far from it.  The responsibility for pulling the trigger and killing those individuals lies solely with the individual who did it.  He bears the responsibility for the actions that he has undertaken.  The culpability and punishment for those actions will be determined by a court of his peers – as it should be.  However, if his actions had been influenced by the current rhetoric floated about — a small part of the blame can be laid at the careless manner that these individuals have chosen their words behind their microphones.  Words do have power….the full extent of that power lies in the individual listening, but the individual delivering the message does bear some of the responsibility for jacking-up the language to an hostile level — mostly in the hopes of bolstering their own ratings.  All I’m suggesting here is that people really do need to be mindful of not only what they say, but HOW they say it….and that statement applies to me as a podcaster, as well.