Hate speech in the media A threat to the internal security of the U.S.

Published in the Printed Edition of September 4-17, 2008 of the bilingual newspaper El Tecolote - (Versión en Español)

As hate speech spirals, a local group of community activists are organizing a demonstration in San Francisco against shock jock Michael Savage. The group, Hispanic / Latino Anti-Defamation Coalition SF, plans to rally in front of the building which houses radio station KNEW-AM where Savage transmits his nationally-syndicated program.

On his program, people hear Savage call for troops on the street "to protect us from the scourge of illegal immigrants who are running rampant across America, killing our police for sport, raping, murdering like a scythe across America while the liberal psychos are telling us they come here to work." Or that autism is a "fraud, a racket, that in 99 percent of cases is a brat who hasn’t been told to cut their act out" and to stop being ‘morons‘, a way where minority children get welfare and extra help in school, and who also tells fasting immigrant students "to starve to death, then we won’t have a problem."

These kind of statements act as fuel for people who are already angry, resentful and violent. Take, for instance, Jim David Adkisson, who entered the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, opened fire with a 12-gauge shotgun, killed two people and wounded six others during the presentation of a children's musical. In his car, police found a four-page letter in which he expressed his hatred of the "liberal movement’, and wrote he targeted the church "because of its liberal teachings" and his belief that "all liberals should be killed" because they were "ruining the country."

Inside Adkisson’s home, officers found "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by radio talk show host Michael Savage; "Let Freedom Ring" by talk show host Sean Hannity; and the book, "The O'Reilly Factor," by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly. These three continuously demonize liberals, immigrants and others.

On Glenn Beck’s nationally syndicated radio show, The Glenn Beck Program, he read an "ad" produced and posted by subscribers to his website, for a refinery that turns Mexicans into fuel (Mexinol).

Neil Boortz suggests giving nuclear waste to illegal Mexican immigrants to take back to Mexico and tell them "it’ll warm tortillas", plus they will be easy to spot because of the "glow" if they try to return.

Savage warns politicians about illegal immigrant "vermin."

Shock jocks insist their rants are not hurting anyone and that they are not inciting hate attacks. Meanwhile disenfranchised groups continue to be targeted. Take, for instance, the savage beating of Luis Eduardo Ramirez Zavala by a group of four young white males in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania on July 12.

An eyewitness to the beating who happens to be a retired police officer, heard the youths telling Ramirez’s friends to "get out of Shenandoah or the same thing would happen" to them.
"We saw a bunch of kids walking away and screaming things like "‘Go back to Mexico.’ We called the police," said Arielle Garcia, 17, a friend of Ramirez who was at the scene; Luis Eduardo died about 30 hours later.

Legislation and programs designed to provide basic human rights and services regardless of legal status are being curtailed or dismantled, while punitive anti-immigrant legislation is being enacted in localities in all the states and a number of hate groups and the violence leveled against minorities is on the rise. Human rights organizations are under attack, demonized for allegedly helping ‘criminals’

All of the above, plus immensely more, is made possible by the poisoning of the minds of millions of Americans, who are bombarded daily with outrageously false and inflammatory claims, designed to prejudice public opinion against groups and entire communities without allowing the opportunity to present opposing views and facts, which would refute the propaganda full of lies, misinformation and disinformation.

Aurora Grajeda is a community activist, member of the ‘Hispanic / Latino Anti-Defamation Coalition SF" currently organizing a demonstration in front the broadcasting booth of KNEW on Sept. 23, 4 to 6 pm, at 340 Townsend ST in San Francisco, whence Michael Savage transmits his program, to focus on the consequences of Hate Speech. and to demand that a more balanced view on the issues is presented in the Media so a much needed comprehensive debate in the public opinion arena takes place.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.

By Reverend Martin Niemüller. For his opposition to the Nazis, Niemüller was arrested in 1937, convicted of treason, and spent eight years in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps.

Anti-Hate Speech Demonstration Flyer "Hispanic Dignity Train" SJ to SF
Demonstracion contra El Lenguage de Odio Volante "Tren de La Dignidad Hispana" SJ to SF
Anti-Hate Speech Demonstration Flyer, San Francisco

Are M. Savage, B. O'Reilly and S. Hannity Guilty of Accessory to Murder?

Accessory

• Law.
  1. One who incites, aids, or abets a lawbreaker in the commission of a crime but is not present at the time of the crime. Also called accessory before the fact.

When police searched the car of the gunman who opened fire in a Unitarian Church in Tennessee, they found a 4-page letter expressing his hatred of the "liberal movement." A regular consumer of Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage and Sean Hannity, Jim David Adkisson was only following the arguments they make day in and day out, to their logical conclusions.
From the Knoxville News Sentinel:

Police found right-wing political books, brass knuckles, empty shotgun shell boxes and a handgun in the Powell home of a man who said he attacked a church in order to kill liberals "who are ruining the country," court records show.

Knoxville police Sunday evening searched the Levy Drive home of Jim David Adkisson after he allegedly entered the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church and killed two people and wounded six others during the presentation of a children's musical.

Adkisson targeted the church ... "because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country's hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of media outlets."

Adkisson [said] that "he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement that he would then target those that had voted them in to office."

Inside the house, officers found "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by radio talk show host Michael Savage, "Let Freedom Ring" by talk show host Sean Hannity, and "The O'Reilly Factor," by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly.

Can they be charged with "Accessory to Murder"? Are they culpable?

In the strict sense of the Law, this seems to be the case, yet, I have not seen, not heard anyone raise this question specifically uttering the word "Accessory"; I have heard questions on whether or not they incited the actions of Jim D. Adkisson at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, where two were killed and six wounded.

One person posing the question is Joshua Holland, at AlterNet, who asks: "Did Right-Wing Shock Jocks Motivate Knoxville Killer?", another one is The Rev. Chris Buice, The pastor of Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, who has given a lot of thought to the subject of hate lately, the Pastor is full of curiosity, doubt .

He is curious to know whether any clues might be gleaned from the words of right-wing radio talk-show host Michael Savage and Fox News personalities Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, whose books later were seized as evidence from Adkisson's Powell residence by police.

He is curious whether the authors prayerfully consider their words.

"The words you choose may be the difference between war and peace," Buice said. "Every diplomat knows that."

He noted that, in the run-up to the Rawandan genocide of 1994, during which hundreds of thousands of ethnic minority Tutsis and political moderates died, the country's Hutu majority-controlled radio broadcast hate-fueled propaganda encouraging listeners to exterminate the "cockroaches."

"I believe in rigorous debate," Buice said, speaking to his belief in the danger of dehumanizing language that can label and categorize one person from another. "but what's the difference between a political opponent and a cockroach? You stomp a cockroach. You debate a political opponent. I believe, if you truly listen to your opponent, it will make you better."

Who can forget how the propaganda machine of Germany's Nazi Regime demonized Jews by blaming them of all the maladies affecting the population? Dehumanizing them so as to inflame the populace's attitudes, while desensitizing them, so they would go along, or at least turn a blind eye to the unimaginable acts that were to follow, we know the horrendous results that these words had, millions were killed.

And the difference between what the Nazis did and what the Savages, the O'Reillys and the Hannitys are doing, is?

I don't think that we need to wait until millions are exterminated, do we? The fact of the matter is that people are being killed because of what they are, as was Luis Ramirez in Shennandoah PA, or because of what they believe in, as was the case in the Tennessee's Church killings.

Millions are being terrorized by what ICE's officers have become, institutionalized terrorists, who routinely break the law and who walk all over the constitutional guarantees and the human rights of people who have been demonized, and degraded, to the level of coachroaches and "Vermin", as Savage has said undocumented immigrants are.

All of this while many people turn a blind eye, at the same time that others actually cheer and urge that these practices be accelerated.

For the latter, it may be too late for redemption, as for the former, The Rev. Martin Luther King said it best:

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Families are being separated, people are arrested and treated inhumanely, as was the case with Juana Villegas:

Juana Villegas gave birth to a baby on July 5. She had been arrested by Davidson County Sheriffs on the 3rd. At the hospital she was shackled until the very final stages of labor. The situation was so brutal that the labor and delivery nurses were crying. Later, when she was taken back to the jail she developed infections in both breasts because the officers at the Davidson County Jail (in Nashville) would not allow her to have a breast pump. She was separated from her newborn for 2 days. The baby developed jaundice.

The Nurses Cried for Juana Villegas, Part I
Juana Villegas part II Time line of the Juana Villegas story.
One Last Thing about Juana Villegas DeLaPaz

Where is the outrage? This news had scant coverage, even in the Spanish Media, as far as I know, today is the first day that Univision covered it, any search turns up some blog entries lamenting or deploring this outrage, while others are actually taking the position that she had it coming, as if she deserved it for violating immigration laws, the comments are truly beyond the pale in the hate that oozes from them, these words reflect the language that the hatemongers spew through the airwaves and that are then implanted in the heads of what used to be people, but that have become zombie-like creatures, incapable of feeling their humanity when it comes to the people they have been incited, or maybe it can be rightfully said, were programmed to hate.

For years, these hatemongers, plus the countless others engaged in the profitable business of creating division, intolerance, hate and violence, have been warned by outraged people of good faith and citizens concerned at the damage to the internal security of the United States that these present day monsters, and their listeners, pose to minorities, to people who do not fit the 'accepted' norm, and to the population at large, they have been told time and time again, about the dangers that their words represent, in addition, they have been presented with concrete cases of the results and consequences of their hateful, and of their also full of hate words, hoping without hope, to appeal to the better part of themselves, appealing to their humanity.

So far, it has been an exercise in utter futility.

So now we have clear evidence of a direct connection between the hate they preach and the actions of one of their listeners.

What are they responsible for? That is why I asked the question: Are M. Savage, B. O'Reilly and S. Hannity Guitly of Accessory to Murder?