As I reflect on all the hubbub about what caused the shooter to kill six people and wound 13 others in Tuscon on Saturday, I can\u2019t help but feel the problems in our society are deeper than mere \u2018it\u2019s the rhetoric stupid!\u2019\u00a0 Certainly it\u2019s more than just \u2018it\u2019s Right Wing rhetoric stupid!\u2019\u00a0 Anyone should be able to see that.\u00a0 Yet they don\u2019t.\u00a0 Last night, I watched Katie Couric on CBS Evening News<\/em> interview a small round of folks about the shooting and everything that went with it.\u00a0 Now, I admit I didn\u2019t see the whole segment.\u00a0 There were two individuals there\u00a0I never heard talk.\u00a0 But of the ones I did hear, the message was clear:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n So there you have it\u00a0 Even though a common sense appraisal of the situation, with a few minutes access to the Internet, shows that both sides are equal in their vitriol and demagoguery and demonizing of opponents, CBS, and pretty darn much every other news outlet save FOX (natch), have continued on with the narrative that it\u2019s the [Right Wing] rhetoric, stupid!\u00a0 <\/p>\n Why?\u00a0 Are they just lying?\u00a0 Do they hope that we are so divided that those on their side of the political ideological aisle don\u2019t care if they are lying, as long as they can score points against the baddies?\u00a0 Or are they even aware of their own bias?\u00a0 For the sake of charity and graciousness, I would like to think the latter.\u00a0 I would like to believe all of this talk of liberal values, open mindedness,\u00a0tolerance, and diversity were ever and always bunk, and that people have a innate tendency to imagine their truths are the only acceptable truths, that they are absolutely right about these absolute truths, and that they naturally expect that a society demands conformity to these absolute values and truths.\u00a0 <\/p>\n And because they can\u2019t imagine a world apart from one guided by these truths, they are as stone blind to alternate understandings of the world, alternate value systems, alternate viewpoints, as any Medieval inquisitor. This hit me when, just for a laugh, I went over to see what the Huffington Post had to say about the death of Richard Winters.\u00a0 I realize he was not necessarily a household name.\u00a0 But even in the midst of the Arizona Shooting, most Web News pages found some space to have at least a little about the man who was the primary focal point of the hit book and miniseries Band of Brothers<\/em>.\u00a0 After all, the Huffpost has room for everything from what sunglasses Lady GaGa is wearing, to what Sting\u2019s sex life is like, to what the name is of the latest porn star Charlie Sheen is dating.\u00a0 Certainly they would be able\u00a0to include a small obituary.\u00a0 <\/p>\n Wrong!\u00a0 Sorry, your answer is incorrect.\u00a0 Nothing.\u00a0\u00a0 The name didn\u2019t even come up in the searches.\u00a0 And that got me to thinking.\u00a0 There are plenty of folks who know what Band of Brothers<\/em> was, know who Richard Winters was, and what this was all about.\u00a0 It was mentioned on some news stations, and again the AP and most online news sources had stories.\u00a0 How could the Huffpost miss this?\u00a0 Not even a paragraph?\u00a0\u00a0 Because the Huffpost is about a singular world view, that\u2019s why.\u00a0 A dogmatic understanding of morals, values, truths.\u00a0 It sees the world the way it sees the world.\u00a0 Those who reject its world view are obviously the bad guys.\u00a0 Either stupid, or evil, or both.\u00a0 Typical fundamentalist talk.\u00a0 Those who aren\u2019t about this or that issue, especially in today\u2019s religion of choice \u2013 politics \u2013 simply aren\u2019t on the radar screen.\u00a0 An old WWII hero from a bygone day that represented the better side of America during the pre-sixties era?\u00a0 Nope.\u00a0 Not even close.\u00a0 <\/p>\n Do I think they deliberately censored any stories because they don\u2019t want America to look good?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 But I\u2019m willing to bet it wasn\u2019t that.\u00a0 I\u2019ll bet it was just not part of their world, the way they see reality.\u00a0 It was off the radar screen plain and simple.\u00a0 It just didn\u2019t compute into the way they saw things.\u00a0 It was as off the table as dirty language was always seen as being outside the comprehension of old time religious fundamentalists.\u00a0 Remember how we were always told that folks like that were completely ignorant of the reality of various sex and drug references because such things were just over their heads, due to their tiny little ways of seeing the world?\u00a0 Well, I give you today\u2019s fundamentalists.\u00a0 Folks likely so immersed in their own dogmatic pronouncements, that things outside of their value systems simply don\u2019t register. <\/p>\n Hence, the ongoing drumbeat that despite no evidence, this proves that it the Right Wing rhetoric is the villain, might simply be the result of immersion in a dogmatic, narrow understanding of the world.\u00a0 An approach of absolute assurance of absolute knowledge of absolute truth that demands absolute conformity.\u00a0 That\u00a0a man could simply be insane, or worse \u2013 evil \u2013 is not part of it.\u00a0 That the Right, the force that actively opposes these absolute truths, may not be to blame is simply beyond comprehension.\u00a0 After all, the Right, the traditional Christian Western Tradition, Conservatism, Religious Right Extremists of the Christian variety, are the mischief in everything else in the world.\u00a0 Certainly it has to be true in this. <\/p>\n Yes, it might be lies and lies to liars that is driving it.\u00a0 It could be deliberate manipulation.\u00a0 Huffpost may want to stay hell and away from someone who might tear down their \u201cNon-Liberal America Sucks\u201d mantra, and other news agencies may count on our rank divisions in the hopes that folks don\u2019t care if things are lies or truth as long as it advances our personal agendas.\u00a0 That could be true.\u00a0 But if it isn\u2019t, about the only other solution I can come up with is that those folks are so enamored by their dogmas, so immersed in the Super-Narrative of their choosing, that they\u2019ve forgotten the world of options that exists outside their own\u00a0front doors.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As I reflect on all the hubbub about what caused the shooter to kill six people and wound 13 others in Tuscon on Saturday, I can\u2019t help but feel the problems in our society are deeper than mere \u2018it\u2019s the rhetoric stupid!\u2019\u00a0 Certainly it\u2019s more than just \u2018it\u2019s Right Wing rhetoric stupid!\u2019\u00a0 Anyone should be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n\n