Today we wake with US congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in a 'critical condition' in an Arizona hospital after being shot point blank through the head by a 22 year old man outside a campaign stall at a local mall in Tucson. An incident that up to now has seen 6 people die and over 20 injured by the young gunman. The dead including a 9 year old girl.
One of the most emotional moments of the press conferences and media coverage of the incident was Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik plea and finger pointing at media backing and coverage of bigotry of the right wing. Sherriff Dupnik clearly said the coverage and rhetoric by news outlets such as Fox News and Sarah Palin is having a huge influence on people with tendencies to mental problems, disengaged society members and dividing the nation of the USA and making the country once renowned for tolerance now a country of hatred and bigotry. With particular reference to Arizona. Dupnik who is 74 has lived through some of the most dramatic changes in American short history so is a man who seen a lot and is well placed as a head of his community to see the influence of bigotry spewed out by politicians and media.
Watching from afar on the other side of the pond the last 5 years I too have seen a huge shift towards a hating campaign and bigotry. This has been seen in a xenophobic policy on non-white European population of the states, a huge increase in religious creationism believing in principle that the world started with 'Adam and Eve' and nothing before or after. A belief even the Roman Catholic church teaches as a metaphor for the origin of human civilisation. A huge anti-science hatred has risen with stem cell research - research that is saving and will save hundreds of peoples lives in the coming years if not more - the focus has been a fear factor that the scientists are developing monsters in labs and creating some sort of super human.
All of this influential rhetoric is lead by fear and the two main dealers of this fear are FOX News and Sarah Palin. Fox news has always had a right wing agenda, which is no bad thing to have a media out there but to have a major outlet constantly feeding right wing propaganda to a public use to believing the nightly news programmes they watch is not a good thing. Of course news agencies, bias or not, have an agenda - a story or point of view they wish to present, but when that news angle is for the benefit of a small minority of society and for the political benefit of just one party or candidate is not healthy. As a journalist Fox ?News? and increasingly Sky ?News? in the UK the beliefs and morals of press training one must feel like they are producing bad journalism, and if not maybe they need to have a long hard look at themselves. The techniques used by FOX and Sky is fast approaching the propagandist techniques of the Nazi party of 1930's Germany, regardless of the morals of the Nazi power of the 30's and 40's the propagandist and marketing party has influenced marketing and political parties till today. The main winning technique of the Nazi propoganda? Fear of identity, fear of change and fear of religion. Sound familiar?
Sarah Palin as a political leader is the spokesperson for this fear. After her arrival on the political national scene during the last presidential campaign, Palin has been taken into the right wing media propaganda and promoted as the future of the country. This has come to the development of the Tea Party, a political movement whose benefit is to a small minority of the country and not the benefit of the States as a whole, after 8 years of inward looking outward kicking Bush administration the introduction of this Tea Party is probably the most damaging to Americas future as a leader and influence in the world. Palin during the November election campaign encouraged Tea Party candidates to attack and overthrow Senate and congress members who voted for the health care changes. The advertising for this you can see above, with political targets placed with a guns hairpin. Since the campaign was launched all candidates have had threats, attacks and more happen to them. And although political voices have asked the Tea Party and Palin to renounce the tone of the campaign they have simply increased the violent rhetoric. Resulting in yesterdays attack on congresswoman Giffords. Palin has come out and said she sends best wishes to Giffords and her family and how sad she is for the attack and loss of life. But surely that is just the obvious reaction to send out.
Unfortunately the increase of realisation by the media that this sort of rhetoric and bigotry can have drastic after effects will only result in the right wing media crying out that their is a left wing liberal campaign against the right, something Fox News always reels out in times like this. But hopefully it will have some influence on the people of America, the politicians and most of the media.
The thoughts today need to go out to those families who have been killed, injured and a hope that their loss will breed some good in the USA and incidents like this never happen again and the media and politicians of little intellect realise the consequences of their actions.
