Rush Limbaugh, Provocateur

Minnesota “Soul Collector” and
“Medicine Man” arrested for attempting
to cut off neighbor’s toes and scalp him.

If you look up the word provocateur on the online Merriam dictionary this is all you get:
1
: AGENT PROVOCATEUR
2
: one who provokes

I never listen to Rush Limbaugh, but here where I live he is featured on the local radio station. Thus you may well overhear part of his program in the barber shop, the court house, and even the health food store. And of course I sometimes see reports of his latest blubberings on the internet. One that fascinated me the other day was when he said, “Jared Loughner has the full support of the Democratic party.”

How could this be? I wondered. Here is a mentally disturbed young man who attempted to assassinate a Democratic Congressperson and Limbaugh claims he has the full support of the Democratic party. On the face of it this would seem simply absurd. Trying to figure out how he could possibly have arrived at such a conclusion I think his reasoning (if he actually has any reasoning) has something to do with the fact that Democrats (liberals) tend to believe that sociocultural conditions have something to do with the creation of criminals. You know, the old nature/nurture controversy. Rush would have us believe that Democrats (liberals) will try to blame Loughner’s behavior on society at large rather than on his individual psychology. It is true that people (not just liberals) are trying to ascertain what it might have been that drove Loughner to his terrible act. But for Limbaugh to jump from liberal (and others) ideas about social ills to the support of Loughner is, of course, absurd.

On the one hand this is pretty simple to understand as the Republicans, Limbaugh, Palin, O’Reilly, Beck, and others, must know they are guilty of creating a constant barrage of threats, hate speech, and false accusations against Democrats, so it is important for them to shift the blame elsewhere. Some have even accused Loughner of being a “leftist,” rather than associated with the far right, a charge transparently false. But no lie is beneath them. It is true that Loughner was a confused and undoubtedly mentally ill young man, but it is equally true that his rantings and actions were much more in line with right wing beliefs than anything on the left. It is also imperative that Republicans, especially the more guilty ones, insist that their actions had nothing to do with the violence that occurred. They claim there is no connection between their hate speech and what happened. It is true there is no direct connection, just as it is true there is no direct connection between advertising for coca cola and the fact that many people eventually buy coca cola. It is the message repeated over and over that eventually leads some to act. Talk of reloading, 2nd amendment solutions, government abuses, death panels, monetary problems, socialism, and putting people in the cross hairs of their telescopic sights, could easily lead those on the margins to take inappropriate actions against those who are being constantly demeaned and accused.

What I think is interesting about this is that Limbaugh could easily have merely stuck with the Republican talking points: they are innocent, there is no connection between their speech and the murders, Loughner was obviously just an insane loner, he alone is to be blamed, and etc., etc. Limbaugh did not have to make the obviously absurd, even outrageous and fundamentally irrelevant claim that Loughner had the full support of the Democratic party. His claim, then, in my opinion was a deliberate and unnecessary provocation, motivated solely by a desire to cause dissention in our political system. I can see no other reason why he would have said such a thing if it was not to provoke his so-called “ditto-heads” and others into hatred of Democrats (liberals). His role in this matter is identical to the role that would be played by an “agent provocateur,” precisely the role often used against labor unions, political parties, governments, and so on. Communists and socialists often used such provocateurs, as did corporations against unions. If Rush Limbaugh was being employed by another country or some corporation to deliberately cause dissent and trouble, and if that were proven, he would not doubt face at least some kind of punishment. But as he is apparently just a big fat, lying, private provocateur who does it only for the money (lots and lots of money),, and he lives in a society that treasures free speech, he is allowed to continue seeding dissent and hatred day after day and can go totally unpunished. Our enemies don’t have to send their agent provocateurs, Limbaugh does it for them. Neither Limbaugh nor Palin pulled the trigger, of course, but they and others of their ilk have blood on their hands just as surely as the sun sets in the West. To expect them to admit their guilt is futile, to expect them to shut up and stop their irresponsible behavior is probably equally futile. Republicans are apparently not influenced by their sociocultural mileu, they are just born that way.

LKBIQ:
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

TILT:
There are at least 440 species of sharks.